Arr, me hearties, get ready to plunder. The tall ships be a comin' to town.
And though Cap'n Jack Sparrow won't be among the buccaneers aboard, there will be plenty of other dashing sailors on deck to please landlubbers.
The Lady Washington, 112 feet from stem to stern, carries enough sail to clothe many a fair lady. She'll dock in the Tri-Cities on May 22 for a five-day visit.
The Lady will be accompanied by her constant companion the Hawaiian Chieftain, a 103-foot replica of a 19th-century European merchantman.
And the best part of all? You can get a first-hand glimpse of what life was like on the high seas 250 years ago when the crew opens the deck to visitors from 4 to 5 p.m. May 22, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 23 and from 4 to 5 p.m. May 26. Cost is $3.
During the rest of her stay, the Lady Washington will take on its Pirates of the Caribbean persona and give blood-thirsty pirate types a mock sea battle, complete with cannon fire and fancy maneuvering. And if you want to fork out $60, you can join the crew and pretend to be a pirate for a few hours. Cost is $50 for students, seniors and military personnel and $40 for kids 12 and younger.
There also will be quieter evening tours at $55 for adults and $45 for students, seniors and military. Kids are $35.
The battle sail is a three-hour adventure that pits the Lady Washington against the Hawaiian Chieftain.
The new Lady Washington is a full-scale reproduction of the original 1750 ship of the same name, said Joe Follansbee, communications director for the Historical Seaport at Aberdeen Landing -- her home port.
The Lady's website gives the following rundown of her impressive history:
She was built in the Colony of Massachusetts in the 1750s to carry freight between colonial ports. After the Revolutionary War erupted, the Lady became an American privateer. By 1787, she was given a refit to prepare for a trading voyage around Cape Horn. In 1788, she became the first American vessel to make landfall on the west coast of North America.
She was a pioneer in the Pan-Pacific trade route and was the first American ship to visit Honolulu, Hong Kong and Japan, and helped establish the black pearl and sandalwood trade between Hawaii and the Orient when King Kamehameha became a partner in the ship.
The modern Lady Washington was thoroughly researched by historians and constructed by skilled shipwrights.
"She was launched as part of the 1989 Washington State Centennial celebration," Follansbee said. "The new Lady Washington meets all of the U.S. Coast Guard safety requirements for a 21st century ship."
This isn't the first time the Lady Washington has been to the Tri-Cities. She sailed up the Columbia River more than 25 years ago and nearly sank.
"I wondered if the Lady Washington would ever return to the Tri-Cities after its near sinking here about 25 years ago," said Bruce LePage of Kennewick. "At the end of her last visit here, my wife and I joined others on a planned dinner cruise to Umatilla, which was short-lived as the ship collided with the railroad bridge just a short distance out of the Port of Pasco harbor. It was miraculous the ship wasn't upended, dumping us all in the river."
Most of the time the ship visits ports in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. But in 2003 the Lady Washington sailed to the Caribbean for her role in the blockbuster film Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl . And when the Lady does sail the seas it usually carries as many student sailors as veterans as she's a teaching vessel.
◗ On the net: www.historicalseaport.org
