1300 hours Friday July 9, 2010
PRIDE is alongside in Cleveland, Ohio hosting hundreds of public visitors attending this weekend’s Tall Ship Festival sponsored by The Cleveland Rotary.
The heat is just beginning to break. Last night temperatures came down with a new wind associated with the beginning of rain and thunderstorms passing by associated with the passing cold front. Today’s rain looks like it may end before mid afternoon. A new northerly wind and the passing of rain should bring lower humidity with lower temperatures…all very welcome!!!
The key difference between Cleveland and Toronto Tall Ships is concentration. The ships were spread out in Toronto. A very pretty scene along Toronto’s waterfront parks. In Cleveland the ships are all bunched together at a commercial port facility. Not a pretty scene…all tarmac and steel, sprouting white tents and colored umbrellas of refreshment stands with a lot of sailing vessel masts along the edge of the dock facility. But being bunched together offers the crews of the ships the chance to mingle more easily…and they are mingling…much more than in Toronto.
The first day of a festival is always quite complicated and confusing, attending to the many details of locating support for the ship from the festival organizers and getting ready for safely boarding the public overseen with inspections from USCG inspectors. Yesterday was an all-hands day running around with the critical help of local volunteers getting laundry done, food shopped, shipments aboard while also hosting the first day of public visits. With the first long day ended and almost all preparations for the next leg of the tour completed PRIDE’s crew are able to divide into two groups, with each group scheduled to get time off equaling a day and a half each by Monday morning…departure day.
They will depart with a different captain. I will be going home while Captain Jamie Trost returns to assume command till early September when I am expected to return to PRIDE in Erie, PA.
They will also depart for the first race of the 2010 ASTA/GLU Tall Ships Challenge. There looks to be two classes. The square rig class…otherwise known as Class A. And the fore&aft rigged class…depending on length of the vessel, known as Class B or Class C. The first race of this “support for the Great Lakes” regatta should introduce an interesting conversation dynamic to the relationship between crew members and trainees of the ships.
