Ahoy, Mateys! Filming was underway aboard the 112-foot, 99-ton ship the Lady Washington on Aug 9th. A production took her out near Aberdeen, WA, close to the mouth of the Chehalis River on Grays Harbor, where cast and crew were busy filming scenes for a feature film set in the 19th century.
If you’re not familiar with the Lady Washington, she was launched in 1989 as part of the Washington State Centennial celebration. This replica of the original Lady Washington was built by the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority and is a full-scale reproduction of the original. The first Lady Washington was built in the 1750s in the British Colony of Massachusetts and carried freight in the American Revolutionary War. By the late 1780s she became the first American vessel to make landfall on the west coast of North America, and eventually the first American ship to visit Honolulu, Hong Kong and Japan.
The original Lady Washington had a rich history as a pan-pacific privateer and her successor was designated as “The Official Ship of the State of Washington” by the legislature. Still, you might recognize the ship best from her many appearances in film and television, including a portrayal as the HMS Interceptor in the blockbuster feature “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” starring Johnny Depp.
Lady Washington Statistics
- Length on deck 67 feet
- Length on the waterline 72 feet
- Overall length 112 feet
- Draft 11 feet
- Beam 22 feet
- Mast height 89 feet
- Displacement 210 tons
- Gross tonnage 99 tons
- Total sail area 4,442 square feet
- Rigging approximately six miles
- Guns two three pounder; two swivels aft
- Crew compliment 12
- Passenger capacity 48
For more information about the tall ships of Washington, including the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain, please contact the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority by phone or email:
(800) 200-5239 / (360) 532-8611 / ghhsa_admin@historicalseaport.org
Sources: History Link, photos courtesy of the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority