Tacoma Earns Port of the Year
for Tall Ships® Tacoma Event

Last weekend, when ASTA Executive Director Peter Mello gave the award to Tall Ships Festival chairwoman Clare Petrich, he put it this way: “In a year of exceptional tall ship events that occurred all down the West Coast of North America, Tacoma's generous spirit and warm welcome contributed to an extraordinarily successful event.”

Tacoma bested Victoria, Vancouver and Port Alberni, B.C., Los Angeles, San Diego and Oxnard and the Channel Islands in California.   Not bad competition.

Tacoma's organizers aimed for the honor from the start, said Chuck Fowler, an ASTA advisory board member and Tacoma volunteer. Port of the Year is an honor and an edge in getting the Tall Ships here again.

Seattle will press to get the ships to Lake Union in 2008, said Les Bolton, executive director of the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport, which owns The Lady Washington and The Bill of Rights. Bolton's heard the buzz of big money trying to get the ships to the lake's south shore.

If that's the case, and if Tacoma goes for the festival, this year's honor will be a factor.

“If Tacoma wanted to do it again, it would take a lot,” said Bolton, an ASTA board member. “Tacoma would have to commit to it and say ‘Yes, we are going to do it,' and speak with one voice. But I think the proven track record is valuable. You don't get Port of the Year because you are a slouch. You get it because you did an excellent job.”

You can check The Bill of Rights' hull for evidence. When the ship's bow anchor came loose and chewed into the hull, Bolton called Petrich for help. In three minutes – he timed it – she called him back with the number of a top-quality shipwright.

“He said ‘I have a boat. I'll be over in 10 minutes,' ” Bolton said. “These guys worked through the night so we could be ready.”

The Tall Ships team put together a mooring plan that worked for the ships, and got as many people as possible from the huge festival crowds onto them, Bolton said.

It also gathered an astonishing army of volunteers, Petrich said. Those South Sounders rallied beyond their training, giving more than anyone expected, and all for free, she said.

Those volunteers organized outings for young trainees aboard ships like Pacific Grace, Cuauhtemoc and Pallada. They acted as personal liaisons for each ship, dealing with everything from laundry to provisioning to getting crew members to the Internet.

“Liaisons are the most important when in port,” said Jeffrey Woods of The Lynx in California. “Tacoma was right there for all our needs.”

Tacoma was right there for the welcome, too. Bolton said his crews had never seen crowds comparable to the tens of thousands who turned out for the Parade of Sail.

“The entire city's enthusiasm for the Tall Ships Festival was contagious,” e-mailed Betsy Bryan, owner of S.V. Talofa. Talofa, by the way, is ASTA Ship of the Year.

“We were showered with gifts, words of praise, volunteers who helped make our job of carrying over 250 passengers throughout the festival a pleasant experience. We never again had the security measures in the other ports and understand the importance of this after being hit by a novice sailor on the San Francisco Bay some weeks later,” Bryan wrote.

And Talofa's Kiwis will never get over the random kindness of ordinary Tacomans. Joe and Linda Jadwin and their family adopted the boat and were, as Bryan said, “phenomenal hosts.”

You, Tacoma, shone. Take a bow. And pat yourself on the stern.