When local organizers of OpSail 2000 learned last fall that an Italian ship, the Amerigo Vespucci, planned to bypass Baltimore during this week's festival of tall ships, they knew they had to reverse that decision.
As president of Sail Baltimore, the group coordinating the arrival of more than 30 ships in and around the Inner Harbor starting Wednesday, William R. MacIntosh couldn't bear to have one of the largest, most elegant and most coveted tall ships in the world skip Baltimore by sailing directly from Norfolk, Va., to Philadelphia.
So, MacIntosh struck upon an idea. Postcards.
He armed himself with 20 postcards depicting the majestic 330-foot Amerigo Vespucci docked at the west wall of the Inner Harbor in 1986 - postcards still on sale at a local bookstore. Then he headed for Washington.
At the office of Giovanni Bortolato, a rear admiral in the Italian navy and the Italian naval attache, MacIntosh pulled out his secret weapon.
"We want this to happen again," MacIntosh told Bortolato waving a postcard. "What can we do?"
In the weeks and months that followed, MacIntosh had a ready supply of incentives. He talked about the convenient downtown docking, the proximity to Washington and the warm, welcoming community - the same amenities offered to all the ships.
"We needed to lure them here," MacIntosh said. "Every time I corresponded with him, I sent a postcard. I wanted to impress on them that we wanted them to come."
On Wednesday, that postcard image will meld into real life when the Amerigo Vespucci is once again expected to grace the west wall of the Inner Harbor - cutting its Norfolk visit short and arriving late to Philadelphia in order to stop in Charm City.
A million visitors are expected to crowd the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Canton and Locust Point from Wednesday through June 29 for the largest sailing festival in the city's history.
The celebration will feature the Italian tall ship and more than 30 others from 15 countries. Included are ships from Indonesia, Chile, Germany, Colombia, the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Denmark and Ukraine.
Both ceremonial and functional, many of the vessels are used to train cadets to sail.
OpSail organizers predict that the nine-day event, with a budget of about $1.5 million, will bring the region $55 million in direct spending.
That spending translates to an economic impact of $100 million, according to the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association.
