The Old Ship Comes Through

From the August 20th Boston Globe "Old Ironsides comes through sail in Boston Harbor in good shape" by Melissa M. Werthmann.

The USS Constitution sailed under its own power Sunday for only the second time in 131 years.  Spokesman Frank neely said, "Structurally speaking, the ship held up fine.  She's a very tough girl."

The ship was tugged until just before 10 AM with 285 lucky people aboard.  Once the Constitution reached President Roads in Boston Harbor, the crew set three sails and detached from the tugboats.  She then sailed under her own power for 17 minutes at a maximum speed of 3.1 knots.

After that, the ship was towed by Castle Island where thousands of spectators saw the ship fire a 21-gun salute.

It returned to its pier just after 2 PM and reopened to the public at 4 PM.  It will be going into drydock in 2015 for restoration work.

I sure would have loved to be there to witness it, but just imagine how great it wuld have been to actually have been aboard.

I saw videos of the celebration and was that ever impressive.  There wre lots of small boats along the route as well.

Not Bad for a 215-Year-Old Lady.  --Brock-Perry