Arrrgh...
My dream of becoming a pirate, er, um ...a Sailor..... is coming True!
Tall ships with square sails
The other day Mark and I visited The Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle on Lake union. Boats and boats and boats. Some canoes, rowboats, power boats, Cris Craft, and sailboats....all of wood construction!
Boats with motors ...boats without motors. Big boats...small boats.
The water is so wide and my boat is so small.......
I still can't yet comprehend how boats float and sails catch wind...and don't sink, and sail around as easily as I get up and walk down the block. It will come to me ...I'll get the pieces in my mind to fit together......
The Chieftain and the Lady Washington were docked down there also and we toured them both!
yes the very ship in Pirates of the Caribbean !
All that hemp rigging!
It is really tiny. You'd expect it to be the size of a small cruise ship, eh?
But No!
I stood on the deck, and walked from stem to stern, port to starboard....down to the galley, held on to the helm.......
and tried to imagine a full crew of 12 and tons of cargo...sailing around the Cape and up and down the West Coast and off to Hawaii for trade.....
It just seemed small.
Fine, big enough for a sweet sailboat, but ....small!
from The Historical Seaport website:The new Lady Washington is a full-scale reproduction of the original Lady Washington. Built in the British Colony of Massachusetts in the 1750s, the original vessel carried freight between colonial ports until the American Revolutionary War, when she became an American privateer. In 1787, after the war, she was given a major refit to prepare her for a unprecedented trading voyage around Cape Horn. In 1788, she became the first American vessel to make landfall on the west coast of North America.
A pioneer in Pan-Pacific trade, she was the first American ship to visit Honolulu, Hong Kong and Japan. Lady Washington opened the black pearl and sandalwood trade between Hawaii and the Orient when King Kamehameha became a partner in the ship.
The modern Lady Washington was thoroughly researched by historians and constructed by skilled shipwrights. She was launched as part of the 1989 Washington State Centennial celebration. The new Lady Washington meets all of the U.S. Coast Guard safety requirements for a 21stcentury ship.
