{"id":10697,"date":"2015-06-19T12:16:10","date_gmt":"2015-06-19T16:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=10697"},"modified":"2015-06-19T12:16:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-19T16:16:10","slug":"incoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/incoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Incoming!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summerguide 2015 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Keep your eyes on the coast for the Summer of the Tall Ships.<\/h3>\n

Ship Guide by Colin S. Sargent<\/p>\n

\"SG15-Tall-Ships\"<\/a>“She sails like a bird!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

L’Hermione in Castine July 15-16<\/p>\n

This summer, we\u2019ve got fully rigged three masters and others storming our ports. In addition to the Iberdrola USA Tall Ships Portland 2015 festival, from July 18 to20, we\u2019ve got L\u2019Hermione <\/em>recreating her original transatlantic voyage, which will stop at Castine.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe sails like a bird,\u201d was the young Marquis de Lafayette\u2019s description of the French Concorde-class frigate L\u2019Hermione<\/em>. But what other reasons could there be why L\u2019Hermione<\/em> is belle of the ball? Well, how about the fact that her forebear, launched 28 April, 1779, ferried the Marquis de Lafayette to rendezvous with Washington where the talented young soldier could play a crucial role in the Yorktown campaign that secured the independence of the United States and led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Perhaps the strongest argument, though, why L\u2019Hermione<\/em> might be the best of the tall ships is this: She is a legitimate member of the original class of ships that she is a \u2018replica\u2019 of. That makes her not a replica, but a fourth member of an originally three-ship class started in 1777 with Concorde<\/em>. Her sister ships, Concorde<\/em>, Courageuse<\/em>, and Hermione<\/em> were all lost in conflict with the same Royal Navy that tried to snuff American independence along with the French Revolution, and very nearly succeeded at both. L\u2019Hermione<\/em> was built at the same shipyard, to the original plans of the Concorde<\/em> at Rochefort. Concorde<\/em> and Courageuse<\/em> went on to have stellar careers in Britain\u2019s Royal Navy after their captures, while the first Hermione<\/em> was wrecked on the rocks at Croisic in 1793 returning from patrol. So, you could say that L\u2019Hermione<\/em> is the best tall ship because she\u2019s just like her sister ship, which saved the United States, and is a member of a class of ships with commissioning dates that range from 1778 to 2012!<\/p>\n

Which still doesn\u2019t account for the incredible frenzy she\u2019s created on both sides of the Atlantic. Backed by the Hennessey Cognac company, L\u2019Hermione\u2019s construction took 17 years with a price tag of $32 million, according to the BBC and Business Insider<\/em>. She was exactingly created an international coterie of artisans using exclusively 18th-century tools. Her launching galas in Paris and Washington D.C. were black-tie events: Henry Kissinger was grand host of the U.S. shindig at the Smithsonian\u2019s Air and Space Museum.<\/p>\n

Maybe what\u2019s most amazing about L\u2019Hermione<\/em>\u2013and her retracing her historic 1780 Atlantic crossing to Yorktown\u2013is the geographic \u00e9lan of Lafayette at 23, rushing to George Washington\u2019s aid against Cornwallis in a sweeping gesture no doubt annoying to the British general (Lafayette always ate at the cool table). Some say L\u2019Hermione\u2019s<\/em> arrival in the New World to join the blockade that stopped supplies from reaching Cornwallis\u2019s troops altered the course of the Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n

Some of Lafayette\u2019s shipboard manuscripts survive [http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/8376\/8376-h\/8376-h.htm]. It\u2019s exciting to see this stylish new frigate writing fresh chapters as the summer of 2015 unfolds.<\/p>\n

She’s the one most recently armed for conflict.<\/strong><\/p>\n

USCG Eagle<\/em><\/p>\n

That might be true, but the USCGC Eagle<\/em> wasn\u2019t fighting for our side. Originally built as the training vessel Horst Wessel<\/em>, she prepared young sailors to fight for the Nazi regime from 1936 to 1939, when she was decommissioned. As the tide began to turn against the Third Reich, in 1942 she was recommissioned and fitted with Flakvierling AA guns and conducted training exercises for young Kriegsmarine cadets in the Baltic. The United States claimed the Horst Wessel<\/em> as a war prize and put her into service as the Eagle<\/em>. Like Werner Von Braun (father of Nazi Germany\u2019s and later America\u2019s rocketry programs in NASA), USCGC Eagle<\/em> has served the United States well after a questionable past.<\/p>\n

To read a young German sailor\u2019s log during the summer of 1937 aboard this very ship, before she became a war prize [there was a shuffle and at first the Soviet Union was going to get her, but then the U.S. got first dibs], visit http:\/\/www.uscg.mil\/history\/cutters\/Eagles\/docs\/horstwessel1937logbooktranslation.pdf. Patriotic singing was often heard on board. After sports contests in honor of the Fatherland, successful sailor-athletes received \u201cadditional special food delicacies.\u201d<\/p>\n

She’s a real soldier of fortune<\/strong><\/p>\n

Privateer Lynx<\/em><\/p>\n

Indeed, the topsail schooner Lynx<\/em> is built to represent a privateer from the grand days of commerce raiding, when with a letter of marque and a ship you could go play sanctioned pirate, capturing the merchant ships of an enemy\u00a0 navy for sale\u2013giving your own government a chunk of the proceeds. Homeported in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Lynx<\/em> brings to mind a time when the United States was the little guy in an asymmetric war.<\/p>\n

She’s the hardest worker.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Schooner Alert<\/em><\/p>\n

Launched as Tall Cotton<\/em> in 1991, she was bought by Roger Woodman, a commercial fisherman, in 2006. Renamed and re-equipped as the Alert<\/em>, she was used for research and ground fishing. She worked out of Portland for six years until she was sold to Captains Perry Davis and Bethany McNelly-Davis, who converted her to a commercial passenger carrying vessel. Perhaps more than any of the others, Alert <\/em>likes to pay her own bills!<\/p>\n

She’s sailed the farthest.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Picton Castle<\/em><\/p>\n

he 284-ton Picton Castle<\/em> was built in 1928 as a fishing trawler and then later refit with masts and sails as a barque. Her excellent seakeeping hull has made her ideal for long-range sail training missions\u2013indeed, in the last decade, she\u2019s completed six circumnavigations of the globe. Requiring far less maintenance than other tall ships, thanks to her working-built hull design, Picton Castle<\/em> might be the toughest of the fleet!<\/p>\n

She’s the strongest wooden ship ever constructed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Schooner Bowdoin<\/em><\/p>\n

The schooner Bowdoin<\/em>, flagship of the Maine Maritime Academy, was built by the Hodgdon Brothers of East Boothbay in 1921 to survey Arctic waters. That means her timbers were built to stand up to the kind of scrapes that took down the Titanic<\/em>. Bowdoin<\/em> continues in this vein, having completed three voyages past the Arctic circle crewed by MMA instructors and students since 1988. The 100-foot ship might not be the longest, but let\u2019s see any of those other gals shrug off an iceberg.<\/p>\n

She’s got the oldest design.<\/strong><\/p>\n

El Galeon Andalucia<\/em><\/p>\n

Certainly the sailors of El Galeon Andalucia<\/em> can say that. Homeported at the Spanish port of Seville, which would have been a home base familiar to Ferdinand Magellan, El Galeon Andalucia<\/em> is the world\u2019s only sailing replica of a true galleon, a ship type that predated the present day fully rigged ship. Easily distinguishable from the others by towering fore and aft castles and fewer, larger sails, El Galeon Andalucia<\/em> was constructed using simpler methods, for long-distance voyaging with a smaller crew. Compared to the other tall ships, she\u2019s a little slower than her companions built to more recent designs, illustrating how the tall-ship era was one of grand technological change and innovation.<\/p>\n

She’s bringing tall-ship construction back to the U.S.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oliver Hazard Perry<\/em><\/p>\n

That could certainly be said of the Oliver Hazard Perry<\/em>, which when finished was the first tall ship built in the United States in 110 years. The\u00a0 steel-hulled, full rigged ship built to approximate 19th-century design is the only one of the tall ships privately owned and operated in the United States, SSV Oliver Hazard Perry <\/em>might spark quite an interest, especially since her construction was just recently completed at an apparent cost of $3 million.<\/p>\n

She’s the real racer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tree of Life<\/em><\/p>\n

Not only is the Tree of Life<\/em> is a luxurious schooner built of teak and Honduran mahogany, she\u2019s a real thoroughbred. First place at Antigua Race Week, Classic Division, first overall in 1997 New Zealand Tall Ships Race are enough of a racing pedigree for us.<\/p>\n

She carries the day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Piscataqua<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, New England wouldn\u2019t have gotten off the ground without her, and [other] ships don\u2019t like her. The gundalow was the ship<\/em>, the best design settled on to go up and down Maine\u2019s rivers and between coastal towns. The gundalows were used to pick up all the consumer goods from the trade ships at the big ports, and ferried timber and bricks and other products from the mills back down. There\u2019s no way you could be from coastal New England without having some direct connection in your family to these vessels: They were the cargo trucks of the 19th century. They made everything move.\u201d\u2013Lisa Robblee<\/p>\n

We take you there in style.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Schooners Bagheera<\/em> and<\/em> Wendameen <\/em>and topsail cutter Frances<\/em><\/p>\n

So where can you get a day sail around these ships? Portland Schooner Company\u2019s two schooners\u2013both designed by John Alden\u2013sail with the tall ships, each certified for 48 guests per cruise. Bagheera <\/em>sailed in the Bermuda Race shortly after being built\u00a0 and went on to a long racing career, winning the Chicago-Mackinac Race. Wendameen<\/em> hosted such guests as Katherine Anne Porter and playwright Eugene O\u2019Neill. She was sold off and left to rot during the Depression, until rescued by Captain Neal Parker, who found her in a mudbank in the 1980s and had her restored from the keel up. The topsail cutter Frances,<\/em> operated by Maine Sailing Adventures, will join the schooners offering day sails during the festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summerguide 2015
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