NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) – A Tall Ships parade into Narragansett Bay has been called off, due to the costs of security and crowd control along the shoreline.

The Tall Ships, featuring 14 vessels, will be held as planned from July 16 to July 20 at the Quonset/Davisville Port and Commerce Park, organizers said.

The ships were to parade into Narragansett Bay through the East Passage on July 15, leading a flotilla of hundreds of smaller vessels and recreational boats.

Thousands of spectators were expected to line the coast to watch the ships sail into Quonset Point.

The towns along the coast were to foot the bill for police and fire protection, trash cleanup, portable toilets and other necessities to manage the throngs of spectators, according to Conventures, the Boston-based event planning company hosting Sail Rhode Island.

The communities along the route have told organizers they cannot afford to staff the large-scale event without reimbursement.

“We all had the same concerns of funding overtime,” Newport Police Chief Charles Golden told The Providence Journal.

Golden said the parade would cost his department $10,000 in police overtime.

The Tall Ships visit to Newport in the 1980s required the police to work 12-hour shifts, and that was before post-Sept. 11 terrorism concerns surfaced, Golden said.

Lt. Col. Michael McNamara, spokesman for the state Emergency Management Agency, said the 2000 Tall Ships parade into Newport cost $300,000 for police, National Guard troops and operating a security and command post.

The EMA estimated that it would cost a similar amount to secure the Parade of Sail, a price that Conventures said was “far beyond any original estimate.”

AP-ES-04-16-04 0822EDT