“I must go down to the seas again,

   To the lonely sea and the sky,

   And all I ask is a tall ship,

   And a star to steer her by….

(From the 1902 poem “Sea Fever”

by British Poet Laureate John Masefield)

 

By Jan Howard

It was the opportunity of a lifetime for a lover of ships, something Doug McKenzie of Newtown will remember all his life.

On July 16, following OpSail 2000’s visit to Connecticut, Mr McKenzie sailed on the tall ship Eagle from New London to Halifax for the Nova Scotia Tall Ships 2000 Celebration. After five days at sea with brisk winds and fog that was often dense, the ship arrived in Halifax on July 21.

“It was a once in a lifetime experience for me. It was a huge opportunity,” Mr McKenzie said.

The lure of the tall ships was strong in Mr McKenzie, who grew up around ships because his father was in the Navy Reserve. “I was always interested in nautical things because of my father,” he said.

 “His dream was to get me into the Coast Guard. He might have been on track with that,” Mr McKenzie said. Instead, he restores houses and is renovating a house in Newtown. A resident since 1982, Mr McKenzie’s family has been associated with Newtown for many years. He and his wife, Carol, have two children, Micah, 15, and Ginelle, 12.

Mr McKenzie went to New York City to see the tall ships. Then, knowing they were coming to Connecticut, he began asking around about opportunities for photographing the event. He was able to obtain a press pass through a friend who is a publisher, a pass that put him on a press boat anchored on Long Island Sound during the Parade of Ships and on the Eagle as it accompanied the tall ships to Halifax.

“It was a huge opportunity to document with photography something that doesn’t come along all the time,” Mr McKenzie said. He hopes to get some of his many photographs published.

The Parade of Ships was a “spectacular sight,” he said. “New London was ten times better than New York City. It was a perfect day.”

Because he was given short notice and sketchy details about the trip, he had limited time to plan, he said. He was to arrive at the Eagle for boarding by 6 am on July 16; the vessel would leave New London harbor at 10 am. He was to bring clothing for different types of climates and foul weather gear.

“It was a great deal,” Mr McKenzie said. “I lucked out with free passage and paying for food.” One meal consisted of lobster and steamed clams, he said, supplied by a crewman’s father, a former fisherman, who was sailing with his son. “I guess the ship got a good deal,” Mr McKenzie noted.

 “They say it’s the best floating restaurant in the world. They certainly tried to live up to that.” Despite a small galley, the ship even had a baker on board, who supplied great desserts, he said.

What was his first thought upon boarding the vessel? “I was actually worried if I’d get seasick,” he said. He was offered some tips on how to avoid it – to keep his stomach filled and to stay above deck as much as possible.

“I didn’t want to look like a greenhorn even though I was,” he said.

As Eagle motored out of New London harbor, there was a tremendous amount of excitement, Mr McKenzie said. “People were following it, waving, coming out in small boats.”

There was also a great deal of activity on the ship. Since the ship serves as a seagoing classroom for the US Coast Guard Academy, training of the cadets on board took place throughout the voyage.

The US Coast Guard Barque Eagle is America’s tall ship, the only square rigger on active duty. Her homeport is at the Coast Guard Academy in New London. A permanent crew of six officers and 30 enlisted personnel maintain the ship year round. The Eagle has up to 140 cadets or officer candidates training on her at a time, and every cadet spends a summer as a member of the crew, sailing to international ports.

The Eagle was built and christened Horst Wessel in Germany in 1936, one of four German sail training ships built by the famous Blohm and Voss Shipyard in Hamburg. Following World War II, Eagle was taken as reparation of war, and sailed to America under the US flag. Her sister ships belong to Portugal, Germany, and Ukraine. She is 295 feet long, has 22,000 square feet of sail, and five miles of rigging. Under full sail she can reach speeds up to 17 knots.

During the voyage to Halifax, the Eagle was shadowing the tall ships engaged in a round-the-world race that had begun in Spain, sponsored by the American Sail Training Association, keeping track of their positions and times, Mr McKenzie said. Eighty tall ships would eventually gather in the Halifax harbor. Some did not continue the race to Amsterdam, Holland, where it would end, but went on to Portland, Me.

“My wife was probably worrying that I’d continue on to Amsterdam,” Mr McKenzie said. “Other ships were offering berths on board ship.” One, the Dar Mlodziezy, the Polish tall ship, was offering berths for $80 a day.

“Oh, yes,” he admitted, “I was tempted. A couple of the other photographers were hoping to do so. My dream goal was to get photographs of the ships on the open seas, but because of weather conditions, that didn’t happen,” he said. The fog was sometimes so dense that condensation was constantly dripping from the rigging.

Training exercises for cadets included man-overboard, fire, and leaking pipe drills, and first aid and navigational training, Mr McKenzie said. There were 60 to 80 members of a permanent crew on board, some of whom were Coast Guard reservists. The cadet crew numbered about 120. There were also some Navy personnel as well as Canadian sailors participating in cross decking, in which the tall ships traded sailors. Some members of the Eagle crew were aboard other tall ships.

Civilians on the Eagle were required to participate in certain training exercises, such as fire drills, and either watched or participated in others, Mr McKenzie said. He took part in what is called the “up and over,” climbing up into the rigging to the first platform, about 30 to 35 feet above the deck, and back down. The topmost sail, he said, is 137 feet off the water and about 90 feet off the deck.

He also learned some knot tying, such as a one-handed bow hitch, which is primarily used when working in the rigging. “It’s quite easy to learn. They don’t complicate it too much,” he noted.

He was also required to get into a “gumby” suit, a cold water immersion suit, in less than a minute. The exercise was conducted in early afternoon. “It was hot and steamy inside the suit,” he said.

He spent one night on watch with one of the cadets and his father.

A typical day aboard Eagle begins around 6:55, Mr McKenzie said. “You get one sea shower every day. You get wet, turn off the water, soap up, and rinse off.”

Then, there is breakfast, followed by an hour of free time before the morning muster. “Twice a day everyone had to be accounted for,” he said.

Navigational and weather briefings are also done twice a day, Mr McKenzie said.

Following muster, the training day begins, followed by more training after lunch.

 “I took a nap every day,” Mr McKenzie said. “The fresh air makes you tired.” He said he never had trouble sleeping, despite the narrow bunks and confined area. “You get so tired that when you hit the bunk, you’re out.”

After his nap, Mr McKenzie said he would talk with other civilians and reporters and take more photographs. Around 4 pm, there was a weather and navigational briefing, followed by dinner.

“Life on the ship revolves around the mess galley,” he said. “The coffee pot is always on, and there are beverages and fruit available.”

In the evening, he would talk to cadets participating in different leisure activities, which they fit in according to their schedules since some have to work the midnight shift. A cadet would play his guitar while others would throw a football, kick around a soccer ball, or do exercises on deck. One female cadet, a member of the fencing team at the academy, practiced her footwork.

“They relax where they can,” Mr McKenzie said.

There were movies each night. “Every movie seemed to have Bruce Willis in it,” he said, laughing.

Lights out was at 10 pm, when the ship would change to red sailing lights.

All too soon, it was July 21 and the Eagle was entering Halifax harbor, and Mr McKenzie’s once-in-a-lifetime experience was over. It was time to say goodbye to the tall ship Eagle and make his way home to Newtown via the ferry to Portland, Me., and buses to Boston and Connecticut. The Eagle, after participating in a Parade of Sail around Halifax harbor during the celebration, departed to Portland where it joined other tall ships before it, also, returned home to Connecticut.

The next OpSail will take place in 2004 off the California coast.