American Dream of Wind in Your Sails
By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft
The Coast Guard's barque Eagle is America's tall ship, and it's still sailing to tall ship events around the world. It's often tied up in New London, CT, just down the Thames River from the Coast Guard Academy.
Its complete length is 295 feet, and its keel requires 16 feet of water.
The Coast Guard uses it for training, but sometimes it opens the ship to the public, for free. I saw it at the municipal pier in New London.
The Eagle is a three-master, but the limits of my zoom lens only allowed me to get two of them in the next picture.
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This is the bowsprit - a gilded eagle. The ship has four jibs furled at the foot of forestays lined up along the bowsprit.
Lots of line (rope) needed to furl and unfurl the sails.
All the lines are ship-shape, as you'd expect on a Coast Guard vessel.
This is a shot of the wheelhouse. GPS helps navigation these days. Telephones (far left) aid communication instead of a bosun's whistle. How about you? Are you an old boat buff, like me? Where have you seen a classic boat? Weigh in! Anchors aweigh!
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