Not a lot happened this week except for work and such. But here is an image I took of a couple of tall ships that came into Redwood City which were cool. Its hard to tell from this image but there are 2 ships here.
They are The Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain, which are reproductions of old ships who are making their annual educational tours to students from schools on the Peninsula in addition to giving dockside tours.
I went on Saturday for about 30 minutes and walked around the decks. The crew are happy to answer questions and it was a beautiful day out. I didn’t know much about these ships but looked up information later — here is what I found:
“Hawaiian Chieftain was built in 1988 in Lahaina on the island of Maui, the Hawaiian Chieftain is a contemporary interpretation of a traditional design. She is unique with the rig of a 19th-century trading vessel and a modern triple keel, shallow draft hull. Drawing only 5.5 feet (1.7 m), she is highly maneuverable in shallow waters.[1]
The replica of the Lady Washington was built in Aberdeen, Washington, United States in time for the 1989 Washington State Centennial celebrations. Operated by a professional and volunteer crew under the auspices of the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, she sails up and down the Pacific coast reaching out to sailors and lubbers of all ages through the romance of the sea in the hope that they take a little of her history back with them.
Today she sails regularly in pair with the Hawaiian Chieftain, educating students in the history of merchant trading, life of common sailors, and responsibilities of the ship’s officers.”
The Lady Washington has appeared in various films
- Portraying HMS Interceptor in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and the brig
- Enterprise, a namesake of the Starship Enterprise, on the holodeck in Star Trek Generations.
- She also provided the basis for the RLS Legacy in the Disney animated feature Treasure Planet.
- The ship has also appeared on television, as Captain Hook’s ship on Once Upon a Time.
“The original Lady Washington, or more commonly, Washington, was a 90-ton sloop. Her early history is still in question. As part of the Columbia Expedition, she left Boston Harbor on October 1, 1787. She sailed around Cape Horn and participated in the Maritime Fur Trade with the coastal Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and in tea and porcelain across the Pacific in China. She was the first American-flagged vessel to round Cape Horn. She was the first recorded vessel to make landfall on the Oregon coast near Tillamook, Oregon. John Meares claimed that she was the first non-native vessel to circumnavigate Vancouver Island.
The Washington became the first American vessel to reach Japan in an unsuccessful attempt to move some unsold pelts. Washington remained in the Pacific trade and eventually foundered in the Philippines in 1797. She was lost at the mouth of the Mestizo River, near Vigan, NW Luzon in July 1797.”
Read more on WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Washington
