Janet Jensen/The News Tribune

U.S. Coast Guard Barque Eagle motored to an advantageous spot near the starting line of the first leg of the Tall Ships Challenge.

Lynx, Amazing Grace, Lady Washington, and Adventuress were nearby, all with sails raised, all with captains working out their strategy.

On Eagle’s deck, crew and cadets stood ready to fill the sky with canvas.
The crew does not raise the main sails on a square-rigged ship. They lower most of them from the yardarms. Then, when they douse the sails, they climb the rigging up to the yards, and pull the sails on top of the yard by hand. That’s called furling the sails, and they do it on yardarms 30 to 140 feet above the deck.

“The strategy was to get a good start and to make the best speed we could as close to the wind as possible,” Capt. J. Christopher Sinnett said. “Another part of the strategy was to avoid a close quarters situation with any of the other tall ships.”

Eagle is a three-masted barque, and, at 295 feet, at least 100 feet longer than the other boats in the race.

“The cadets and crew had spent half an hour preparing for the race, so that when the command ‘Set all squares’ rang out, Eagle went from no canvas to 18,000 square feet in about 60 seconds,” Sinnett said. “The remaining 5,000 square feet were set a few moments later, as we approached the starting line.”

Janet Jensen/The News Tribune

The plan was to head for Port Angeles.
But the wind was southwesterly.

“We were unable to get closer than 55 degrees off the course we needed to make,” Sinnett said.
That means that two thirds of the way across the straits, Eagle needed to tack.

“When we did tack, we quickly learned why square riggers were replaced by schooners,” Sinnett said “ Square riggers can only sail 75 degrees to the true wind. So when we tacked, instead of heading to Port Angeles, we were heading back to Victoria.”

That’s about the time Eagle passed Lady Washington going in the opposite direction.

“Because it was going to take so much time to work our way to windward and get to Port Angeles, we made the decision to enjoy sailing on the breeze we had, and to not worry about the race,” Sinnett said. “When we got close to Vancouver Island, we doused sail and set ourselves up for an evening’s worth of training while staying clear of the commercial traffic lanes.”

Tuesday morning, Eagle will transit to Seattle, where she will anchor near the Coast Guard station Tuesday afternoon.