Pride of Baltimore II: War of 1812 privateer/ Baltimore Clipper
Two Days Before the Mast
a voyage upon the swift privateer Pride of Baltimore II
Somewhere right after the first Pirates of the Caribbean film came out, some friends and I went to a tall ship festival in Baltimore to see real "pirate ships". I had spent some years sailing (OK, mostly rowing) with the Longship Company, so on a good day, could tell the difference between a sheet and a sail. I had never been on anything bigger than our 40' Viking ship, or my sea kayak... unless you counted the dive boats I'd jumped off of to look at the sunken boats (OK, some of them were quite a bit bigger than the longship, but they had long ago lost their masts and rigging). We toured a few ships, got on the water taxi and went across to the next set of docks. We came around the corner and there she lay, sleek and sharp as a cutlass blade, her masts raked like she was doing warp eleven at the dock.
She was the Pride of Baltimore II, the second reproduction of the wicked swift and agile privateering vessels of the War of 1812, when America's tiny navy (about a dozen ships) went up against the biggest navy the planet had ever seen. Letters of marque and reprisal were issued, privateers took to the seas. "Flyers" ran blockades, "sea wolves" took enemy prizes (ships, stuff on the ships). One of the more successful was "Chasseur", captained by Thomas Boyle. Pride's ship's boat bears the name "Chasseur" in honor of that historic vessel, and Thomas Boyle's portrait hangs in the main salon.
It took me a couple of years to organize a passage as guest crew (educational, breathtaking, and surprisingly affordable). We set out from Baltimore just before Halloween Weekend, passed Fort McHenry (rockets' red glare, bombs bursting in air, you know the song), under the Francis Scott Key Bridge (while cars honked and small boats circled taking pictures). Right before the bridge, we began to throw canvas into the air. Baltimore clippers have an inordinate amount of sail area for their hull size, a vast thundercloud of canvas. I looked up at one point and thought; "This is the picture! The one on the postcards, the posters, the T-shirts, the books. Pride in full glorious sail!" I aimed my camera, and only a piece of the rig fell into the viewfinder. "I can't take the picture because I'm in the picture!" I did a montage, which Pride later used on one of their brochures.
We sailed across the Bay, roaring on a reach, heeling under the wind until the cannons were nearly drinking the sea. We chased Schooner Virginia down east into the twilight around Eastern Neck Island (where I had often paddled my kayak), dropped anchor, and waited out the night under cold October stars. Next day we motored up the Chester River in bright, hot Indian Summer sun, into Downrigging Weekend at Chestertown, painting gun doors and varnishing woodwork on the way.
The full tale is in the PDFs below. And here are a few pictures, taken along the way.
She was the Pride of Baltimore II, the second reproduction of the wicked swift and agile privateering vessels of the War of 1812, when America's tiny navy (about a dozen ships) went up against the biggest navy the planet had ever seen. Letters of marque and reprisal were issued, privateers took to the seas. "Flyers" ran blockades, "sea wolves" took enemy prizes (ships, stuff on the ships). One of the more successful was "Chasseur", captained by Thomas Boyle. Pride's ship's boat bears the name "Chasseur" in honor of that historic vessel, and Thomas Boyle's portrait hangs in the main salon.
It took me a couple of years to organize a passage as guest crew (educational, breathtaking, and surprisingly affordable). We set out from Baltimore just before Halloween Weekend, passed Fort McHenry (rockets' red glare, bombs bursting in air, you know the song), under the Francis Scott Key Bridge (while cars honked and small boats circled taking pictures). Right before the bridge, we began to throw canvas into the air. Baltimore clippers have an inordinate amount of sail area for their hull size, a vast thundercloud of canvas. I looked up at one point and thought; "This is the picture! The one on the postcards, the posters, the T-shirts, the books. Pride in full glorious sail!" I aimed my camera, and only a piece of the rig fell into the viewfinder. "I can't take the picture because I'm in the picture!" I did a montage, which Pride later used on one of their brochures.
We sailed across the Bay, roaring on a reach, heeling under the wind until the cannons were nearly drinking the sea. We chased Schooner Virginia down east into the twilight around Eastern Neck Island (where I had often paddled my kayak), dropped anchor, and waited out the night under cold October stars. Next day we motored up the Chester River in bright, hot Indian Summer sun, into Downrigging Weekend at Chestertown, painting gun doors and varnishing woodwork on the way.
The full tale is in the PDFs below. And here are a few pictures, taken along the way.
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The mainmast was, technically, just slightly aft of my guest cabin (the Teacher Aboard cabin) on the Pride of Baltimore II. The crew, traditionally, is quartered in the forward part of the ship (Pride's crew is mainly forward of the foremast), and the officers are quartered aft, which makes sense if you consider that's where the ship is steered from. Pride has two mighty backup engines, modern navigational and safety equipment, and cabins the size of officers' quarters in the old days. Above deck though, she is a "schooner, pilot boat built" of the early ninteenth century, and requires the coordination and skill of a dozen crew when she spreads her canvas wings and flies on the wind.
Take the Helm, Mr. Sulu
Steering a horse, or a kayak, or a forty foot Viking Longship is one thing, but pointing a hundred foot ship in the right direction (it's heavily affected by wind and current) is another. As Guest Crew, you get to do pretty much everything the regular crew does: squeegee the gunnels (dew messes up the varnish), eat great food, stand watch at midnight, haul on lines, feel the sun and wind and silence of the Bay rushing by under the hull, check the bilges, and at least once, they let you drive the boat. Megan (the tall girl to the left) has crewed on various vessels, including Pride and the Lady Washington (that's the ship Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom steal in the first "Pirates" film; the "Interceptor" played by the Lady Washington). She points out various small blits I should be steering for. Suggests a half turn of the wheel this way or that. I turn the wheel and the great black unicorn horn of the bowsprit, nearly a hundred feet away, swings maddeningly in the wrong direction. "Do you feel that?" How the ship turns her head up into the wind when it rises. Your world is reduced to one hundred feet of deck... and to the whole limitless horizon. You pay attention to the shape of the clouds on that horizon. To the slight, distant shape of hull or mast. To the feel of the wind. The ship is more like a living thing than a piece of technology: she creaks and groans, she flies across the water like it isn't there, her rigging sings in the wind. The actual work of catching that wind requires muscle power and coordination of many people, but it's green energy, free for the taking.
