Sailing through history: My firsthand experience riding the America 2.0 along 4th of July Parade of Sails
How could you not be patriotic?
It was impossible not to count my lucky stars like the billowing white sails that dotted the New York Harbor Saturday as the globe converged in the greatest city in the world to celebrate the greatest country in the world.
I had the honor and privilege to sail along with the largest flotilla in history — and as dozens of fighter jets swirled in the skies — as part of America’s blockbuster 250thbirthday.
I sat aboard the 105-foot-long America 2.0, a schooner named for the winner of the first America’s Cup in 1851 and which typically ferries day sailors on scenic views of the Hudson.
The ship was tapped to escort Sweden’s Gladan for the special occasion. We sailed in step with the 129-foot-ship as its naval recruits climbed up the sails and manned the masts with open arms in an international signal of peace — a position they held well after we soared beneath the Verrazano Bridge.
We were flanked by international warships as we sliced through the stunning green waters and had a front-row view as Vice President JD Vance took off from the USS Kearsarge — where he passionately reflected that “Everything that we have done as a country, we have done together.”
My fellow sailors and I couldn’t help but grow teary-eyed as the International Aerial Review soared above our heads, with the Blue Angels leaving a trail of red, white and blue clouds in its wake.
As we marched past Brooklyn, Staten Island and up beside Manhattan, I couldn’t help but think about what this channel looked like 250 years ago — before our coastlines became the iconic skyline.
When George Washington’s rebel army fortified the New York Harbor at the outset of the Revolutionary War, igniting the year-long period of the war that patriots had control of Manhattan.
When Washington returned several years later in a parade of sails celebratinghis recent election as the first US president.
When the concrete jungle was a lush and forested jewel of the Lenape — thousands of years before Henry Hudson sailed through the river and claimed it for himself.
And I couldn’t help but think of how I was tracing the same voyage through the Harbor that my great-grandmother made as a teenager in 1900 when she left Ireland for a better life.
I thought of my grandmother who left Australia for love, of my FDNY hero father and uncles who risked their lives on 9/11 to save their neighbors, of my mother who gave her five kids everything she had.
And how so many of my neighbors have stories just like ours.
There’s a reason the biggest, most impressive and momentous celebration for the USA took place in New York City. And there’s a reason dozens of countries came to the Big Apple to celebrate our milestone with us.
And how lucky does that make us?