Portland Rose Festival: Fleet Week

Portland Oregon has a yearly celebration called the Rose Festival. My favorite part of this traditional event is the fleet week and the tall ships. U.S. Navy ships, U.S. Coast Guard, Canadian Coast Guard and Navy regularly make appearances. I will be going to the seawall in downtown Portland to see it this weekend and take some pictures of the ships that appear at the festival and will post them here as an update.



I know that security has been a risk in recent years for fear of a terrorist attack, this is obvious at any event such as this one across the country- the number of ships is usually less than in the pre-9/11 era and security is tighter. There are fewer tours and they are tightly scheduled compared to the 90's fesitvals where walk-ins were the norm and tour groups ran all day long on Navy and Coast Guard vessels. This is the first year in a long time that I have been able to go to the Rose Festival. I will be looking to see how the Coast Guard patrols have changed and what steps the Navy has taken to increase thier force protection. I am curious if they will have armed men present and on guard throughout the week or if there will just be a lot of people on watch keeping track of passers-by.

If you live in the area and are curious here is the Rose Festival Fleet Page

http://www.rosefestival.org/events/fleet/

Here are the vessels expected to be in attendance:

2007 Rose Festival Fleet
United States Navy

USS Bunker Hill, Guided Missile Cruiser

USS Mobile Bay, Guided Missile Cruiser

USS Howard, Guided Missile Destroyer

USS Vandegrift, Guided Missile Frigate
Canadian Maritime Forces

HMCS Vancouver

HMCS Brandon

HMCS Nanaimo

HMCS Saskatoon
United States Coast Guard

USCGC Active

USCGC Bluebell

USCGC Henry Blake
Tall Sailing Ships

MV Lady Washington

MV Hawaiian Chieftain
Historic Ships

Sternwheeler Portland

LCI 713

PT 658

Ex-USCGC Alert