After months away, the U.S. Brig Niagara sailed back into Erie on Thursday, receiving a warm welcome from the community as it returned through the Erie Channel ahead of the America250PA celebrations.<\/p>\n
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Screenshot<\/p>\n
Nearly 40 boats escorted the historic vessel into the bay, while dozens of spectators lined the shoreline to witness the homecoming.<\/p>\n
Among those joining the celebration were the Lettie G. Howard, sailboats, fishing boats, speedboats and members of the Freedom Boat Club.<\/p>\n
“It’s a really exciting thing for Erie. It’s a big homecoming, and it’s also awesome to bring some members along and show them what we do and make boating fun and easy,” said Dylan Brawn, the Vice President of Freedom Boat Club.<\/p>\n
Brawn said the club has grown significantly, giving members more opportunities to get out on the water.<\/p>\n
“We’ve hit 450 locations worldwide, which is really exciting for us. It just increases our accessibility to waters,” said Brawn.<\/p>\n
Brenda Atwood and her husband traveled from Buffalo, New York, for the Niagara’s return. As members of Freedom Boat Club, they can access boats at any of the organization’s locations and were excited to have a front-row view of the historic arrival.<\/p>\n
“It’s fantastic for us. My husband is a sailor, and he likes to ride on motorboats, and he’s a big reason why we’re here today,” Atwood said.<\/p>\n
The couple also planned to spend the holiday weekend exploring Erie, including a visit to Presque Isle State Park.<\/p>\n
“I want to go to Presque Isle and walk around. I’ve only been there once before, and Pennsylvania is so close to New York,” Atwood said.<\/p>\n
Whether watching from the shoreline or joining the escort on the water, people from across the region gathered to give the U.S. Brig Niagara a memorable welcome home as Erie prepares to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After months away, the U.S. Brig Niagara sailed back into Erie on Thursday, receiving a warm welcome from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[17169,68323,72928,136,138,137,88021,84943,9861,89580,41204],"class_list":["post-234859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-america250pa","tag-boating","tag-community-celebration","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-freedom-boat-club","tag-historic-vessel","tag-homecoming","tag-parade-of-sail","tag-u-s-brig-niagara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}