Halifax Hosts Largest Gathering of Tall Ships In North America in 2007
By Jen Casey
Look up! Look way up! It’s the largest gathering of tall ships in North America sailing into Halifax Harbour this Summer July 12-16 for the Tall Ships Nova Scotia Festival 2007. The historic waterfront will play host to 30 Tall Ships and hundreds of crewmembers from all over the world.
Halifax, a busy navy town, situated in the second largest ice-free harbour in the world, and a popular tourist destination has hosted the tall ships on three occasions. And every time Halifax has hosted they’ve won the American Sail Training Association Port of the Year Award. No other city has won the award more. That is thanks to the slew of dedicated volunteers and the over a million people who came to the historic Halifax waterfront during the past three Tall Ships gatherings in the city's history, first in 1984 again in 2000 and in 2004.
But what draws all these people down to the water? The most impressive seafaring vessels you can find, that’s what. The Gorch Foch II is a navy ship from Germany and is one of the bigger boats set to grace Halifax. The barque is about the length of an entire football field, or one and a half hockey rinks for the Canucks in the crowd.
The Tarangini may not be biggest but it can boast that its port is the farthest away. Based in Kochi, India the three-masted barque is a teaching vessel. The name ‘Tarangini’ fittingly means “waves” in Hindi.
The Sherman Zwicker is sailing up from Boothbay, Maine. However, it was actually built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia as the sister ship to the Bluenose. The Sherman Zwicker is a very rare style as it was one of the first, and last of her type to be built. Used to fish off the Grand Banks until the sixties, the schooner is now a floating fisherman’s museum.
And we just mentioned the Bluenose. Do you have a Canadian dime in your pocket? Take a look. There she be! The Queen of the Tall Ships Nova Scotia Festival—the Bluenose II schooner.
These are just a few of the boats that will be visiting Halifax this July.
The Event has become a fixture in Halifax and the ships enjoy it here so much that they’re planning to come back already, there are festivals scheduled for 2009 and 2012.
The Priates are Coming!
By Garreth MacDonald
When the Lunenburg based Picton Castle docks in Halifax during this July’s Tall Ships Nova Scotia Festival, the city will find itself under siege... from pirates!
All right, before you start cancelling your summer getaway packages to the most exciting metropolitan centre in Atlantic Canada, you should probably know that the Picton Castles’ pirates have no cruel intentions for you or the city. In fact, the ship’s crew is actually made up of a group of fun-loving pirate enthusiasts fresh off the latest Mark Burnett Reality show Pirate Master and their presence on the Halifax waterfront this summer will be a very fitting one as the central theme of this year’s Tall Ships festival is the “Pirates are coming.”
In recognition of this theme, a whole slew of shoreside activities have been planned that will be sure to bring out the inner pirate (or Capt. Johnny Crowe) in everyone. These activities will include a kids zone ‘pirate’s landing’, a series of stage performances by talented local and international musicians and pirate reenactors on the city’s picturesque waterfront, as well as countless other events that will entertain everyone from the wee pirate to the seasoned privateer. In fact, Tall Ships Festival director David Jones has described the shoreside pirate activities as “all encompassing.”
It is no accident either that this year’s festival is focussing its attention on piracy and privateering. Nova Scotia has a proud seafaring tradition and a maritime history rich with romantic tales of pirates and privateers vying for power and wealth on the province’s high seas. During the 1920s and 30s, the region was also a central player in the North American rum running industry. And just south of Halifax is Oak Island, home to one of the most famous buried treasure mysteries in the world.
So grab your parrot and eye patch and come explore Nova Scotia this July!
HMS Bounty Visits Halifax To Begin Historic World Voyage
By Lori Ann Comeau
HMS Bounty, famous for the 1789 mutiny between Captain Bligh and Master Mate Fletcher Christian in the South Pacific continues to make history. Re-created in 1960 by MGM for the 1962 movie, Mutiny on the Bounty, the 46-year old, three-masted sailing ship will again brave the high seas to replicate her namesake's historic journey.
In 1787, Lieutenant William Bligh and his crew sailed the newly-commissioned His Majesty's Armed Vessel (HMAV) Bounty out of Spithead, England on course to the Pacific Island of Tahiti to procure breadfruits for transplantation in the West Indies. After almost ten months on board, an arduous passage, and six months in Tahiti to await the breadfruit growing season, the crew mutinied to remain rather than return to England and a life of servitude at sea. Two hundred and twenty years later, the modern Bounty will also embark from Spithead with Tahiti as her destination.
While Spithead, just off the coast of Portsmouth, will be the point of departure for the World Voyage on September 30, 2007, Bounty will visit Halifax for the Tall Ships Nova Scotia Festival, July 12-16 before sailing for England.
The modern Bounty was built in 1960 as a movie stage and background set to tell the story of the most famous ocean voyage of all time, MGM also designed the ship for global travel as filming was conducted in the South Pacific. Originally built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia at the Smith & Rhuland Shipyard, today's Bounty has spent the last eight months in Boothbay Harbor Shipyard, Maine in preparation for the long journey. Re-launched in April, Bounty will first sail across the Atlantic from Halifax for an all-England port tour before setting sail for Tahiti arriving in time for the 220th anniversary of Bounty's first visit in October 1788.
DID YOU KNOW TALL SHIP PROVIDENCE WAS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN?
Walk in Jack Sparrow’s Steps Aboard Tall Ship
Providence!
The Continental Sloop Providence appears in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man's Chest." In January of 2005, the Providence sailed to Alabama so that the ship could be prepared for her role. She then sailed to St. Vincent and the Grenadines for filming of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest". The film opened on July 7, 2006.
The Providence appears in a number of scenes in "Dead Man's Chest". She is in the background as a British vessel in the harbour of Port Royal and as a pirate ship at the dock in Tortuga. Her best scene is as a merchant vessel from which Captain Jack Sparrow's hat is retrieved. The merchant ship then suffers the
fate of being destroyed and dragged to the depths of the sea by a squid-like monster, the Kraken!
