THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 8, 1996 TAG: 9606080270
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 46 lines
Friday's Parade of Sail was wonderful as parades go - it's hard to have a bad parade - but it was a little short on sail.
The morning wind was blowing down river into the face of the tall ships, and the leading ships, being square riggers, weren't built to handle that sort of breeze.
Both the Susan Constant, a replica of the ship that brought settlers to Jamestown in 1607, and the Niagara, a replica of the brigantine on which Oliver Hazard Perry became a Navy legend in the War of 1812, made sail at the beginning in the assembly area off the carrier piers at Sewells Point. But they had to resort to 20th-century combustion engines long before coming into view in the downtown harbor.
The skipjack Norfolk and the several schooners had better luck with the wind because of the configuration of their sails.
Occasionally there have been mishaps in the parade, as might be expected with a large assembly of ships and boats.
But the only apparent problem Friday was a single small outboard that became disabled near buoy 32 off the Portsmouth Marine Terminal. It was quickly towed away by a Coast Guard patrol craft.
There were some high jinks, too.
The pleasure sailboat Utter Chaos pulled along side the Susan Constant - dangerously close, the crew on the Susan Constant thought. The good-times passengers aboard the modern vessel, armed with state-of-the-art water cannons, squirted the mock 17th-century sailors clad in their period costumes.
Retaliation was in order.
``We could clear their deck with our three-pound falcons,'' suggested gunner Homer Lanier, who had the four starboard side pieces loaded - with blanks, of course.
The master, Eric Speth, shook his head and nodded to the swivel cannon mounted on the quarterdeck behind him.
Lanier quickly had the breach-loading piece pricked, primed and ready to touch off. Seconds after the command ``Give Fire!'' the little cannon sent forth a giant boom and a lot of smoke.
The passengers on board the Utter Chaos laughed and cheered.
Lanier was able a little later to unlimber his three-pounders below on the 'tweendeck, firing a broadside first at the crowd of spectators at Norfolk's Town Point Park, then at the audience stretched along Portsmouth's Seawall.
KEYWORDS: HARBORFEST by CNB