Fleet Week 2023 Roars Into the Bay Area

As jets rumble overhead and contrails fleck the sky like brushstrokes, Fleet Week 2023, which has become the Bay Area’s largest annual boating event, will see vessels of every stripe congregate beneath jets, jumbo planes and stunt bi-wingers. Today and tomorrow promise to be warm and clear, while Sunday is set to be cooler and possibly cloudy, making for a fairly typical mixed bag of conditions to watch the armed services put on a show over San Francisco Bay.

Sailors’ skills maneuvering in a semi-stationary flotilla will also be on display!

“We are honored to be a part of San Francisco Fleet Week,” said Rear Admiral Andrew Sugimoto, commander of the Eleventh Coast Guard District here in San Francisco. “We are the largest branch of service in the Bay Area, and we are thrilled to be a large piece of this honored event. Our vast mission specialties give us an opportunity to help ensure a safe event for everyone, as well as highlight the skills and capabilities of our service.”

Here is the annual lowdown on the boundaries for boaters, as well as dates and times for all the action:

As always, the Coast Guard will enforce a limited-access area in the navigable waters of the San Francisco Bay for the Navy Fleet Week Parade of Ships and Blue Angels Demonstration from Friday, October 6, through Sunday, October 8. “This action is necessary to ensure the safety of event participants and spectators,” our friends at Modern Sailing wrote. During the enforcement period, unauthorized persons or vessels are prohibited from entering into, transiting through, or anchoring in the regulated area, unless authorized by the Patrol Commander (PATCOM).”

The famed Blue Angels have already been practicing, and we now bring you the first of the annual photo dumps featuring multimillion-dollar fighter planes performing cutting-edge acrobatics over the Bay:

The annual celebration of the American military on the Bay brings out nearly every boat and every political point of view. Some of the staff here at Latitude have been of two minds about Fleet Week — it’s almost impossible not to find the air show awesome, the skill of the pilots amazing, and a sense of community watching it all with thousands of boaters. Even the most hardened anti-military industrial complex critics often find themselves snapping and sharing great photos of the Blue Angels. On the other side, it sure seems like an extraordinary amount of money to spend on weapons. We are not trying to wade into a rant, dear reader, nor flippantly raise the topic with feigned obliviousness if (or when) it causes controversy. We only wish to use our critical thinking because we believe it’s what Fleet Week, and the celebration of freedom, are all about.

If you choose to comment on the existential quandaries of the United States military and its mission, please be respectful, and please try to elevate the debate beyond the typical polarity that’s so easy to fall into.