National Maritime Day in Baltimore May 19, 2019
The actual designated day for National Maritime Day is May 22 which is the anniversary of the SS Savannah beginning the voyage of the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Baltimore’s National Maritime Day celebration took place on pier 13 where the NS Savannah lives. This is also a historic ship in that she was the first nuclear powered merchant ship.
Several other vessels were also on hand to celebrate this day including the Liberty Ship SS John W. Brown, the Pride of Baltimore II tallship, The Army Corps of Engineer debris removal ship Reynolds, Baltimore Fire & Rescue boats #1 and 2, and a police boat. Pilot boat Maryland and tugboat Bridget McAllister were in close proximity but it isn’t clear to me if they were part of the celebration or not.
I was in attendance with Mike Singer representing the Baltimore & Chesapeake Bay Ship Watchers Facebook group. Several organizations including ourselves had tables under a large tent. About mid day it became very windy and some displays were blown over! Beyond one end of the tent a pool had been set up for radio controlled boats to be operated in.
A large swath of the Baltimore Port can be viewed from this location and we saw a good amount of ship traffic including the arrival of the cruise ship Carnival Pride, roro ships Glovis Caravel and Glovis Sunlight, the roro Olympian Highway was moved from one dock to another and some tugboat traffic also took place.
At the Seagirt Marine Terminal three ships were docked, the general cargo ship BBC Maryland and the container ships Archimidis and Maersk Suzhou. A large number of containers could also be seen as well as some rubber tire gantry cranes.
Towards the end of the day we were treated to a fantastic tour of the Nuclear Ship Savannah. It look a lot longer than we thought it would but there was a lot to see as well! This ship is open for visitors only occasionally but I recommend jumping if the opportunity presents itself.
