Tall Ships Arrive in San Diego

Exy Johnson

The Festival of Tall Ships is an annual event in San Diego. Organized by the San Diego Maritime Museum, this year the festival was August 28-September 1st. The tall ships were scheduled to arrive Thursday morning. The Bill of Rights (a tall ship berthed at Chula Vista Marina), the Irving Johnson and the Exy Johnson (designated the official Maritime Ambassadors of the city), the Spirit of Dana Point, the Schooner Patricia Bell, and the Schooner Tiama were some of the 16 tall ships arriving in the city for the festival.

We were invited aboard the Pegasus which was assigned to escort the Bill of Rights into San Diego Harbor.The Pegasus is a charter yacht based at Chula Vista Marina. We gathered aboard at 8am and motored out to Point Loma. How exciting when 16 ships cleared the point and with full sail proceeded into San Diego Bay! All Tall Ships and their escorts paraded into San Diego Bay, circling past the Coronado Bay Bridge and eventually docking at the Maritime Museum on Harbor Drive.

The rest of the Labor Day weekend involved tall ship tours, tall ship sailing excursions, pirates, food, art, and music. Tall Ships participating in War Games with cannon fire on the high seas (or what looked like San Diego Bay). At the end of the weekend the tall ships sailed out of San Diego and continued up the coast of California for another weekend of revelry in Long Beach.

Bill of Rights