PHOTO: NEW ENGLAND HIST. SEAPORT
SAIL TRAINING:
Up anchor aboard the Spirit of Massachusetts.
A Movement Comes of Age
by Dick Rath When prehistoric man learned to make and use tools and hunger or even conscription or kidnapping, but all who have weapons he gained advantage over the animal kingdom and survived have learned much in a deeply personal way. The sea his weaker fellow man. He also soon learned that advantage is a primal force and those who learn from it gain strength, over rivers, lakes and the sea could be gained by the making of skill, and pride. Need for competent crews has spawned many training watercraft-rafts, hollowed logs and the like. From there it wasn't exactly a quantum leap to discover that another means programs , from ad hoc education of conscripted crews by of propulsion than his own muscles could permit larger water- bully mates to more structured training aboard school ships. As the world ' s naval and merchant ships evolved from windcraft to go greater distances. driven propulsion to mechanical power many nations discovThat other means of propulsion was, of course, sail. Apparered that the best training platform was still the sailing ship, ently it took thousands of years to get from the dugout canoe and nations with powered merchant fleets built new sail trainto the sailing ship, but in retrospect it was worth the wait, for ing ships. it was the sailing vessel that opened up know ledge of the world This has not been the case in the United States, though the and trade between its various parts. Throughout history right Coast Guard does operate the bark Eagle, taken as a war prize up to our century the voyages of discovery were made under from Germany attheend of World War II, to train cadets of the sai l, as were the voyages of commerce and warfare. The Coast Guard Academy. Eagle has built an enviable record of Western Europeans plundered the New World, fought each success in her educational mission, training generations of other and extended their commercial and political empires future Coast Guard officers; she has also proudly represented under sail. From Scandinavia, the Vikings preceded the other the United States in Operation Sail exercises around the world. Europeans on voyages of discovery and military adventure Sail training programs in the US are mostly non-Federal and the Phoenicians, some 2000 years earlier, had wellenterprises, however, and they are many and varied. Some are established trade routes throughout the Mediterranean and run by private organizations, some by schools and museums, perhaps as far as the East Indies. The early Polynesians in their others by state governments, cities, the Girl Scouts, the Boy huge catamarans extended their civilization throughout the Scouts, charter captains, and yachtsmen-people who have Pacific by first following migratory flights of land birds and had the experience of learning from the sea and want to make later reckoning latitude from Polaris, spreading their culture, this experience available to others. language and people thousands of miles to the widely sepaTwo such men, one American and one British, have had a rated islands of the South Pacific. And throughout the centuprofound effect on the development of modem sail training. In ries the Chinese developed an infinite variety of seagoing and November 1929, Irving Johnson, a young New England yacht coastwise junks which they, too, used for both commerce and captain, signed on the great German bark Peking for a voyage warfare. Their multi-masted seagoing junks may have reached from Hamburg around Cape Horn to Chile. He and his young lengths of over 300 feet! friend Charley made the voyage for the adventure, and they The success of any voyage under sail depends on the quality were not disappointed-before the ship was out of the North of the vessel and the skill of her officers and crew, as well as Sea she was nearly blown ashore in a Force 12 gale. Johnson a bit ofluck with the weather and careful planning. The design took both movie and still cameras along, and his footage of the and construction of ever better ships has been a function of ship rounding the Hom, shot from aloft, can be seen aboard constant development, and officers and crews have improved Peking herself at the South Street Seaport Museum's Pier 16 with the accumulation and application of knowledge. Going to in New York City. Johnson also tape-recorded his running sea is not the easiest or most comfortable life there is, and commentary to accompany the film before his death in in crews have often been forced into service by poverty and January this year. His book Round the Horn in a SquareSEA HISTORY 57, SPRING 1991
15