WHERE WERE YOU FOR OP SAIL?

Nation and Millions in City Joyously Hail Bicentennial (RICHARD F. SHEPARD, 7/05/1976, NY Times)

Buoyed by panoramic spectacles that included a unique armada of tail-masted ships, a massive fireworks display and a series of festivals that took over downtown Manhattan, millions of New Yorkers and visitors in a happy mood observed the nation's Bicentennial yesterday.

It was a day of mammoth presentations.

Uncounted crowds lining the waterfront of the magnificent but underused harbor saw a virtually unbroken bridge of small craft that reached from the shores of Brooklyn to the coast of New Jersey.

More than 225 sailing ships under 31 flags paraded up the Hudson, a river that foretold their doom in 1807 when Robert Fulton's smoky little Clermont started steamboat service on it.

A 22-nation fleet of 53 naval units gray and grim -- even ships festooned with pennants- lined the upper Bay and the Hudson for the International Naval Review, which had Vice President Rockefeller as the chief United States official present.

President Ford flew onto the hulking 79,000-ton aircraft carrier Forrestal, the host ship of the review, and later went by helicopter to the U.S.S. Nashville, anchored in mid-Hudson. [...]

The Coast Guard estimated that there were 10,000 small craft in the Lower Bay alone while the parade ships shaped up. Most of these went north with the vanguard of the parade, although they were kept efficiently to one side of the route by Coast Guard and police boats that constantly nipped at them, like sheep dogs guarding their flock.

The police estimated that there were six million people who viewed Operation Sail from the New York shores, and there were large numbers who also viewed it from New Jersey. [...]

As each sailing ship crossed the bow of the Forrestal, crews dressed ship, on the port side. They were deployed in a bewildering variety of designs. On the Amerigo Vespucci, the elegant Italian full-rigged ship, they stood like beads up the ratlines to the masts and along the long bowsprit.

The Nippon Maru, Japan's four-masted bark, provided perhaps the livliest salute. Her crew cheered simultaneously, on cue, and waved their yellow caps. It was a roar that could be heard, but not understood, across the water.

One of the proudest ships in procession was also one of the largest, the Soviet Unions 378- foot-long, four-mastered bark, Kruzenshtern. Built as a German sailing ship in 1926, she was known as the Padua and is the last of the cargo-carrying Cape Horners still in service. She carried grain from Australia and nitrates from Chile in record-making runs to Europe.

Aboard the Sagres II, Portugal's three-masted bark, the cadets stood like silhouettes in a cut-out dolly pattern, arms stretched out, man almost touching man, along the bare masts. They waved their hats in unison as they went past the Forrestal.

Similarly, aboard Spain's Juan Sebastian de Elcano, the crew was spaced, not bunched, along the yardarms and bowsprit, etched against the sky in impressive formation.

All of the 16 tall ships were built after the age of sail. The oldest and smallest, the Gazela Primeiro, was built in 1883 and was, until recently, a working Grand Banks Portuguese fisherman; she now belongs to a Philadelphia museum and is the only one with a wooden hull. The Dar Pomorza, a Polish vessel, was launched in 1909. [...]

There were ships of character among the other sailing vessels in the show: the Sir Winston Churchill, with her all-woman crew; the towering four-masted sloop, Club Mediterraneo, which can be handled by one man; the Chinese junk Mon Lei, the oldest ship afloat in the harbor, built in Fukien in 1855.

The Other Brother was aboard the Forrestal with our Grandfather. They were up on top of a reviewing stand and said: "Hey, Grandpa, you know Mr. Rockefeller, can I meet him?" Unbeknownst to us our Grandfather only had a couple weeks to live, but whether because he was already feeling unwell or because it would just have been difficult, he said: "Why don't you just climb down without me. Just walk up and introduce yourself. Tell him you're my grandson." The Other Brother was one of those boys who had a late growth spurt and was only twelve at the time, so he was pretty little. I've always had the image of this little tow-headed kid weaving between dignitaries and Secret Service guys to tug on the Vice-President's jacket hem. At any rate, for a few minutes he was squired around by the VP.

Afterwards, a limo pulled up as they were walking to the car and the gentleman in back offered them a ride.

The Other Brother asked: "Hey grandpa, who was that little guy?"

Grandfather: "That was Abe Beame." Posted by Orrin Judd at July 4, 2003 8:37 AM