THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 18, 1996 TAG: 9610180514
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ANNAPOLIS, MD. LENGTH: 65 lines
With more than 200 years of history tugging at their sails, a great fleet of tall-masted schooners answered the blast of a starting horn Thursday and began their long, stately race to Norfolk.
Twenty-six boats, all throwbacks to the sleek, fast schooners that once ran for glory and the lives of their crews, are taking part in the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race.
The big boats will need every ounce of wind they can find. It will take anywhere from 15 to 40 hours to run - on wind power only - the 127-mile course from just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Thimble Shoals Light in Hampton Roads. The boats could be strung out for miles, crossing the finish line throughout the late afternoon today and into the night.
But an expected storm from the west today could make things interesting.
Win or lose, all 26 contestants, plus some ``character'' vessels that did not race but went along for the ride, will assemble Saturday at Nauticus and Waterside on the downtown Norfolk waterfront. One of them, the Exton, Pa.-based New Way, will be open to the public.
Now in its seventh year, the race is said to be the most popular of its kind on the East Coast. It has attracted schooners this year from Maine to Florida and as far as London and Rome.
The race is sponsored by the Town Point Yacht Club, the Fells Point Yacht Club and the Portsmouth Boat Club. Entry fees (last year they totaled $3,400) go to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Schooners (possibly Scottish for a flat stone that skips over the water, or Dutch for ``beautiful'' or ``fair'') originated in New England but were perfected on the Chesapeake Bay during the American Revolution. They carried cargo and they carried it fast. They had to.
With British warships and loyalist privateers menacing East Coast shipping, boat yards all up and down the Bay responded by crafting long, low boats with thousands of yards of sail, rigged fore and aft with two or more masts. The good ones defied enemy ships, running flour, grain, tobacco and much more up and down the Bay and south to the West Indies.
They also attacked, sacked and sank enemy vessels.
The Chesapeake schooners hung on through competition with steam freighters and tug-hauled barges, but gradually died out. The last of them fell to the more powerful steamers, disappeared at sea or rotted, neglected, along the rivers and creeks of the Bay during the 1950s.
But 20 years ago, inspired by America's bicentennial celebration, boat builders began a schooner revival. The most noted on the Bay was the Pride of Baltimore and - after the Pride sank in 1986 - the Pride of Baltimore II.
When Pride II was launched in 1989, Lane Briggs, owner of Rebel Marine in Norfolk, challenged the boat's captain to a race with his schooner-rigged tugboat, Norfolk Rebel.
Briggs lost, but a year later turned the race into a formal event. The race has grown by several boats every year, corresponding with the revival of schooner interest along the East Coast.
This year's race got off at 3:10 p.m.
Despite the light winds, there was plenty of excitement in the voice of race chairman Bill Beach of Norfolk from the starting boat.
``Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. The Great Chesapeake Bay Race has begun,'' he said. ``Have fair sailing to Norfolk.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
The Jolly Rover, left, of Norfolk, moves off the starting line for
the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race off Annapolis, Md., on
Thursday. by CNB