Huge Crowd Jams Harbor Area to Catch Glimpse of ‘Love Boat’

A massive crowd--possibly numbering 100,000--clogged sidewalks and roads leading to San Diego’s Homeport Festival on Saturday.

A force of about 50 private security guards, San Diego police and Harbor police reported having only a few problems controlling the crowd, even though some people were disappointed at being unable to go aboard the “Love Boat”--the Pacific Princess--before its inaugural cruise from the city.

“We had one fight, some lost grandparents, a few lost kids,” Officer R.V. Irwin of the Harbor police. Authorities had made no arrests as of 6 p.m.

“We were expecting 30,000,” festival press officer Thomas Turman said. “We got 60,000 to 100,000. Everything has gone very smoothly. The police helped coordinate traffic. There was a seven-block area in which it was impossible to find a parking space.”

The portion of Harbor Drive between Ash Street and Broadway was closed throughout the day. A few cars broke down, further tangling traffic.

About 100 volunteers, including Explorer Scouts, helped out doing such tasks as giving directions to visitors.

Anticipated Turnout

On Friday, Don Harrison, a spokesman for the San Diego Cruise Ship Consortium, forecast that 20,000 to 50,000 people would attend the festivities.

“We’ve had a great time. They’d (his children) like to come back tomorrow,” said Marty Bean of La Jolla, accompanied by his wife, Amy, their children Andrew and Marty IV, and a friend of the children, Clodagh Rafferty.

“I liked the big smoke coming out of the boat,” Clodagh exclaimed.

“I liked the Statue of Liberty,” added Andrew. (A model of the statue was at the port for the occasion.)

Officials said the main reason for the crowds was the urge to see the Pacific Princess, which arrived in port Saturday.

The security guards repeatedly told visitors they would be unable to board the liner, made famous by its featured role in the “The Love Boat,” a TV series noted for its cornball humor and improbable love affairs. Starting this week, the ship will be based in San Diego for 16 weeks a year.

Gulls hovered over the Pacific Princess, which was bathed in white light against an orange sunset as visitors shivered in the evening chill.

“I haven’t seen this much action around here since World War II!” one man shouted as a crowd pushed to see the Pacific Princess.

It’s the third cruise ship to make San Diego its home, although it is the first major carrier.

“It’s so little,” said a little girl who crawled up the side of a propeller three times her size to get a better look at the boat, which holds 600 passengers. The propeller, displayed on shore, came from an 1898 ferryboat.

“This is much more people than we expected,” exclaimed Dick Glenn, an independent environmental consultant in San Diego who served as manager of one of the big tents at the festival. He said he had heard crowd estimates ranging from 50,000 to 100,000.

“I don’t know what triggered it . . . Maybe it’s just because there have been a lot of people in town the last few days, and there’s been nice weather, and because they’ve got nothing else to do.”

A cruise ship consortium has been working for more than a year to bring passenger liners to San Diego. Its members include elected officials, members of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau and corporate executives.

Lured by the prospects of big earnings, a few street vendors peddled their wares on the shore.

“Business is not bad,” Gil McCue, a 49-year-old San Diego artist, said as families tugging on children examined his sketches beside the Star of India. “I’ve sold about 10 pictures, worth $50 to $100 altogether. It’s a very, very good crowd--no drunks, very orderly.”

Large tents were filled with display booths that promoted scuba diving gear, mini-submarines and sailboats.

A 9-foot-high, pyramid-shaped sand sculpture attracted a huge crowd of admirers. The three visible sides included renderings of a porpoise, an airplane, the Pacific Princess and Spanish-style buildings at Balboa Park.

“That’s 40,000 pounds of wet sand,” declared Todd Vander Pluym, one of the five sand sculptors. Then he joked: “How do I feel after all that work? I’m ready to tackle the next one! No one touches it--we have Claymore mines around it. How does it stay up? We have 10 billion trained sand fleas inside it saying, ‘Don’t let go! Don’t let go!’ ”

Pluym, a Redondo Beach resident, created the sculpture with help from San Diegans Gerry Kirk, Dave Henderson, and Bon and John Cassidy. Pluym and Kirk run a firm that creates sand sculptures for conventions and business promotions.

There were fair-sized lines for food that included mussels, steamers, potato skins, swordfish and salmon.

Children played in a special “sandbox” filled with nautical memorabilia including an old-fashioned fishing boat.

The two-story-high model of the Statue of Liberty served as the place where parents could retrieve lost children. Parents were summoned by megaphone.

Peter Pavone, food and beverage coordinator for the festival, estimated 70,000 people would attend the festival before the day ended. Seafood restaurants rushed extra food to the festival, he said. “We didn’t run out of anything. We designed the menu so it could be prepared quickly and be wonderful.”

A crowd admired a 4-foot, 5-inch replica of a 17th-Century English galleon named “Sovereign of the Sea.” It took 6 1/2 years for Jay MacMaster, an electrician for San Diego Gas & Electric, to build the model, which is for sale for $13,500.

“I was wondering if I’d ever finish it, in between raising my three kids and everything,” MacMaster said.