VICTORIA — Every tall ship has a story.
And many volumes could be filled telling tales about the more than two-dozen vessels that sailed into Victoria’s harbor Thursday to kick off the weekend Victoria Tall Ships Festival.
But one ship, Talofa, stood out.
Not for the height of its mast (which at 72 feet is dwarfed by Mexico’s Cuauhtemoc and Russia’s Pallada) or the size of its crew, which numbers less than 10.
Instead Talofa, which visitors with festival passes can board today, Saturday and Sunday at Wharf Street Floats, is a dream come true.
Even if, however, that dream isn’t the one intended by its original owners, Charles and Chester Carter, two brothers who served in the Army as navigation officers during World War I.
The Carter brothers spent 14 years building Talofa — which means “hello” in Samoan — immediately upon returning to Oakland, Calif., after “The Great War.”
But the brothers never finished the vessel they intended to use to recover a sunken treasure of copper ingots they spotted in the South Pacific Ocean during the war.
When World War II started, Talofa was unceremoniously kicked out of Oakland’s harbor even though it had no rigging.
“When we came across this ship three years ago, she needed a lot of work real bad, real fast or she was going to be dead,” said owner Betsy Bryan.
Today, the ship is based in the harbor of La Paz in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and captained by Kevin Porter.
It has not only been retrofitted to original specifications, but it is used to introduce youth to the wonders of sailing.
On Thursday, Talofa led two-dozen sailing vessels into the harbor, which officially started the Tall Ships Challenge 2005, a series of races along the west coast of Canada and the United States organized by the American Sail Training Association.
Victoria is the first stop on that tour which will sail into Tacoma on June 30-July 5.