Existing comment:
The Pride of Baltimore Lives On:
While a living icon of Baltimore's proud past, Pride II is also a sailing memorial to the original Pride of Baltimore, built in 1977 in an open air shipyard at Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The first Baltimore Clipper built in 130 years, the original Pride sailed over 150,000 nautical miles in nine years before she was struck by a squall and tragically sunk off the coast of Puerto Rico in 1986 taking her captain and three crew members with her.
Today, Pride II continues the work of her namesake. Since her commissioning in 1988, she has called on over 200 ports in 37 countries in the Americas, Europe and the Far East, covering some 200,000 nautical miles. When in Baltimore, Pride II offers programs for school groups, day sails for the public, and guest crew berths between ports of call.
Chesapeake Connection:
During the War of 1812 private ship owners were licensed by the American government to act as privateers, or legal pirates, supporting the U.S. Navy against Great Britain. A majority of these privateers hailed from ports in the Chesapeake Bay, causing the British admiralty to call Baltimore and the surrounding area "a nest of pirates." |