The Urbanna Oyster Festival has many traditions and in 1985 at the 28th annual oyster festival, the first tall ship, Alexandria, came to the town’s waterfront, marking the beginning of an annual tradition with large sailing vessels down by the water.
This year, the Urbanna Oyster Festival Marine Science Legacy Program has scheduled quite a history lesson for America’s 250th anniversary celebration. The waterfront will feature Luna, a replica of a colonial sailing vessel that represented Virginia’s Navy founded in the fall of 1775, and the tall ship Lynx, a replica of an 1812 privateer.
Deltaville Maritime Museum’s boat shop manager John England, who for years has seen to it that the festival has had unique and appropriate watercraft down at the Urbanna Town Marina waterfront, said that the vessels plan to arrive on Wednesday, Nov. 5. “We are hoping they can arrive and enter the creek at about the same time, but weather, wind and tide will determine that,” he said.
