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| The Lady Washington |
In the morning, we drove out and took a tour of the Lady Washington, docked for the last couple of days at Carrilon Point, Kirkland. The Lady Washington is a two-masted brig tall ship with a home port of Grays Harbor, Washington. She is best known as by an alternate name, the HMS Interceptor from the movie the Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. In the film, Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, steals her. We will now have to go back and watch the movie again to see how they hid the EPIRB, the radar antenna, and other modern sailing requirements.
The rigging on tall ships is spectacular. There are six miles of line just to manage all the standing and running rigging.
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| Mock battle between the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain |
After the tour, we went for a sail in our own boat. Soon after we headed out, the Lady Washington and another tall ship, the Hawaiian Chieftain, sailed out for a classic ship battle on Lake Washington. They circled and fired cannon at each other. Although we started off sailing, as frequently happens, the wind was coming from the direction we wanted to sail...so we had to tack. Just once it would be nice to have a nice broad reach in the direction we want to go!
By about 3 p.m. we dropped sail and motored the rest of the way toward the ships. Shortly after we got to them, the wind dropped to a dead calm. We tried raising sail again, but the wind gods were taking a nap. The tall ships eventually had to fire up their engines to make their way back to port. As was explained to us on the tour earlier, they are 18th century ships that have to make 21st century schedules...so they have engines.
With no wind, we motored our way back to our own moorage.
