Parade of Sails
Bill Conconi keeps tabs on the tall ships. Thousands of smiles are the real payoff for festival’s marine ringmaster
Bill Conconi knows which festival tall ship goes where and when in the Inner Harbour on Thursday.
And all this, the chief of the Victoria Tall Ships Festival fleet says, takes place over four days of the year’s most extreme tides.
Yet the retired Mount Doug teacher isn’t sounding the least bit worried. After 12 years at the helm of the Swiftsure race organization, he’s no stranger to the nuances of Victoria Harbour and its traffic.
He’s familiar with the harbour’s seaplane, Victoria Clipper and Blackball Ferry times, and to accommodate such traffic he has adopted “a firm yet flexible schedule” during the opening day’s Parade of Sails.
“A take-off may be delayed three or four minutes, or a boat delayed in coming in,” says Conconi, who oversees the parade from festival operations headquarters inside the HMCS Malahat at the foot of Huron Street.
The ships will anchor off Royal Roads tonight and then sail off Dallas Road starting at 11 a.m. Thursday. At noon, the first two ships will pass Ogden Point, with the rest sailing in pairs 15 minutes apart.
While all the ships will be under power, the festival received special dispensation from the harbourmaster for the ships to keep their sails up past the usual no-sail line at Shoal Point. Between Songhees and Laurel Points, the ships will furl their sails, with one of each pair then motoring to the Wharf Street floats and the other to the Lower Causeway or Ship Point.
Conconi estimates the parade should last just under four hours, freeing up the harbour for its busy late afternoon commercial traffic. At 6 p.m., the parade concludes with the festival’s two largest ships — the Pallada and Cuauhtemoc — moving into the harbour aided by tugs. Because of their size, they require pilots aboard, a rarity for vessels entering Victoria Harbour, says Conconi.
But stage-managing the Parade of Sails isn’t the most rewarding aspect of the festival for Conconi. His big thrill will come later when “I walk around the harbour in the evening and see thousands of people with smiles on their faces.” The Tall Ships Festival runs Thursday through Sunday.
