* Sailing the USCG EAGLE with Captain Chris Sinnett is always a joy and a remarkable experience. Chris was a member of the USCG Academy Sailing Team (and learned the ropes as a J/24 sailor) from 1981 to 84 when yours truly, the Editor, was coaching the Intercollegiate and Offshore programs in New London, CT. Kimball Livingston
had the privilege to experience what few "commoners" ever get to an
opportunity to do-- sail on the EAGLE. Here's Kimball's story:"What do you do with 22,000 square feet of sail?" The Captain of the US Coast Guard Cutter Eagle, Chris Sinnett says, “It’s basic sailing, just a lot of it.”
We were at sea for three days, downriver on the Columbia to salt water at Astoria, then south along the Pacific Coast from Oregon to California and the Golden Gate. Being a small-boat sailor, I had my epiphanies.
Imagine a medium breeze near or forward of the beam. You will see the square-rigger crew “fanning” the uppermost sails—trimming them farther aft—to account for higher wind speeds aloft. (Maxi and America’s Cup crews have a different tool kit but similar challenges.) In light air the uppermost sails of a square rigger are again trimmed farther aft than lower sails, to act as telltales and warn the driver if it’s time to fall off. Aboard the Eagle, however, you will not hear too-cool-for-school racer lingo like “driver.” Before we pulled out of Portland town, the crew was mustered on deck and the cadets were told, “Learn all you can. This is how you become a Coast Guard officer.”
I don’t know what may have been going through the minds of young cadets as they stood straight, listening to those words, but I have a notion of what they were thinking, three days later, as the light failed and the wind rose and there was a bite to that wind, and the ship was flying too much sail and came the call, ALL HANDS!
All eyes were aloft, up up up to the rigging. There’s this other saying aboard the Eagle: "If you don’t let go, you don’t fall." Read the rest of Kimball's account on the EAGLE on BLUE PLANET TIMES.
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