Pride of Baltimore Memorial

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A raked mast of a Baltimore Clipper ship stands tall on land in Rash Field on the south end of the Inner Harbor. Accompanied by a block of pink granite inscribed with four names of lost crewmembers, the installation serves as a memorial to the Pride of Baltimore I.

The Pride was modelled after the Chausseur, a clipper ship launched from Fells Point in 1812 and captained by Thomas Boyle, a privateer, known for his highly successful acquisition of goods captured from British ships. In 1814, Boyle undertook a journey across the Atlantic, past the blockade of British ships on the Chesapeake. When he reached England, he boldly issued a proclamation stating:

I do therefore, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested (possessing sufficient force) declare all the ports, harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, outlets, islands and seacoast of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in a state of strict and rigorous blockade. And I do further declare that I consider the force under my command adequate to maintain strictly, rigorously, and effectually, the said blockade.

Boyle was incredibly successful in maintaining his blockade and returned home to Baltimore in March 1815, continuing to collect goods and evade capture. His ship was renamed “the Pride of Baltimore.”

The twentieth-century version of the Pride of Baltimore was launched in 1977 as an ambassador ship as part of the project to revitalize the inner harbor and to represent the city and state during its travels around the world. The clipper ship logged 150,000 miles before a sudden squall in the Atlantic, near Puerto Rico, capsized the ship in 1986. There was no time to send a distress signal. Eight crewmembers survived four days in a lifeboat. The captain, Armin Elsaesser, 42, and three crewmembers, Vincent Lazarro, 27, engineer; Barry Duckworth, 29, carpenter; and Nina Schack, 23, deckhand, were lost.

In 1988, a second Pride of Baltimore was launched as a memorial to Pride I and its lost crewmembers. The Pride of Baltimore II has sailed 250,000 miles and visited 40 different countries.