Operation Sail Aboard the Topsail Schooner
Juan Sebastian de Elcano
The trouble with being aboard is that you never see your own ship! But the Chilean Esmeralda, seen here leaving Newport, is a sister to the Juan Sebastian de Elcano, except that Esmeralda carries staysails between main and foremast, where Sebastian carries a gaffforesail.
by Timothy Foote Senior Editor, Time Magazine
NOTE: Tim Foote, a small boat sailor and student of history, went at the last minute to join the tall ships of Operation Sail for their passage from Newport to New York, He arrived on the rainy night of July I st, and went from ship to ship, finding things in some confusion ashore as the great fleet gathered in its crews for the morning's departure, and was courteously taken in at last aboard the Spanish Navy's giant fourmasted Juan Sebastian de Elcano. A few sentences from his report were used in Time's account of Operation Sail, and further echoes of the passage may occur, one hazards to guess, ¡ in his forthcoming book on Revolutionary War naval actions. One may be grateful for the impulse that made him go, we believe, and the memorable record he kept.-ED.
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There had been talk that a special cash allowance was to be issued ($90 for midshipmen, $20 for sailors) so the men might better enjoy New York. La Escandalosa, the ship's daily, this morning warns against the dangers of the town, pointing out with courtly Hispanic understatement, that Nueva York has some unhealthy spots (zonas poco recommendables), but praising the virtues of the Cardinal Spellman Club on Park Avenue. There, it is promised, a shipmate can procure a free meal and properly Catholic young ladies may appear to dance with the crew. A midshipman remarks that he went there once-but never again! Another grins: "I am tryeeng to theenk een Eenglish." Meanwhile Juan Sebastian de Elcano slides through the hot hazy morning of July 3rd, 1976, southeast of Sandy Hook, waiting for a pilot and the Bicenteniaro de Los Estados Unidos. When I went aboard in the dark two nights ago at Newport the gleaming white hull of the Argentinian training ship ¡Libertad lay just aft, the string of lights around her bulwarks giving her the look of a queenly iceberg slowly melting into the sea. Along the quay beside Juan Sebastian and Libertad cadets, sailors and local belles were draped against cars, walls, even bollards as they said variously indecorous goodbyes in a style familiar to anyone who has watched returning liberty parties in Norfolk or San Diego or, for that matter, anywhere in the world. Only Russia's Kruzenshtern, tied up behind Libertad was silent. Russian sailors had been allowed ashore only for closely supervised entertainments. Now no sign of life appeared on her shadowy decks,
and a Rhode Island state police car was parked beside her with a bored trooper leaning against it. When we dropped down out of Newport on the way to Manhattan, present politics slid away behind. The route the tall ships took, south past the tip of Long Island, was exactly the course Admiral d'Estaing followed in August, 1778 when he abandoned efforts to take Newport and offered battle to Lord Richard Howe's fleet just as a storm was about to strike. The Juan Sebastian herself is no stranger to the Leaving Newport, July 2, in company with
the Libertad .