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Tall ships cruise in company to Halifax

The non-parade of sail out of Boston was sort of a slow parade of sail with each visiting vessel departing hour by hour with a favorable northwesterly breeze that permitted all to sail out of Boston. Once outside of Boston the wind died and some of the fleet started motoring. But soon the wind was up from the south at a strength of 20 knots and all the fleet were gamboling eastward toward Cape Sable, the southwest tip of Nova Scotia, on their way toward Halifax. Last night’s sailing was cool…a big change from all the sailing before Boston…and all of PRIDE II’s crew are dressed with multiple layers of clothing and talking about using blankets below while sleeping.

Now, Tuesday morning some 115 nautical miles east of Boston out in the middle of the Gulf of Maine, the wind is very light from SW to West and many of the fleet have chosen to move on under power. With only 240 miles to go over the next 48 hours till the “official” arrival in Halifax the morning of July 16 and vague wind promises by weather forecasts it is a tough call deciding to motor PRIDE II or remain sailing. We can do 7 knots under power with quiet conditions, which means only 34 hours. But in 4 hours time there is supposed to be more wind coming from the SW. Maybe we will wait for that wind. Meanwhile, out of our company of local sailing friends…JOLIE BRISE, PETER VON DANZIG, TECLA, AMISTAD, URANIA…all but PETER VON DANZIG are now pushing on under power, so maybe we will continue to have some company today.

The Sail Boston event was a fun event for PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II. There was not the press of enthusiastic crowds lined up to get aboard due to special restrictions for this tall ship festival where only some of the fleet were open to the public. As a result PRIDE II’s crew was able to get some maintenance done as well as have some time off rather than get no maintenance done. Also, the fleet was spread over a distance of almost three miles of Boston’s waterfront. With PRIDE II positioned in the middle along with EUROPA, JOLIE BRISE and all of the Class D vessels we were the happy recipients of a lot of visiting crew from other vessels located some distance to either side of us as they traveled from one end of the fleet to the other.