Centennial Celebration Shipping Out Saturday

A fleet of seven lofty ships, including square-riggers and schooners, will wind down the coast from Seal Beach to Dana Point on Saturday and Sunday, with a midway stopover in Newport Beach for a 100-gun salute celebrating Orange County’s 100th anniversary.

Crews colorfully dressed like 19th-Century sailors plan to re-enact seafaring traditions such as boarding at sea, which involves shooting a cannon from one ship across the bow of another to signal that the vessel is about to be boarded.

The Tall Ships Festival is one of the main events of the Orange County Centennial, a yearlong celebration of Orange County’s incorporation in 1889.

The festivities will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday in Seal Beach. An hour later, the ships set sail for Huntington Beach. At 5 p.m., they start their trip to Newport Beach, where they will dock for the night.

Festivities also will be held Saturday in Dana Point Harbor, where the public is invited to visit exhibits at the Youth and Group Facility, the Orange County Marine Institute, the Pavilion, Dana Point Resort and Doheny State Beach, said Jody Tyson, president of the Dana Point Harbor Assn.

On Sunday, the cannon salute in Newport Beach will begin at 10:30 a.m. and will continue through the afternoon.

The festivities at Lido Village in Newport Harbor will also include the raising of flags--made especially for the Centennial to honor each of Orange County’s cities--aboard one of the ships. The historic importance of the ships and shipping to the California coast will be discussed.

The vessels will include the brig Pilgrim II of Dana Point and the Californian, the state’s official tall ship. Others are the Resolution, the Kelpie, the Spike Africa, the Pilgrim of Newport and the Witch of Wood from San Francisco.

The fleet is scheduled to depart at 11 a.m. for Dana Point Harbor, arriving about 3:30 p.m.

At Dana Point, the Californian, modeled after a revenue cutter of the mid-19th Century, will be named flagship of the U.S. Customs Pacific Region, which is also celebrating its centennial.

Then there will be a re-enactment of the gathering of cattle hides by the crew of the Pilgrim II, showing how the original Pilgrim’s crew conducted its business along the California coast in the 1830s.

At each port along the route, a crew dispatched from the Californian will board the Pilgrim II. The boarding crew will receive a chest filled with memorabilia from the Orange County Centennial and will then row ashore to present the gifts to local city officials along the route.