Curtis Bay Coast Guard Yard renovates America’s Tall Ship: Seldom-seen world famous Dave Maloney mini-Eagle Museum
BALTIMORE (AP) — Standing on the deck of the Coast Guard bark Eagle, Grady Bosheers of Riviera Beach gazed at the length of the 295-foot ship and shook his head in awe.
“When you see it from up here, it doesn’t seem that big, does it?” said Bosheers, a civilian Coast Guard employee.
(left) Associated Press A worker is seen in the foreground Oct. 31, at the U.S. Coast Guard yard at Curtis Bay in front of the 295 foot-long 1,816 ton displacement Eagle, a three-masted square-rigger built in 1936 Germany and used after WWII to train future officers at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.
Affectionately dubbed “America’s Tall Ship,” the Eagle — the only square-rigged vessel in U.S. government service — is in dry dock at the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay for the first time since 2002. The ship, called a “floating diplomat” by some, sailed up the Patapsco River in September and is undergoing renovations until at least mid-January.
Workers have been snapping pictures since it arrived, making a record of the visit, structural superintendent Jeff Lurz said. “Some of them were here the last time the Eagle came,” the Pasadena resident said.
Workers fire 34,000 pounds of water per square inch at the hull, which strips the paint down to the bare metal. That pressure of water would sever a limb, said Capt. J. Christopher Sinnett, commander of the Eagle for just over a year.
Most major renovations of the ship take place in Curtis Bay, workers say.
The bulk of this year’s work involves removing about 100 square feet of rusted metal and stripping away some remaining patches of lead paint, Lurz said. That’s what the hydroblasting is for, he said. “In the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, (lead paint) is what they used,” he said.
“As rough as she looks now, when she takes off, she’ll be in beautiful condition,” said Bosheers, one of eight ship superintendents on the project.
The Eagle sails into the yard nearly every fall for some work, but a dry docking happens about once every five years.
“Once you come here to the yard, that’s what you work on,” said Dave Brahm of Millersville, the mechanical supervisor, referring to the Eagle. An eight-year Navy veteran, Brahm came to work at the yard in 1991 and said the craftmanship on the Eagle amazed him. He had never seen a tall ship in person before, he said.
John Downes, assistant general foreman at Curtis Bay, has worked on the Eagle off and on since 1983. He’s overseen six complete mast overhauls, when each of the 23 sails is stripped down and taken off the ship while the masts are painted and inspected.
Dave Maloney’s world-famous mini-Eagle museum showing pieces of the Eagle’s hull and rivets discarded during past yard work. Shown in lower left, swab Cadet Maloney takes photo booth image of self while on 1966 liberty in New York city. (This photo and caption is a minor enhancement I thought added substantially to this otherwise well-written article . <g> – Dave)
Built in 1936 by the Blohm and Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, and commissioned as the Horst Wessel, the Eagle was one of three sail training ships for the German Navy.
The U.S. took possession of the ship as a prize from World War II and renamed it. A Coast Guard crew sailed from Bremerhaven to New London, Conn., which remains the Eagle’s home port today. It is used to train cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
Boatswain Keith Raisch, a 33-year Coast Guard veteran, fears the Eagle is misunderstood.
“I think when there’s something from the 1930s, some people might look at it and ask, how is it appropriate?” Raisch said. “But when you’ve been here, you can understand why.”
Just look at all the young cadets who have trained on it, he said. (Below are several of the now-famous class of ’70 cadets aboard Eagle in 1968 – Dave)
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With all the emphasis on green living today, Raisch hopes to see a renaissance of “the age of sail.” Plus, he said, tall ships just look cool. “There’s nobody I’ve ever met who can see one and ignore it,” Raisch said. Between 400 and 500 Coast Guard Academy cadets train on the Eagle every year, Sinnett said. The ship has sailed as far away as Australia, and it regularly sails to the Caribbean and to Europe. “Visually, it is overwhelming,” he said. “There is a real element of romance and history in sailing a ship like this. You can feel the power of the sails in the deck.” The ship boasts about five miles of rigging and 22,300 square feet of sail. It displaces 1,816 tons of water. “This is just outstanding workmanship. And you can’t just go out and get spare parts for it,” Downes said. “Ninety percent of it is all about the rigging,” he said. “Everything supports the sails. Every time I look at it, I marvel at how guys could do this back in the 1930s.”