Two U.S.C.G. Barque Eagle cadets manned the gangway on America’s Tall Ship’s last day in Tacoma. Travis Christy, 20, of Valdosta, Ga., and Blake Morris, 19, of Durango., Colo., thanked people for coming to see the ship, but regretted they could no longer let anyone aboard.
Eagle was bound for the open sea.
Cadets had formed a hand-me-down line earlier in the day to load enough stores to last 200 people for 15 days. There had been talk for days that, instead of heading south for San Francisco, she would sail north and play in the waters off the Alaskan coast.
Eagle has the time to do it. The sail to San Francisco takes less than a week. The decision lay with Capt. Christopher Sinnett.
At 12:45 p.m., Sinnett mustered the ship’s company to the waist of the ship. He introduced and welcomed new shipmates. He noted that a week and 15 minutes earlier, Eagle had sprinted out of Victoria toward Port Angeles. He encouraged cadets to consider all they had done in that week. They had raced under sail across open water. They had spent a day of intensive cross training at the Seattle Coast Guard Station. They had spent time ashore in Tacoma’s big festival. Some of them had visited Mount Rainier.
Now, he said, it was time again to focus on their mission aboard Eagle.
And then the wind changed.
Those of us straining to hear him from the shore lost the connection. I heard him say “Alaska,” “circulating” and “rumors.” That’s all. Cadets Christy and Morris had duties elsewhere while Sinnett was speaking, but they had heard indirectly that Alaska was not in the plan for Eagle.
Behind Eagle, the Tall Ships fun kept sailing on. Lynx, Lady Washington and Amazing Grace powered into Commencement Bay for a battle sail.
Beside Eagle, the tug Henry Foss and the U.S. Army reserve tug Scholaire got into position to help turn her around.
In the gathering crowd stood Tall ships volunteer Heinz Stettinius. He was a child in Germany during World War II. He was about eight when his uncle, a ship’s captain in the navy, invited him aboard the Gorch Fock, a sister ship to the Horst Wessel. After the war, the Soviet Union claimed Gorch Fock as a war prize and named her Tovarishch. The United States took Horst Wessel and named her Eagle.
As was so often the case with festival volunteers, Stettinius was working so much he could not make time to board Eagle. So he came to bid her farewell.
On deck, cadets wriggled into the harnesses they wear when they scamper up the rigging and out on the yardarms.
One of them walked out onto the bowsprit and sat by the union jack, a blue ensign with white stars.
Belowdecks, Chief Engineering Officer Karyn Terry brought the 1000-horsepower Caterpillar D399 diesel engine to life. Cadets hauled in the mooring lines. The ship’s whistle blew one long blast and three short ones. A baby on shore wailed in reply.
Eagle moved.
The cadet lowered the union jack.
The shore crowd cheered and waved hats.
Cadets climbed the ratlines and stood at attention in mid-air to salute the crowd.
In Thea’s Park, one voice led a cheer echoed three times by the crowd: “Hip hip hurrah!”
On the stage, Tom Lewis sang “Haul away your foresheets. ‘Tis our sailing time. Haul away down channel. ‘Tis our sailing time... Fair winds, Eagle! Fair winds!”
And then she was away.