There is a moment, usually in the first pass, when people stop taking photographs. The Blue Angels come in low across the water, the sound arrives about a second behind them, and everyone on deck just stands there with their head back.
You can see the airshow from the Embarcadero. Most of San Francisco does. But the show is flown over the Bay, and the difference between watching it from the shoreline and watching it from underneath is not a small one.
What Fleet Week actually is
It has run in San Francisco since 1981. It is a week-long celebration honoring the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, with ship tours, demonstrations and events spread across the city, and it culminates in the airshow that everyone knows it for.
The headline act is the United States Navy flight demonstration squadron flying F/A-18 Super Hornets: barrel rolls, high-speed passes, and formation work tight enough that six aircraft read as one. The exact dates move a little each year, so check the official schedule before you plan around it. What does not move is that it lands in October, and that it sells out.
Shore versus water
We are obviously not a neutral party here, so here is the honest comparison rather than the sales pitch.
| From the Embarcadero | From a boat | |
|---|---|---|
| The flying | Good, but you are watching it happen out over the water in front of you. | Directly overhead. The passes come across you rather than past you. |
| The sound | Broken up and bounced around by the buildings behind you. | Arrives clean across open water and lands in your chest. |
| Getting a spot | Arrive hours early and hold your ground in a very large crowd. | Board in the early afternoon. You are already in position. |
| The Parade of Ships | Distant, and easy to miss entirely if you are facing the wrong way. | Comes in under the Golden Gate with the fireboats spraying, and you are out there for it. |
| Food and drink | Whatever you carried in, or a long line. | Catering and bar aboard, laid out before the show starts. |
| Leaving | All at once, with everybody else. | Step off at Pier 40 in the evening. |
It is more than the jets
The Blue Angels are the reason people book, but the airshow runs for hours before they fly, and the Parade of Ships comes in under the Golden Gate with fireboats throwing water in every direction. Being on the water means you see the arrivals as well as the flying, and you are not fighting for a view of either.
Book earlier than feels reasonable
This is the single most requested weekend of our year and it goes every time. Boats are usually spoken for well before October, and the larger ones go first, because groups book them and groups plan further ahead than couples do.
If Fleet Week matters to you, treat it as a date you book months out rather than weeks. We would much rather tell you this in August than turn you away in September.
On the Embarcadero you are watching the show. Out here you are underneath it.
What to actually bring
- More warmth than you think. October on the Bay is meaningfully colder than October in the city, and you will be sitting still for a few hours rather than walking around. This is the thing guests get wrong most often.
- Sunglasses, whatever the forecast says. You will spend a lot of the afternoon looking up, and the glare off the water does the rest.
- Soft-soled shoes. Deck shoes or trainers. Anything with a heel is a bad afternoon.
- Less than you are planning to. There is storage aboard but it is not a hotel room, and you will want your hands free.
How we run it
Boarding is in the early afternoon at Pier 40 in South Beach Harbor, and you are back in by evening. We take up to forty four guests across several boats, so a large group can go out together without anybody being squeezed onto the wrong one, and each boat has its own crew, catering and bar.
Groups that book more than one boat usually end up sailing within sight of each other, which is worth knowing if the point of the day is the company as much as the airshow.
Have a look at the Fleet Week charter for the specifics, or ask us about a date while there is still something left to ask about.