One of my tall ships stories

Back when Tetris was a big deal, there was another tall ships visit to Boston. I worked in Salem then. That city, which suffers from a perpetual inferiority complex, decided that it must have a tall ship visit simply because Boston had one.

Channels were pursued and strings pulled. The arrangements led to having a Polish tall ship from the fleet visit Salem. Kewl. Well, sort of. Here we pause for explanations.

In the era of sail power at sea, there was never such a thing as a "tall ship." There was never such a phrase as "tall ship" until John Masefield wrote "Sea Fever" in 1900 or so (it appeared in his first published anthology in 1902).

I must go down to the seas again,
 to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
 and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
 and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face
 and a grey dawn breaking.

Weekend mariners with more sentiment than sense get all wrapped up in this bit of marshmallow fluff. Too bad for Masefield: he's remembered for this while his other, better work is forgotten by everyone except professors of 20th century Brit Lit. Further, the marketing hype of the Tall Ships Association has convinced people that "tall ship" represents a specific type; a noun, not an adjective. The masses come to such events with a very specific template in mind.

Well, the Polish tall ship wasn't very tall...or very long. As a matter of fact, there were a couple of yachts docked on the Salem waterfront that were larger.

The guys working on the waterfront knew I sat on the committees that had started this effort. When they got tired of hearing, "Where's the tall ship...jeez, that's it?"from visitors, naturally they rounded on me. (That took about an hour.) I suggested they say that it shrank in the wash.

But the tale had a happy and unexpected ending. This was just after the end of the Cold War, and the vessel was so short of everything that it's a wonder the crew got it over here at all. Salem's Polish community took the crew to heart, took them to the old Polish club for a couple of roaring drunks at which broken English on one side encountered rusty Polish on the other. The locals then did their bit to make up some of the vessel's material deficiencies, especially food and alcohol as I heard it. So this piece of silly puffery ended up with a nice bit of international goodwill (kind of the original purpose of these events), a reprovisioned vessel, and several hundred thundering hangovers afloat and ashore.