The Pride of Baltimore: Recalling Sailing’s Glory Days

The Skipper Says: America sailed for abroad on June 21, 1851. She had a crew all told of 13, which would seem unlucky, but America was a strange craft. She arrived in England on a Friday and won the famous cup on a Friday, defeating 13 yachts. L. Francis Herreshoff, commenting on the curious role of number 13 in the first America’s Cup race.

The loss of the topsail schooner, The Pride of Baltimore, a wooden re-creation of an 1812 privateer, at sea in a storm about 280 miles north of Puerto Rico on May 14 was a double tragedy. Three of her sailors were lost, including her captain. And she was a breathtakingly beautiful vessel, crafted with loving care.

Yes, she was a race horse, a delicately designed creature from the glory days of sailing. Her relatively narrow extreme beam of 23 feet to her overall length of 90 feet on deck, plus her lofty raked pair of masts, the foremast fitted with a square sail above her gaff rigged fore and aft sail, made her vulnerable to the whims of sea and wind. I understand she was quick and responsive at the helm. A vessel such as her required a sensitive, experienced hand on her wheel. She was capable of making 14 knots in good wind, an incredible speed for a vessel her size.

When she was overwhelmed at sea, the Pride was on the final leg of a yearlong world tour, as the maritime ambassador of the city of Baltimore, where she was launched on Feb. 27, 1977. Apparently, she broached to in a turbulent sea. She was making eight knots in a 35-knot wind. Sails had been lowered with difficulty. A great wave capsized her, following an errant squall that struck her with a 90-knot force wind. She filled and sank almost immediately. Eight survivors floated in a life raft for four days before being rescued.

An English author of the last century, Edward J. Trelawney, marveled at the great American maritime creation--the extreme clipper topsail schooner after which the Pride was modeled.

“A beautiful vessel, long, low in water, with lofty raking masts, which tapered away until they were almost too fine to be distinguished. I thought there was nothing so beautiful as the arrowy sharpness of her bow, and the receding fineness of her quarters. She looked and moved like an Arab horse in the desert and was so obedient to command,” he wrote.

Yes, this could have been the Pride as well. My breath caught when I first saw the Pride off Newport Beach in late February of 1983. She had sailed up the coast from San Diego on her only West Coast good will tour. Her sails, soiled by her long voyage from Baltimore and through the Panama Canal, were barely filled by the light morning breeze. Oh, to have seen her prance over the waves. Yet, despite the calm weather, it was love at first sight for me.

The Pride was designed by naval architect Thomas Gillmer. Her displacement was 121 tons and she drew less than 10 feet at her sternpost. Early construction methods were followed. For instance, all of her metal fastenings were of wrought iron, hand forged. Her master builder was Capt. Melbourne Smith.

It is the same Smith who built The Californian, another Baltimore clipper, in 1984 in San Diego for the Dana Point Nautical Heritage Museum. With the Pride gone, this leaves The Californian as the country’s only authentically re-created schooner of its type. Some may correct me by pointing out the Swift of Ipswich, once owned by James Cagney and moored in Newport Bay from 1941 until 1958.

All right, she’s classed as a Baltimore Clipper to be sure. So is the Pilgrim, built in Costa Mesa by Dennis Holland. However, neither the Swift nor the Pilgrim are in the same sleek, racy class of the late Pride.