Schooners rendezvous this weekend

CAMBRIDGE (AP) - The schooners are back in Dorchester County.

The Schooner Rendezvous started yesterday and continues through tomorrow at Long Wharf in Cambridge.

Today's activities start with the blessing of the fleet at 10 a.m., followed by the Parade of Sail at noon. Tickets are required for the day sails and mariner cruises throughout the day, in addition to the Taste of Dorchester Dinner, with food provided by Old Salty's restaurant from Hoopers Island.

Schooner illumination lights up the wharf area after dusk, along with a screening of the movie "Master and Commander" on the lawn. Cambridge's location on the Choptank River and its proximity to the Chesapeake Bay dictate that the water has always been an important part of life in Cambridge and Dorchester County.

Cambridge, Maryland's second deepest harbor, is an ideal location for this event, which honors the past lifestyles and traditions of these vessels that not only worked the Bay and its tributaries but engaged in trade as far away as South America and the Caribbean, according to a press release from the Cambridge Schooner Rendezvous Committee.

The committee, a group of citizen volunteers, provides education and hands-on experience for all those attending the event. In October 2006, the Schooner Rendezvous was sponsored by the City of Cambridge, the American Schooner Association and the CSRC.

In planning for the event in 2007, the CSRC reviewed its options of forming a nonprofit organization and through discussion recognized its mission was similar to that of the James B. Richardson Foundation Inc., and the foundation accepted the addition of the Schooner Rendezvous into its schedule of events.

The first rendezvous saw more than 400 attendees; last year the numbers increased to more than 2,500.

Ships expected to arrive at Long Wharf - and admittedly, not all of them are schooners - include Pride of Baltimore II, Mystic Whaler, Lady Maryland, Martha White, Liberty Clipper, Prom Queen, Heron, Isa Lei, Rosalind and Elf, a clipper built in 1888, according to Richardson Maritime Foundation Inc. executive assistant Gladys Taylor. The Nathan of Dorchester will also be present at the event.

The ships will be docked at Long Wharf, and some of them will be doubled over, or docked in pairs. No admission fee is charged to get to Long Wharf, although some of the ships charge for tours; that is left up to the individual ship, Taylor noted.

"The real big ones go over to Sailwinds," she added, the larger venue on the other side of the Choptank River.

For further information, contact the Richardson Maritime Museum at 410-221-1871.