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Ships Big & Small Sail Into Baltimore for Fleet Week

BALTIMORE, Md. (WJZ)-- Maryland Fleet Week and Air Show is officially underway. Nearly 2,000 sailors from the U.S. and Canada are on board about a dozen ships in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

MORE: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW: Maryland Fleet Week 2016

So, what does it take to put on an event like Maryland fleet week? Aside from than year of planning it also takes a lot of knowledge and know-how of our waterways.

Captain Robert Thomas Wiley of the USNS Carson City out of Norkfolk, Virginia.

She's a 338-foot long aluminum catamaran now docked at pier 5 as part of Maryland Fleet Week. The ship is one of several now docked around the city. Fells point, and Locust Point to be exact.

As you might expect getting vessels here is no simple task for a number of reasons:

"It takes a lot of team work," said Mikael Rockstand, a surface ops officer, and part of that work - a really, really good knowledge of the harbor.

"We have a great inventory of every public and private pier. In the port we know water depth, we know services so its really each ship each assets has her own personalities so we have to match the ship and the spot," said Mike McGeady, Sail Baltimore president.

Sail Baltimore is one of several partners working together every ship has a home.

More than a year of planning went into organizing Fleet Week, then it was just a matter of each ship into the Chesapeake, into the Harbor, along the pier, and getting the brows made up--easy right?

"Very challenging evolution. It's an all team effort everyone on the ship doing their responsibilities to make sure the ship stays safe," said Rockstad.

But all worth once its all said and done.

Fleet Week is expected to draw crowds of more than half a million people.

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