With my low tolerance for people, I end up at very few festivals, but I could not help but wander down to HTO West this weekend because there were tallships in port. Despite them being absolutely crawling with people, and hard to take photos of, I tried. Really, I did!
The one that I could see from Ireland Park (and so which got me headed toward the tallships) was
El Galeón de Andalucia, out of Seville. She sailed over from Cadiz on June 29th (I'm sure her two 380 HP engines helped with that!) and she's pretty awesome to behold.
 |
| El Galeón de Andalucia |
It was hard to get closer and get any detail though. Here she is from alongside the starboard bow, looking back - you can see her anchor tied up there above the cannon ports.
This is a close up of her stern, with the Virgin painted upon it.
Behind the
Galeón was the
Pride of Baltimore II, but it was impossible to see her behind the swarms of people:
 |
| Pride of Baltimore II |
But the best surprise was the
Draken Harald Hårfagre (the Dragon Harald Fairhair), out of Norway.
 |
| Draken Harald Hårfagre |
Really lovely! Here's her prow:
And here she is prow-to-prow with the
Galeón:
 |
| Viking longship, nose-to-nose with Spanish galleon |
The fun thing to know about the Viking longship is that she has a crew of 33 and no below-decks - there is a tent on deck that sleeps 22, and the crew sleeps in three watches of four hours work and eight hours rest. They galley is open to the weather.
Later in the day, they took a sail around the harbour:
 |
| The Pride of Baltimore II, under sail. |
 |
| The Draken Harald Hårfagre, under sail. |
 |
| El Galeón de Andalucia, under (solo) sail. |
