The Lady Washington

The tall ships are in town for a few more days. I'm featuring the Lady Washington since it was the first one to arrive here from it's launch in Gray's Harbor, Washington. It was the ship in the movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. The original Lady left Boston Harbor on October 1, 1787. It was the first American vessel to arrive at the uncharted Pacific coast and explore this largely unknown area. In 1791 the Lady became the first American vessel to make landfall in Japan.

The present day Lady Washington was launched in Gray's Harbor, Wash. on March 7, 1989, after eighteen months of construction. Built primarily of old-growth Douglas fur, she is as close to the original Lady Washington as available historical records and U.S. Coast Guard regulations allow. She was built with many of the same tools and techniques that wooden ship builders have used for hundreds of years.

We were fortunate to be able to go on a dinner cruise in 1997. Stepping aboard the Lady Washington is like stepping back in time. Her twin masts tower 86 feet above the waterline and more than 8,000 square feet of canvas can billow in the wind. Six thousand feet of rigging creak above the dowelled deck as a seafaring minstrel sings ancient ballads to the accompaniment of a merry concertina. The crew, attired as 18th century sailors, swarm up the rigging to set the sails as a canon blast erupts over the port bow. It was a great adventure.