L'Hermione In NYC - Starting Today!

L'Hermione crossing the Atlantic, May 2015. Photo from Hermione Voyage FB Page.  

Bad boat blogger, bad. I've been going on and on and on about Hokule'a coming here in 2016, but totally forgot to ever say anything about another spectacular replica which actually arrived in NY Harbor today and will be here for the 4th of July weekend. 

Our current visitor is a beautiful replica of the Hermione, the frigate that brought Major General Lafayette to America in 1780. She was built in France; the build began in 1997 and she was launched in 2014, with sea trials in September of the year. In April of 2015, she set out from France, bound for the East Coast of the USA. May was spent sailing across the Atlantic Ocean (photo above was somewhere in the middle, isn't it gorgeous?), she arrived in Yorktown, VA at the beginning of June, and she's now making her way up the East Coast, arriving in NY Harbor just this morning. She'll be staying at Pier 15 at the South Street Seaport, where she'll have visiting hours for tours throughout the weekend, and on July 4th there'll be a grand parade past the Statue of Liberty and up the Hudson along Manhattan's West Side. For full details for her NYC visit, click here, for the additional schedule and ports of call, click here. 

Thank you to PortSide NewYork for the morning heads-up about where L'Hermione is staying while in NY. Keep an eye on Tugster, New York Media Boat, and the Old Salt Blog for more reporting of the visit; at the time I write this, none of them have posts yet, but I know Tugster Will and Bjoern Kils (NY Media Boat) went down to the Lower Harbor to meet her this morning, and Rick Spilman at the Old Salt Blog is the one who first told me about the visit, and I suspect he was at the welcoming ceremony at the South Street Seaport today, and I expect they'll all be putting something up eventually. I'm also hoping to get aboard tomorrow, so I might have something more to share too.Will did post a few photos on his Facebook page this morning - here was my favorite, Hermione in Gravesend Bay. Lovely, can't wait to see his writeup! 5:14 update - Tugster's first post is up with some pictures from the morning that are simply Ooooh La La!