As we move through this remarkable season of remembrance and celebration, 2026 into 2027 stands as a convergence of milestones. Next week marks 49 years since the launch of Pride of Baltimore, a vessel built not simply to sail, but to carry forward a story and to revive pride in our city and state.
At her commissioning, then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer stated the vessel’s mission with characteristic clarity: she was to serve as a goodwill ambassador for the City of Baltimore to towns and cities along the Chesapeake, the Eastern and Gulf Coasts, and possibly Europe. She would carry with her the good wishes of all Baltimoreans and symbolize many of the things for which our city can be proud.
“The Pride of Baltimore,” he declared, “will be a tribute to its port, its shipbuilding industry, the magnificent redevelopment of our city, and the sense of determination of all Baltimoreans to preserve the important traditions of our past.”
She quickly proved equal to that charge. By 1984, Pride of Baltimore had logged more than 120,000 miles under her keel and had been seen by many thousands of visitors. Her next great voyage would fulfill the dream of her creators: she would become the first vessel to tour Europe as a representative of an American city — sailing as a United States flagship abroad.
We will tell that story in the blogs ahead.
Before we resume that voyage, however, we pause this week for something simpler.
A few really cool photographs.
Because sometimes a photograph can capture what paragraphs cannot.
Next week, we continue the voyage.
This week, we let the pictures speak.
Photo: Pride of Baltimore sailing in front of a changing Baltimore City skyline, July 1978. Courtesy of Dallas E. Weigel
Photo: Pride of Baltimore in dry dock at A. Smith & Sons Shipyard on Pennington Avenue in Curtis Bay in 1979. Courtesy of Cathy Caster.
Photo: Pride of Baltimore parading into Toronto, Canada, on July 21, 1979. Photo courtesy of Keith Beaty of the Toronto Star
Photo: Crew photo circa 1980, courtesy of Susan Brittain
Photo: Perhaps a scene from a bygone era, Pride of Baltimore quayside in Halfax, Nova Scotia, in September 1981.
Photo: “Welcome to the Rock” — Pride of Baltimore sailing next to Alcatraz Island circa 1983. Photo courtesy of Richard Frear.
Photo: Pride of Baltimore with USS Baltimore (SSN-704), a Los Angeles-class submarine, was the sixth ship of the United States Navy to be named for Baltimore, Maryland.
