Help Us Welcome a Chilean Beauty

Like many longtime sailors, we’ve had a fascination with tall ships for decades. And having observed many of them both in port and under sail, we decided long ago that the Chilean Navy’s four-masted, 370-ft Esmeralda was one of the most beautiful — if not the most beautiful — of them all.

It’s not just that she has extremely graceful lines or that she’s one of the longest and has one of the tallest rigs of any tall ship. For us, the thing that sets her apart, and makes her so elegant under sail, is her sail plan. In contrast to most sail training vessels of her size, which are rigged primarily with square sails, Esmeralda is primarily rigged like a topsail schooner — although the squares on her foremast technically make her a Barquentine. She carries 21 sails in all, including six jibs!

Hopefully she’ll have her full complement of sails flying when she enters the Golden Gate at 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, for a five-day port call in San Francisco Bay — and hopefully skies will be clear. We plan to be out on the Bay to usher this elegant lady into the Bay, and we’d encourage you to hop in your boat and join us. Tall ships of this caliber don’t often pay us a visit, so this is a rare opportunity you won’t want to miss.

If you can’t break away from your workaday routine, however, you can check her out at San Francisco’s Pier 27, where she’ll be open to the public this Thursday, Friday and Saturday (July 21-23) from 2 to 6 p.m. Esmeralda will depart Sunday at 3 p.m. Next stop: Victoria, B.C. See the ship’s website for detailed info.