From the days of the ancient Phoenicians to the present, man has matched his wits and his ingenuity with the elements in an effort to go where and when he chose upon the sea. He has developed his seafaring skills and his ability to build finer, faster ships, but the sea and its hazards have remained unchanged from the beginning of the struggle.
If we consider the age of sail, we find that the history of seamanship as practiced in that period is a rich field for closer examination. Although the exploits of the swift clipper ships do not sound impressive to a young man of today who knows that a jet transport will, in 30 minutes or less, equal a windjammer’s record day’s run, there are good reasons why a world famous aircraft builder paid tribute to the old mossbacks by naming a fleet of his new planes “clippers.”
The captains of those magnificent old ships deliberately chose bad weather in which to make their record runs. With the calm assurance of masters of their profession, they ran down their “Easting” by way of the Cape of Good Hope and the “Roaring Forties,” bound for Australia, China, and the East Indies. They knew the capabilities of their ships and crews. The best of them were aware of and respected their own limitations as well.
No one knew better than they the meaning of a calculated risk. Perhaps not one of the masters in sail ever uttered the phrase, but the practice of their profession commonly called for boldness. If they were to be successful in the fierce competition between ships and between maritime nations, they had to be able to make shrewd calculations based on sound deductions, drawn from broad experience and knowledge. To the best sailorman went the reward, be it a high price to the merchantman which arrived first with cargo, or the achievement of the favored position to windward in. a sea battle. For some of these clipper men were also veterans of naval campaigns. A record passage was achieved by use of the combined knowledge of prevailing winds, currents, weather, and geography, together with the ability to judge when to shorten sail, and the courage to drive a ship for all she was worth.
A sailing ship is designed to take advantage of the forces of nature which are available to the mariner. It teaches one basic truth: that mankind has not yet devised a method of mastering the elements. He must, even in the 20th century, learn to roll with the punches. Many who fail to understand this have come to grief. The ship has not and may never be built which can be driven recklessly through mountainous seas without fear of loss or damage. Skillful sailormen are still a necessity, and a proper respect for the awesome power of the elements is the attitude of the good seaman.
Sail training teaches a young man that the sea can be counted upon as a friendly force only when treated with respect, and that it becomes an implacable enemy to the inept, the careless, and the ignorant.
Kamikaze, the Japanese word meaning “Divine Wind,” was the name given to the typhoons that crippled the fleets of Kublai Khan in the 13th century as he attempted to invade Japan in the teeth of threatening weather. When inept masters have been blind to warnings that a good seaman should have recognized and heeded, ships have been lost. Men have been hurt or have gone overboard through failure to observe proper precautions on deck in a heavy seaway. Bulkheads have been smashed, and men have been killed by heavy objects parting frail lashings and becoming battering rams as the vessel rolled in heavy weather.
Wonderful electronic tools have been devised for use by the 20th century mariner— sonic depth finders, gyro compasses, radar, loran, radio direction finders. The list is impressive. Much of our sophistication depends on the black boxes which we plug in and trust to give us the answers. A young man today is liable to take these modern gadgets for granted, and in spite of the exhortation of his elders, will tend to neglect acquisition of skill in the use of his sextant, chronometer, and magnetic compass. He may fail to appreciate the importance of having well-trained, live lookouts on the job, or the fact that weather changes should be instantly noted.
In that respect, there is a case on record in which a ship went through the night with no one on board aware that, early in the evening, a malfunctioning gyro steering repeater had gone 90 degrees off heading. A sudden shift of relative wind went unnoticed. Failure to enter the warm Gulf Stream was not logged or reported, although the course should have taken the vessel across the Stream during the night. Just before dawn, the ship ran ashore.
The need for sail training today is not considered debatable in the Scandinavian countries, where its use is taken for granted. Other nations whose navies and merchant marines support sail training ships are Brazil, Japan, Spain, and Belgium. In 1959, Germany—the country that pioneered space-age rocketry—put the finishing touches on a new, three-masted bark similar to Horslwessel, the training ship she lost to the United States at the end of World War II.
Sail training is not an attempt to turn back the clock, or to revive the crude and primitive. Neither is it a picturesque bid for publicity, although publicity is inevitable. The proper operation of a square-rigger is an exacting task, even to the seasoned sailorman, and there is nothing to equal learning seamanship under sail.
The bark ex-Horslwessel is now the U. S. Coast Guard training ship Eagle, attached to the Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut. This 1,800-ton ship is 295 feet over-all, and carries approximately 22,000 square feet of sail. Eagle makes a long foreign and a short local cruise each summer. It is, however, no longer possible to conduct sail training at the leisurely pace of a hundred years ago. Eagle has radar, loran, a gyro compass, and other such modern fixtures to make her more suitable for modern training operations. There can be no patient waiting for favorable tides; instead, the auxiliary engine must push her along through areas of calm if a schedule is to be maintained. A schedule is necessary, for one of the aims of the cruise is to broaden the horizons of the cadets by calling at foreign ports on specific dates agreed upon by diplomatic arrangement. Two Coast Guard cutters accompany Eagle, and during the cruise, cadets are rotated on the three vessels to provide a balance between sail and steam.
A cadet encounters innumerable lessons in basic and advanced seamanship in the ordinary business of living on board Eagle. Out of curiosity, a student can, and will, trace the leads of the running rigging on his own time. Learning nautical nomenclature while working among sails, yards, booms, shrouds, stays, and ratlines is easier than learning it from a book. There before the greenhorn are examples of how things are done in a seamanlike fashion. There is no needless fancywork in the maze of rigging; every line has its use. Soon the would- be sailor learns the whys as well as the hows.
In a single month on board, Eagle demonstrates to her cadets more basic facts of life at sea than it is possible to illustrate in a modern ship in a much longer time. The Germans built her to be operated under sail by hand power alone. Labor-saving devices were deliberately omitted in the belief that a man best understands what he has been taught to do with his own two hands.
The wheel watch is stood, not by one man but by two, four, or even six, depending upon the weather, since the steering is accomplished by a simple shaft and gear linkage between a triple tandem wheel and the rudder. The anchor is weighed by the use of capstan bars and an old- fashioned windlass. The lookouts aloft and forward are taught to realize the importance of their assignments. It is made clear to them that the conning officer is aft on the quarterdeck, with much of his attention aloft, instead of, as in modern ships, pacing back and forth behind clear-glass windows, with a commanding view of what is ahead.
On his first time aloft, the novice begins to sense the strength and durability the designers and builders provided in order that Eagle might serve well as a sturdy, efficient training ship. This initiation most likely takes place in sheltered waters, as the new cadet finds his way aloft and then back down to the deck with safety.
He soon learns that the impossible will never be expected of him. His position in the scheme of things will be lowly until he begins to show signs of aptitude aloft. His instructors make it clear that he will not have to guess what his duties are when sails are to be loosed or furled. The setting or furling of sails, whether singly or many at once, is a fine example of teamwork. The cadet’s most valuable lesson is that man and ship are interdependent.
The bark Eagle is a combination of rigging loft, sail loft, classroom, and dormitory while the cadets are receiving the most fundamental introduction to seamanship that it is possible to give. The sail loft and the rigging loft at the Coast Guard Academy are now merely places for the storage of gear and for indoor work during winter months, and have lost the important status they held during the years between 1927 and 1946, when they were the only sail training facility available to the cadets. If the cost of shore training is combined with that of operating an additional modern ship to transport cadets on foreign cruises, the total puts Eagle in a favorable economic position.
Getting Eagle ready for her annual cruise, keeping a continuity of operating personnel, and meeting the scarcities peculiar to the operation of a square-rigger all are problems which the Coast Guard has to solve. Working knowledge of running and standing rigging is not a common commodity these days. The cadet student body provides the manpower to assist in fitting out each spring. All the tasks of overhauling the rigging and the rousing out, sending aloft, and bending on of sails are classified and graded as practical seamanship. Before the vessel can leave her berth at the foot of the hill behind the Academy, her topmasts must be housed to clear the highway bridge which spans the Thames River between the Academy and the sea. After the ship clears the bridge and ties up temporarily at State Pier in the city of New London, the masts must be sent up again and made ready for sea. Aside from minor mechanical and electrical activity below decks, the whole show is aloft. The cadets begin their cruise weeks before sailing day, and in the fall continue their course of instruction long after the bands stop playing their greeting to the returning vessels.
There are activities in the course of a cruise, such as fueling at sea, which make the presence of a three-masted bark appear highly incongruous. At the same time, fueling a vessel of this sort puts demands on the talents of ship handlers which will sharpen their skill.
Eagle is the only full-sized square-rigger under the American flag. Occupying this unique position, she is naturally the recipient of widespread publicity, both at home and abroad. Her visits to ports are long anticipated and long remembered. While the ship is open to visitors in a port-of-call, cadets receive a type of training of which they may not be aware—constant surveillance by the public —but which should contribute to their dignity and poise.
Through photographs, television, and movies, the fame of this distinctive vessel has grown. The special appeal which Eagle carries should attract young men who can meet the competitive requirements of the U. S. Coast Guard Academy. Many boys drift into careers in the footsteps of their fathers, or by following the path of least resistance. To commence a seagoing career by way of a sailing ship, however, is something more positive and purposeful.
When topgallants and royals blossom on the yards aloft and the sound of the chugging auxiliary diesel is quieted, Eagle assumes her appointed role. Her bulkheads, no doubt, have echoed many times to loud complaints, both in German and in English, that she is a workhouse. Nevertheless, when the cruise is ended, her young men swing ashore with the confident air of having participated in an unforgettable adventure.
The U. S. Coast Guard is a modern, efficient organization, which holds to the belief that sail training is timeless, and that nautical sophistication is sharpened on the footropes of the topsail yards. Though engaged in a multiplicity of duties, the Coast Guard remains essentially a seagoing service.
A former Head of the Seamanship Department at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy, Captain McGowan went to Germany in 1946 to take command of the 3-masted bark Horslwessel, renamed Eagle, and sail her back to the United States. During the Korean War, he served on the staff of Commander Naval Forces, Far East, and with the Ryukyuan Command, Okinawa. From 1953 to 1956, he was Captain of the Port of Chicago; he was Chief of Operations, 8th Coast Guard District, New Orleans, from 1956 to 1958, and Southern Area Inspector from 1958 to 1959. He retired in 1959.
Captain McGowan is the author of The Skipper and the Eagle, D. Van Nostrand & Company, 1960.