The Sail Ship Playfair

As I looked at AIS on Monday night, I saw that the tall ships had left Fairport, Ohio and were making their way up to Bay City for the Tall Ships Festival there.  I figured that they would be hitting the St. Clair River sometime in the afternoon and after much waffling on my part, I decided to take a half day from work.

 My first stop was my usual park in St. Clair because I saw this ship making her way up.  When I first got there, I wasn't sure what ship she was because she wasn't on AIS.

 It turns out that she is the brigantine Playfair from Toronto.  A brigantine is a two masted square rigged sailing ship.  The name comes from the Italian word brigantino which was associated with pirates.

 She belongs to a group called Brigantine Toronto which uses sailing ships to train youths from 13 to 18 years of age.  The Playfair was christened in 1974 by Queen Elizabeth II and is the only remaining Canadian ship to have been commissioned by her.

 The ship is also equipped with a diesel engine for those times when sails aren't appropriate.  I'm just glad they had some sails up.

And she continues on her way to Port Huron.  I'm not sure where she is as I type this post.