Feature Story

Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy still train aboard Barque Eagle,
where the ship is the school and the sea is the teacher

By David M. Santos, Communications Director, U.S. Coast Guard Academy

NEW LONDON, Conn. — Training aboard a 295-foot tall ship has been part of the cadet experience at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy for more than 60 years.  But in an age of shipboard computers and unmanned aerial vehicles, why does the institution still train future officers aboard the cutter Eagle, where sails and muscle are the preferred source of power? 

According to Capt. Eric Jones, Eagle’s commanding officer, the answer is simple. “The decks of a sailing ship are the best place to experience the power and majesty of the ocean first-hand.  And, since the ocean is both their workplace and the key resource they’ll be charged to protect, this experience is vital in developing them into effective and confident leaders.” 

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the vessel's construction.  Built in 1936 with teak wood decks laid over a steel hull, Eagle and her crew will commemorate the event during the annual training cruise this summer.  The barque will log approximately 11,000 nautical miles, much of it in the challenging conditions of the North Atlantic. Crewmembers anticipate fog, heavy seas, and sea ice in the waters around the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. 

One highlight of the deployment will come when the crew visits the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, where the vessel was built.  Other plans call for a wreath-laying on the resting spot of Alexander Hamilton, the former Coast Guard Cutter which was sunk in 1942 off the coast of Iceland. 

A permanent crew of six officers and 50 enlisted personnel guides the trainees through a rigorous underway and in-port training curriculum dedicated to the skills of navigation, damage control, watchstanding, engineering and deck seamanship.  The work of climbing the rigging, hauling line to hoist or douse sail, and the reality of living and working in close quarters for weeks at a time is an arduous experience.  Long hours standing watch in the rain and cold, and cleaning dishes and scrubbing decks take cadets out of their comfort zones – if there is such a thing at a military academy. 

During their four-year journey at the academy, cadets spend a minimum six weeks aboard Eagle.  To maneuver the tall ship under sail, Eagle’s crew must handle the 130 different lines that set, trim and douse the ship’s 23 sails, in all kinds of weather, day or night.  All of the lines are managed by hand and very few can be handled by a single person, which naturally develops team coordination and cooperation.  There is another challenge for new hands to overcome – going aloft.  Work on Eagle can often put a cadet 143-feet above the water while standing on the yard arms working with sails, an experience not soon forgotten. 

The physically and mentally demanding work aboard Eagle strengthens the bond between cadets.  Most do not romanticize their time aboard the barque, but the training does something that no amount of classroom discussion or assigned reading can do.  It gets young men and women back in touch with the type of experiential learning that cadets have experienced since the Coast Guard Academy was founded in 1876 aboard the schooner Dobbin.  Back to a time when the ship was the school and the sea was the teacher.

For some the experience of working on the ship is not easily forgotten.  Back in the 1950s, Tido Holtkamp, from Avon, Conn., caught a glimpse of Eagle while driving along the Connecticut shoreline.  He drove to the academy to get a closer look and was reunited with the tall ship he knew as Horst Wessel while a cadet in the German Navy.  He remains in touch with the barque’s crew to this day.

“I remember the camaraderie on board,” Holtkamp said. “When you live with people 24 hours-a-day for months at a time, you become very close to them.  On a ship like this, you are nothing without your shipmates.  There is very little you can do by yourself here.”