BEYOND THE SPECTACLE which reaches out to entrance a nation lies the challenging reality of training young people to sail these big ships. And here, in a workaday scene aboard the US Coast Guard bark Eagle, we look aft from the foes 'l head; past close-hauled headsail sheets, to trainees taking sights with sextants and doing "sailorizing" work on deck and in the rigging. Behind the camera is Bill Burgess, volunteer aboard the historic ships of San Francisco, getting a straight dose of ¡ sea life (see his account of this voyage in Sea History 20, pp 8-9). On this 2500-mile training cruise, Burgess found "something special about the style, character and daring of a sailing ship which her people come to share .... "
PHOTO BY WILLIAM E. BURGESS, JR.
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KEEPING THE SEA, in a direct line of succession from the intrepid voyagers whose heritage we salute in Operation Sail 1992, Sagres II stands into the advancing night. The seaman-author Joseph Conrad spoke of the obligation a sailor owes to his ship, an investment of thought, of skill, oflove. "If you remember that obligation," he said," ... she will sail, stay, run for you as long as she is able, or like a seabird going to rest upon angry waves, she will lie out the heaviest gale that ever made you doubt living long enough to see another sunrise."
SEA HISTORY 52, WINTER 1989-90