Pride Of Baltimore

Taking refuge in Harborplace's Light Street Pavilion from a sudden downpour yesterday evening, Mayor Martin O'Malley and others officially welcomed the Volvo Ocean Race to Baltimore. A three-piece band led a procession of the eight racing teams around the pavilion's food court before race officials, businessmen and local dignitaries took to the podium before a crowd of onlookers to thank those who had brought the international sailing race to Maryland once again. The rain storm caused some booths at the accompanying Baltimore Waterfront Festival to shut down and visitors to flee.

I was happy to see Steve Kilar's article on the BNote ("Baltimore's local currency, the BNote, is 2 years old," May 7). Baltimore has been an increasingly exciting place to live over the last few years for those familiar with recent grassroots projects like the BNote and other programs sponsored by the nonprofit Fusion Partnerships. Without waiting for government, citizens are organizing and embracing innovative and inspirational community approaches to contemporary challenges, and this leads to a new sense of what is possible here.

AROUND THE HARBOR With sails set and cannons blasting, the Pride of Baltimore II returns to the Inner Harbor tomorrow. After leading the OpSail 2000 Parade of Sails out of the Baltimore harbor in June, taking first place in its class in a trans-Atlantic tall ship race from Halifax to Amsterdam, and visiting eight European ports in five months, the goodwill sailing ambassador is home to winter in its berth at the Inner Harbor's finger piers. Celebrate the Pride's return from Europe at noon tomorrow during ceremonies at the Harborplace Amphitheater, then tour the ship throughout the weekend.

"When we say 'turtle,' you say 'power,'" Jamie Trost called out to a group of eighth-graders. And when the students from St. Jane Frances School in Pasadena hollered "power," they pulled hard on the ropes, hoisting the sails of the Pride of Baltimore II. It was the first part of a lesson, teaching the teens you can't give strong, coordinated tugs without a good grunt, and also how privateers during the War of 1812 got their sleek ships moving...

Mark Belton, a county commissioner for Queen Anne's County, has been named executive director of Pride of Baltimore Inc., the organization that oversees the operation of the clipper ship Pride of Baltimore II.Belton, a resident of Stevensville, has been a county commissioner for two years. He was director of external operations for the Naval Academy Athletic Association from 1991 to 1996.Belton graduated from the Naval Academy in 1983, then was on active duty as a naval officer until 1990, serving on a number of vessels.

The Pride of Baltimore II has logged 35,000 miles -- equivalent to a trip around the world -- since it was commissioned two years ago.The Pride's second anniversary was celebrated yesterday in Genoa, Italy, where the goodwill ship took part in the 1992 Columbus Tall Ships Grand Regatta.After leaving Genoa today, the Pride is scheduled to visit Nice, France, and Barcelona and Valencia, Spain. It is to arrive in Malaga, Spain, on Thanksgiving Day.

William Brewster "Bruce" Quackenbush Sr., a retired Commercial Credit Corp. official and a founding member of the Pride of Baltimore Inc., died of heart failure Wednesday at Mercy Medical Center. He was 73.He was one of the seven founding members in 1980 of Pride of Baltimore Inc. and was a board member and treasurer until 1993, when he resigned because a son, W. Bruce Quackenbush Jr. of Timonium, was made executive director."It was not uncommon to see Bruce in London or San Francisco on the docks, meeting the Pride and its crew, whom he loved," said Christopher C. Hartman, secretary of the Pride of Baltimore Inc. "He gave an enormous amount of time to the Pride in order to make it all work," Mr. Hartman said.

The Pride of Baltimore II, the city-based clipper ship and Maryland goodwill ambassador, is being repaired by two companies in St.-Nazaire, France, and is set to return to the state in early spring, in time for the Volvo Ocean Race. The Pride II was severely damaged Sept. 5 when a rigging failure during a squall caused the ship's wooden bowsprit, foremast and mainmast to collapse while the ship was racing in the Bay of Biscay off the coast of France. Linda Christenson, executive director of Pride of Baltimore Inc., the nonprofit that manages the ship's fundraising and finances, said several European companies made bids to repair the ship.

John Cleveland Kidd, retired vice president of a flooring business and a former director of Pride of Baltimore Inc., died of cancer Saturday at the North Baltimore home of his fiancee. He was 75. A Baltimore native raised in Homeland, Mr. Kidd graduated in 1946 from McDonogh School. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1950 from the Johns Hopkins University and was a member of its national champion lacrosse team, which went undefeated from 1947 to 1950. After his graduation from Hopkins, Mr. Kidd enlisted in the Army and served in counterintelligence in Trieste, Italy.

Sidney S. Miller, who was a Pride of Baltimore II captain on a voyage through Europe, died Sunday at his Sarasota, Fla., home after gall bladder surgery. He was 72 and had lived on South Hanover Street. He sailed with the Pride from 1989 to 1991, logging 10,000 miles and calling at more than 20 foreign ports. He took the city's schooner through the Caribbean and made a circuit of the Mediterranean as far as Odessa in the former Soviet Union. He also called at English and Dutch ports. "He was a competent mariner and was enthusiastic for Baltimore and Baltimore marine history," said Jan C. Miles, captain of the Pride.

The Pride of Baltimore Memorial, which had been marred by 26 years' worth of exposure to the elements and recent vandalism, has undergone substantial repairs just in time for the city's commemoration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. TheBaltimore Development Corp.has teamed with a local contractor to bring about the fixes, most of them to the granite portions of a site honoring the four crew members who died aboard the Pride of Baltimore, an ambassador for the city that sank during a May 1986 storm in the Bermuda Triangle.

Twenty-six years ago this month, Roma Foti's daughter, 23-year-old Nina Schack, was one of four crew members who lost their lives when the Pride of Baltimore, a replica of a 19th century sailing vessel, sank in a sudden storm in the Bermuda Triangle. Foti has always found comfort, she says, knowing that a memorial to the lost stood in Rash Field on the Inner Harbor. That's why she felt so let down last fall when she visited the site and saw it was in disrepair. Two panels bearing the names of the dead were four inches out of alignment, a corner was chipped off the facing, and two large cracks bisected a granite base nearby.

The reproduction tall ship Pride of Baltimore II returned Friday to Baltimore's Inner Harbor after sailing the Chesapeake Bay, the East Coast and the Great Lakes for five months. The ship, which was built to look like a "1812-era topsail schooner privateer," will sail two more times — from 2 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday — before ending its 2011season. Tickets are $45 for adults and $30 for children 12 and under. Free dockside tours of the deck will also be given between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. On Sunday, park rangers from Fort McHenry will be present on the ship and dressed in period uniforms to learn about the ship's operations from the crew.

Kate N. Boone, a businesswoman and avid sailor, died Aug. 16 of breast cancer at Women & Infants Hospice in Providence, R.I. The former Riderwood and Annapolis resident was 47. Kate Nash was born in Baltimore and raised in Riderwood. She was a 1982 graduate of Garrison Forest School and made her debut that year at the Bachelors Cotillon. She later attended New England College in Henniker, N.H. Mrs. Boone was a crew member aboard the original Pride of Baltimore's maiden voyage in 1979 to Bermuda, New York and Nova Scotia.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Detroit to do a story on Tom Zbikowski, the Baltimore Raven spending the NFL lockout pursuing a pro boxing career, and we were driving from the suburbs to Kronk, a renowned gym that has produced multiple world-title fighters. "You gotta go to the 'hood,'" Zbikowski said as he turned onto an all-too-typical Detroit street of abandoned buildings and ghostly sidewalks. As a serious boxer for much of his 25 years, he's accustomed to training in this kind of neighborhood, but I still was struck by how he saw beyond the surface woes.

A seven-foot-long replica of the Pride of Baltimore II will go on permanent display Thursday at the Baltimore Visitor Center on Light Street. The scale model was commissioned by the nonprofit Pride of Baltimore Inc. and was built by volunteers from the Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point. It is designed to teach residents and visitors about the sailing vessel, which itself is a reproduction of a circa-1812 Baltimore Clipper topsail schooner, or "privateer," called the Chasseur.

On a clear, bright morning, the kind that would have been perfect for sailing, about 35 people gathered in the Inner Harbor today to remember four Pride of Baltimore crew members lost at sea six years ago.The captain, Armin E. Elsaesser III, along with crew members Barry Duckworth, Vincent Lazarro and Nina Schack, were lost when the ship went down in a violent squall near Puerto Rico on May 14, 1986. Eight other crew members managed to escape and drifted in a life boat for 4 1/2 days until they were rescued by a Norwegian freighter's crew.

The Pride of Baltimore II was lifted out of the water yesterday at a Curtis Bay boatyard for routine maintenance and a close inspection of damage from its 21-month European odyssey -- including an incident in an English port where the goodwill ship ran aground in July.Linda Jordan, executive director of the Pride, said the inspection is an annual requirement for passenger certification by the U.S. Coast Guard and that the "haul out" at the Smith & Sons boatyard provides an opportunity to look at the ship's bottom.