1000 hours Tuesday June 28, 2010
PRIDE approaches the 1st rendezvous of the American Sail Training Association (ASTA) 2010 Great Lakes United Tall Ships Challenge (GLUTSC) fleet at Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
We are seeing other traditional sailing vessels now as we get ever closer to Toronto. EUROPA, a Dutch Barque Rigged square sail vessel, is arriving from cruises this last winter in the Antarctic. ROALD AMUNDSEN, a German Brig Rigged square sail vessel is arriving from Europe. ROSEWAY, a two mast schooner of the American Cod Fishing style and UNICORN, an all female leadership training program in a square topsail schooner of European origins, along with PRIDE, are arriving from the American East Coast. The jostling begins to organize ourselves for the parade of sail into Toronto Harbor later this afternoon.
PRIDE is more recently arriving from a three vessel tall ship Festival of Sail hosted in Oswego, New York over this last weekend. LYNX, UNICORN and PRIDE were the scene in Oswego’s first tall ship focused festival. The Oswegan hospitality was warm, friendly, supportive and the general public was wonderfully considerate and polite during their time aboard. Oswego has an important strategic maritime history considering its port is the beginning of a canal system that links Lake Ontario to New York Harbor via the Hudson River and Lake Champlain.
The transit from Oswego across the full length of Lake Ontario westward toward Toronto starting yesterday under sail was uneventful insofar as the wind was moderate to light till early this morning. With light winds, followed by calm, followed by a fresh westerly wind flow, PRIDE has been motoring all night into the wind in order to help form a parade of sail into Toronto for a news media helicopter flight scheduled for this afternoon. The lack of sailing overnight will be made up for a little bit by resetting sail and milling around outside of the harbor entrance. We are now less than 10 miles from the entrance and we have more than 4 hours to wait for the start of the parade. Soon we too will have sail up.
