Operation Sail 2000, America's birthday bash coming to New York Harbor, is shaping up as the largest tall ship festival in history, to be crowned with what its producers call the biggest fireworks extravaganza of all time.
More than 150 tall ships and classic sailing vessels from the world over, along with 40 modern warships of 23 navies, are headed for New York, centerpiece of the national millennium celebration of Independence Day. Events of OpSail will run July 3-9.
The New York celebration will be the pinnacle of an eight-city coastal tour by the ships that began in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and will end in Maine. It is expected to eclipse such previous events as OpSail's U.S. Bicentennial commemoration of 1976, the salute to the Statue of Liberty in 1986 and the 500th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage in 1992.
The first Opsail, in 1964, celebrated the New York World's Fair. This year's is the fifth.
Greeting the armada will be as many as 70,000 spectator craft, according to the Coast Guard. The estimate, almost three times the number at the 1986 OpSail, is based on a Coast Guard survey of boat owners and marinas. There will be 200 Coast Guard-designated vessels on duty, manned by auxiliary and reserve personnel, as well as regular staff.
On July 4, President Clinton will be aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy to review the Parade of Sail up the Hudson River following an 11-mile review of the international naval fleet from the cruiser USS Hue City.
Approximately 4 million spectators are expected to line the waterfronts of New York and New Jersey, joined by a worldwide television audience in the hundreds of millions, according to OpSail organizers.
The U.S. Coast Guard barque Eagle, the flagship of OpSail 2000, will lead the parade, as it has in the past. The Eagle will be joined by traditional OpSail participants such as Italy's Amerigo Vespucci, Venezuela's Simon Bolivar and Argentina's Libertad and newcomers such as the Jeanie Johnston of Ireland, the Amistad and the Kalmar Nyckel.
The Jeanie Johnston, a wooden-hulled, three-masted bark, is the newest of the tall ships, a replica of an Irish emigrant ship that safely transported thousands of passengers to North America during the potato famine.
The oldest ship in the grand procession will be the 117-year-old square-rigged Gazela of Philadelphia, a three-masted Portuguese barkentine that once hauled codfish between the Grand Banks and Lisbon.
Nations sending warships to the celebration include India, Turkey, Britain and Japan. American Navy warships will include destroyers, guided missile cruisers and amphibious assault vessels.
The events of July 4 will culminate with Macy's millennium fireworks salute to OpSail. It will be televised by NBC beginning at 9 p.m. EDT. Macy's has billed the event as the largest pyrotechnic display in history, though other experts dispute that claim.
More than 60,000 shells containing 150 tons of powder — the equivalent weight of 60 automobiles — will be launched from 12 firing barges positioned in the Hudson and East rivers, the Narrows north of the Verrazano Bridge and Liberty Island.
Other events during the six-day celebration include opening ceremonies at the World Trade Center, headquarters of OpSail 2000, followed by a concert by the New York Pops.
Maritime historian Frank O. Braynard, a member of OpSail's board of trustees and author of 37 books on the sea and ships, observed that until the 1986 tall ship gathering, the greatest assemblage of sailing ships in the world was at the Battle of Navarino on Oct. 29, 1827.
"It was one of the decisive events of the War of Greek Independence," he said. "The battle featured 116 tall sailing ships blasting away at one another. It was the greatest assembly of tall ships ever in the history of the world."
Braynard noted that at Navarino, 60 ships were sunk.
Nothing like that is expected to happen in the more peaceful New York Harbor on the Fourth of July.
Led by the three-masted Eagle, the tall ships will proceed in a stately file through a cordon of naval warships from the Verrazano Bridge on a 15-mile route up the Hudson River. Just past the George Washington Bridge, they will turn and sail back down the river to berths throughout the harbor where the public will have access to them.
Tall ship berths in Manhattan will be at the Passenger Ship Terminal, the Intrepid Museum, at Pier 40, Pier A, at Battery Park, at the South Street Seaport and on the Lower East Side. Other berths will be at Greenpoint in Brooklyn, at Stapleton in Staten Island, and at Liberty State Park in New Jersey.
The Navy will berth warships of the International Naval Review beginning July 5 at the Passenger Ship Terminal, at the Port Authority Piers in Brooklyn, at the home port in Staten Island and in Bayonne and Earle, N.J.