Photos from the 2019 Sail Portsmouth Parade of Sails
Few things are more American than a parade – and the Parade of Sails, kicking off the 2019 Sail Portsmouth Tall Ship Festival was no exception. Here’s a sampling of our collection of photos from the event. View the full gallery by clicking the link at the bottom of the post.
Unlike the 2018 Sail Portsmouth Parade of Sails, the skies we clear and there was no hint of fog to be seen. So, we loaded up the family and headed to Great Island Common, in New Castle, NH, to enjoy a picnic dinner as we watched the ships line up for the parade. When we arrived, the massive USCG Eagle was already holding position a few miles off the coast, far enough away for the atmospheric distortion to turn the view through our 500mm lens into a sort of shifting impressionistic painting.
As the start of the parade neared, other tall ships joined the grouping, including the Square Topsail Schooner Lynx and the Schooner Roseway – along with several dozen sailboats, lobster boats and pleasure craft flocking out to the Eagle to participate in the procession. Even a US Navy tug and one of Portsmouth’s signature Moran tugboats joined the throng.
As 6:30 approached, the ships gathered in formation, led by the US Navy tug from the Portsmouth Shipyard raining down plumes of water from its massive water cannons – signaling the start of the Parade of Sails. Close behind was the USCG Eagle, circled by a surprise appearance by the Ocean Sentry Corpus Christi – an HC-144 surveillance aircraft employed by the Coast Guard.
As the ships sailed by our position on Great Island Common in New Castle, they passed by the Piscatiqua’s two historic lighthouses – Whaleback Light and Portsmouth Harbor Light – providing a wonderful backdrop to photograph these majestic ships. With this, we took to the air, being careful to keep a 3,000 foot separation between our drone and the Navy tug, obeying the new NOTAM from the FAA requiring this minimum separation from all US Navy vessels in US waters. But despite the distance, we were able to get some pretty unique panoramas of the Parade of Sails as it wound up the snaking Piscatiqua River.
This evening, we took to Downtown Portsmouth again, this time to see the play at Prescott Park. It would seem that my drones unwittingly hitched a ride, and before the show, I took them out to capture some aerial photos and video of the USCG Eagle at port. Below are a few of our favorite images. There’s over 100 images in our gallery, including ultra-high resolution panoramas,so be sure to click the link below.
Thank you for spending a few moments on our blog today. To see our full gallery of photos from this post, click on any of the images in this article, or visit the gallery directly. Do you enjoy our content? Please consider purchasing a print, canvas or other fine art product quickly, securely and easily directly from our site to hep us continue to bring you interesting and compelling stories of our adventures.
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