Port Angeles and Port Townsend get up close and personal today with many tall ships visiting their harbors en route from one festival to another.
Ships should be sailing into the harbors by early afternoon in Port Angeles and 5 p.m. in Port Townsend, said Bill Larson, retired captain of the Lady Washington, and Stan Cummings, executive director of the Northwest Maritime Center.
The ships are due to leave Victoria’s Inner Harbour this morning following the city’s four-day Tall Ships Festival, which closed at 9 p.m. Sunday.
Victoria organizers, who predicted up to 40,000 visitors before the festival started, said they won’t have exact attendance figures for a couple of weeks.
But they said the warm weather helped to spur a turnout better than they could have imagined, CFAX radio reported Sunday evening.
The ships are next due at the Tacoma Tall Ships Festival beginning Independence Day eve, but they’re planning to race across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles and Port Townsend first.
About 13 ships should call for the night in Port Angeles as they complete one leg of a race — the Tall Ships Challenge — along the West Coast, said Larson, who helped make arrangements for their visit.
However, if wind conditions are as poor as they were on Saturday and Sunday, the ships might just drop that leg of the race, he said.
“If there isn’t enough wind, they’ll call over and say they are dropping out of the race and just come in on their own power,” Larson said.
“I expect that they will start getting here at about 1:30 p.m., but if they come in on their own power it could be a lot earlier than that, or if some sail in then it could be later.”
The National Weather Service forecast westerly winds on the Strait today from 10 knots to 15 knots, rising to 25 knots later in the day.
Some of the ships will tie up at City Pier, while others will be anchored in the harbor.
