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There was little breeze to assist Pride of Baltimore II on her eastward trek from Erie, PA, to Kingston, Ontario. On the other hand, there was little wind to hinder progress either. The downbound transit through the Welland Canal was uneventful. We steamed through the night from Erie with the happy consequence of arriving at the canal as daylight broke on our patch of the globe.

Negotiating the locks downbound is generally easier on the ship than upbound. A cushion of water holds the ship off the lock wall a foot or so, and the crew simply ease the lines. Down we go, forty feet in 15 minutes. Bye-bye Mr. Lock Tender Man. The ship moved right along through the day until mid-afternoon when we learned that there was a "dead ship" in the canal. Tugs were in the process of maneuvering it toward Weller Drydock, a major shipyard facility right on the canal. A dead ship is one that is unable to proceed under its own power. This particular vessel had experienced an engine room fire and was shut down. Fortunately, we were moving with the procession and were able to make some progress. However, from time to time Pride II was instructed to tie up to the wall and wait. Ships coming the other way didn't budge an inch all day. In due course the dead ship, a big Laker, was secured at the shipyard and we passed on our way.

By seven in the evening, Pride II had completed the transit and was out on the relatively open waters of Lake Ontario again. A heavy summer haze hung over the lake. By the next morning we still hadn't had a lick o' wind and the haze had thickened like to be fog if it got any thicker! The girl soldiered on, Caterpillars whirring amidships like a nest of bees, and a fine white trace of diesel exhaust trailing astern and merging with the haze that encroached upon us slowly, the way honeysuckle and vines swallow up an old broken barn in a single summer. But, lo, just about lunchtime a lovely westerly breeze got up and we were soon speeding toward Kingston under all lowers and the foretops'l. At the approaches to Kingston, a cordon of islands forms a sort of pale protecting the harbor from the open lake. As we passed through these islands, the breeze freshened a notch. And then another notch. Before we knew it Pride II, was rocketing along with a big white bone in her teeth. Here and there a radar echo and a voice over the radio metamorphosed into a schooner or a brigantine emerging from the mist, for on this weekend all roads led to Kingston and the gathering of ships and sailors had already begun.

After an hour or so of tacking and gnashing at the chop, Pride II lay quietly to anchor just west of Amherst Island. After furling sail, it was time for swim call. The crew took to the water like, well, fish to water. A grand old splashing ensued with the appropriate excesses of frivolity.

The next morning, the crew were at the windlass cranking home the anchor at five minutes to eight. Up, down, up, down, up…The design for Pride's windlass is an adaptation of a medieval torture machine known as the rack. Bars are cranked up and down which transfers effort to a drum that rotates. The chain, which is wrapped around the drum, comes in by virtue of friction and is eventually followed by the anchor. For each crank, about one link of chain comes in. Each link is three inches long and we usually have 100 to 150 feet of chain out. It generally requires about eight people to operate the windlass, four on each side cranking, plus one to flake the chain below and another (usually the mate) to watch the chain come in. With a twelve man crew, that leaves me and the helmsman back aft to watch everyone else. This is actually a pretty efficient management-to-labor ratio when compared to many organizations. The device has been cleverly adapted so that instead of torturing a single victim, what used to be the victim is now the anchor and the mechanism tortures the operators. It is very effective, both then and now.

Once the anchor was home, Pride II proceeded directly toward Kingston to join the great fandango just a few miles away. As the day proceeded each of us discovered that our bodies were horribly marred by some sort of grotesque pox. It was eventually diagnosed as "lots of mosquito bites." I forget the Latin for it. Summer in the Great Lakes! Say la vee. That's French.

It never blows east on Lake Ontario in the summer, but it blew east on the day we arrived at Kingston, right in the teeth. The crew braced the topsail this way and that way, any way to make it fill but generally to no avail. Nevertheless, a grim, gray, mosquito-bitten morning blossomed into a gorgeous sunny afternoon as the fleet of some twenty sailing ships made their way along the waterfront to Kingston. The Pride's cannons resonated with as rich a timbre as I have ever heard. Thousands of Canadians spectating from a park offered a polite applause as Pride II passed their view. But when ol' "Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes" Meyer let fly with one of her lovingly packed rounds, the whole place stood up and screamed and hollered their approval. "We should have a good time here." I thought.

Once Pride II was secure, we encountered what seemed to be a never-ending process for clearing Customs. I kept thinking, what's the big deal? We had already been in Canada once this year, and many times before. The big deal turned out to be the space between the left hand and the right hand in the great wide northern expanses of the Canadian bureaucracy, and we were left holding the bag. Eventually all was laid to rest after being boarded on four separate occasions and cooperating with multiple inspections.

The Pride of Baltimore II spent four days in Kingston. Unlike other ports on the 2001 Tall Ships tour, Kingston only had four months to prepare because another city dropped out late in the preparations. Other ports had as much as two years to prepare. And yet there was nothing about Kingston's hospitality that appeared thrown together. It was a class act in every respect. The ship and crew were well cared for and the Open House hours were manageable so that the crew could get off and experience a bit of Kingston. Our sponsors, Pepsi Cola, were hospitable beyond the call of duty and this was greatly appreciated by all aboard. People traveled tremendous distances to visit the ships and gave us a very enthusiastic reception. Kingston itself is a smart little city with all the trappings of an Imperial British Dominion: the dome, the pillars, the flags, and the remembrance paid to those who served in World War I as expressed through monuments and stained glass. Kingston, I am told, was briefly the capital of Canada.

At Kingston, the Pride of Baltimore II made a very special friend in the form of Captain Patrick Toomey. Patrick was our liaison. Each of the visiting ships was assigned a liaison, as is customary at such events. The local knowledge and transportation rendered by liaisons is essential to addressing the ship's logistical needs in an unfamiliar port that is congested with sightseers. Our visits are frequently brief and fully occupied with hosting visitors. Liaison tasks might include taking the cook shopping, finding a place to dispose of oily rags, taking the bosun to a hardware store, tracking down a chart, and getting the captain to all cocktail parties of international significance in a timely fashion. Liaisons volunteer their time both in advance and during the event and generally work tirelessly for the good of the ship and crew. God bless all tall ship liaisons everywhere.

Patrick came to us with unusual qualifications. He was an ice pilot. Born in England, Patrick spent 27 years in the Canadian Coast Guard, nearly all of it in ice breakers. He served in ice breakers on the Great Lakes, on the St. Lawrence River, in the Northwest Passage, in the far Arctic, and in the Antarctic. Though retired from the Coast Guard, he now sails on Russian ice breakers as an ice pilot. There is little known about ice navigation that Patrick Toomey doesn't know. His experiences were fascinating for all of us to hear about. Unable to resist yet another seagoing adventure, upon sailing from Kingston Patrick was tucked into a spare berth aboard the Pride.

The American Sail Training Association (ASTA) has organized four tall ship races this summer between host ports in the Great Lakes. It is known as the Great Lakes Tall Ships Challenge©. The first race leg was west from Kingston to the Welland Canal. Ah, yes, the good old Welland Canal.

It was a fine sunny morning for the start of the race. The wind was blowing Force 4 from, you guessed it, the west – dead ahead. The ASTA race committee had quite sensibly organized the start so that there was a 20 minute window to cross the line without penalty. This prevented large numbers of large sailing vessels from largely barging the starting line all at once. Nevertheless, Pride II was among the first across, led by the Norfolk Rebel and followed by the Highlander Sea. Upon clearing the islands, the wind jumped up to Force 6, with winds gusting in the high 20s, maybe touching 30. And we were going to windward. All the lee deck was awash as the ship rose and plunged into the head seas. The bowsprit and main boom quivered and shook like fencing foils in a duel. The second mate, David Bradley, went forward to double the lashing on the lee anchor stock. Though wearing full oilskins, he may as well have ridden through a car wash buck naked for all the good they did him. The film crew hung on to the rail for dear life. Down came the main gaff tops'l. Down came the jibtops'l. A single reef went into the mains'l. On we charged toward the New York shore and the power plant outside Oswego. Shortly after the start of the race, one schooner, Road to the Isles, lost her bowsprit. She was right beside us when it happened. There was a terrible sound of metal rending and, when I looked over, the schooner was pointing one way and the bowsprit the other. The spar had been wrenched aft like a banana peel and was trailing in the water alongside. Well, that's one little schooner that won't get past us on corrected time.

By evening, conditions had subsided considerably and by midnight the lake had gone flat calm. We drifted. We were ahead of the pack but still a long way from the canal. Over the radio we learned that another schooner, Fair Jeanne, had experienced rig problems with her mainmast and pulled out of the race. By late morning the next day, it was evident that it was highly unlikely the fleet would finish the race and still be at the next port in time for the commencement of festivities. The forecast was for 25 knots the following day, again from the west; too late for the race but just in time to go through the locks at the Welland Canal. The settled it. At noon we fired up the main engine and high tailed it for the canal. Later that afternoon, ASTA called the race off and all participants made for the canal under power.

Our third transit of the Welland Canal was as fraught with difficulty as the first. We arrived at the canal by the evening of July 3. Shortly before our arrival, the barquentine Concordia had passed through and knocked out a computer control box on the western flight locks with her yardarm. Concordia is the biggest of the vessels participating in the Great Lakes Challenge. In consequence, we were forced to ascend the eastern flight locks which are normally used for downbound vessels. The filling process is even more rambunctious than the western locks. The pressure on the Pride's channels was frightfully intense. It was an all-hands process handling lines, with the film crew, Patrick and Tony, another liaison, all joining in. At one point, the timbers began to flex alarmingly and it appeared they would be torn away. Evidently the operators have no control over this part of the process, and we had no choice but to continue what we started. Adding to our difficulties was the problem of maintaining position upon entering the lock while the lock tenders slowly went about securing our lines to the shore. We learned later that when the canal and seaway were privatized a few years ago, the number of lock tenders was cut in half. Now there is a plan to cut the number again. Needless to say, the lock tenders are none too happy about this. Their claim is that too few lock tenders will result in accidents handling the ships. One way to prove this point would be to demonstrate that current manning is barely sufficient. An insurance claim from a damaged ship would fit well into such an argument. In the end we survived, but the lesson is that one should never transit the Welland Canal more than is absolutely necessary, and itineraries should be drafted accordingly. Otherwise you are just asking for trouble. A few weeks later, a large ship slammed into one of the lift bridges, shearing the ship's bridge off and closing the canal for five days.

Despite all the above, we succeeded in transiting the canal that night under calm conditions and arrived at Port Colborne at 0600, the Fourth of July. Captain and crew were exhausted but the ship was on time and in one piece.

Watch Below,

Capt. Dan Parrott