Victoria embraces tall ships
Tall ships from around the world sailed serenely into the chaos of Victoria’s Inner Harbour Thursday afternoon.
Float planes trying to keep to schedules picked spots to take off and land as the harbour’s bug-like passenger ferries scooted back and forth around kayakers, pleasure craft and — of course — the MV Coho arriving on its regularly scheduled sailing.
Into all this commotion sailed the Pacific Swift, Victoria’s own square topsail rigged schooner for the Sail and Life Training Society. She was the first vessel to arrive in the harbour as part of the city’s Tall Ships Festival 2005.
The parade of ships concluded with the biggest arriving on the evening high tide — the full-rigged Pallada from Russia and Cuauhtemoc of Mexico.
Up to 30 tall ships are taking part in the festival, which ends Sunday. It allows ticket-holders to board and view these elegant reminders of a time when wind alone set the schedule.
The event had a special meaning for Chief Andy Thomas of the Esquimalt First Nation.
“All night I’ve been wondering what this feeling was going to be like today,” said Thomas during the festival’s opening ceremonies.
His great-grandfather was chief when the first tall ships arrived in Victoria “and they loved (the tall ships), the people back then — the experience, the feeling they must have had when they saw these great ships coming into the harbour here.”
Jorge Hernandez sat in the sun of Ship Point, awaiting the floating ambassador, Cuauhtémoc, from his homeland of Mexico. For the past three years, Hernandez has spent summers working here at a time-share hotel, returning to Mexico for the winter.
“I’m waiting to see my compatriots,” he said, admitting to a touch of homesickness, “but when I’m there (in Mexico), I miss Canada.”
Karen Wilson of Nanaimo did her research on tall ships, and was able to point out the Lady Washington to a reporter. “You see the dark yardarm right over there — that’s it,” she said of the Washington state vessel that starred in the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean.
She laughed as her tongue tripped over “yardarm” and explained: “I’ve been reading a book. I’m so smug.”
Gordon Simpson of Victoria is a volunteer at the festival, helping out because he loves sailing and likes to be around people. “You just look around and think what a wonderful place we live in. People will see this on the news and it will encourage more to come down on the weekend,” said the former federal government employee who does a lot of volunteer work in retirement.
The high proportion of people over 50 who attended the festival Thursday fit right in, he added. “It’s not noisy compared to some things you can go and watch, so it suits us older people a lot better.”
Peter Phillips came to Victoria with a bus-load from the Maple Bay Yacht Club.
“There are about 36 of us on the bus, sailors and power boaters. I just love all sailing ships. It just takes you back to another era, before the space age and steam and everything else.
“They’re majestic — they really are lovely ships.”
While he spent most of his life at sea, Phillips sold his own sailboat for a 15-footer, “just big enough for me and my dog. We putt-putt around Maple Bay and go clam-digging, stuff like that. I love the sea.”
