OPERATION
SAIL
1992
A quarter century ago Operation Sail was incorporated to promote such worthy maritime activities as sail training, museums preserving artifacts of the past, research into our maritime heritage origins, revitalization and popular usage of our nation's waterfront areas. We have gathered the "tall ships" of the world in New York Harbor on three historic occasions to focus attention on those maritime acitivities. We are most pleased that NMHS is devoting this issue of Sea History to help us announce Operation Sail 1992, "A Salute to the Age of Discovery." When the tall ships of the world's sail training fleets gathered in New York Harbor for the first Operation Sail in 1964, many among us believed we were saluting a vanishing breed of ship and paying tribute to a traditional mode of seafaring about to go out of existence. It was to be, most people felt, the last hurrah of the ocean-going square-rigged sailing ship. But today, a quarter century later, there are twice as many of these great ships in the world as when the first Operation Sail was held! What had been thought of as an outworn way of life turned out to be a vigorous and fundamentally useful phenomenon. And Operation Sail turned out to be a new world-class tradition in the making. The reasons for this grand revival of mankind's age-old fascination with the way of a ship in the sea, and of youth's response to the sea's stem challenge, are not far to seek. Youth of all nations hungers for adventure, the real adventure to be found in the broad highways of the open sea, where character and teamwork are everything. And there is the pride that people feel in their own ships, sailing to honor and perpetuate the seafaring traditions of their own countries of origin. On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the historic voyage of Christopher Columbus, Operation Sail 1992 is celebrating the Age of Discovery, honoring the achievements of all those great men of the sea, Scandinavians, Portuguese, Spanish, Italians, Bretons, English, venturing into the unknown- as well as native Americans who awaited them on these shores. In the scheduling of Operation Sail, first in 1964 marking the World's Fair in New York, in 1976 marking the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence, and in 1986 observing the lOOth birthday of that great lady of our harbor, the Statue of Liberty, we have seen the public's growing appreciation of the values involved in young people learning to master seafaring in these beautiful and challenging ships. In 1986 an estimated sixteen million people watched the ships parade up New York harbor-and literally hundreds of millions watched with equal fascination on television screens around the world. The US Coast Guard counted some 32,000 spectator craft in the harbor. Some had come great distances- all were there to see their elder brethren, the great ships of Operation Sail. But the numbers would be of small import without the meanings-and we believe those meanings are getting through. As we prepare for Operation Sail 1992 we are seeing more people around the world involved in this greatly rewarding activity: * Young people from abroad are discovering for themselves what people from their countries have accomplished in coming to the United States. In 1976, for example, the Christian Radich sailed up the St. Lawrence into the Great Lakes to seek out Norwegian communities in the heartland of America. * City waterfronts are entering on a new very productive revival, here in New York and New Jersey, and in the outport cities where the ~all ships go on to visit. Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk have their own stories to tell about this, as we do in New York, particularly in such centers of culture and productive commerce as South Street Seaport Museum in Lower Manhattan. * And we are seeing a national and international upwelling of interest in the message of courage, skill, endurance and comradeship which the tall ships bring us. This in tum, has meant more concrete support for sail training, maritime museums and other centers of sea lore and learning. Through such organizations as the National 20
SEA HISTORY 52, WINTER 1989-90