USCGC Eagle (WIX-327)
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| Career (Germany) |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | February 15, 1936 |
| Launched: | 13 June 1936 |
| Commissioned: | 17 September 1936 |
| Decommissioned: | |
| Struck: | |
| Fate: | Transferred to United States |
| Career (U.S.) |  |
| Acquired: | |
| Commissioned: | 15 May 1946 |
| Status: | Active in service as of 2007. |
| Homeport: | New London, Conn. |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1,784 tons full load |
| Length: | 295 ft (89.7 m) overall 234 ft (71.0 m) waterline |
| Beam: | 39 ft 1 in (11.9 m) |
| Draft: | 17 ft 6 in (5.3 m) full load |
| Mast height Foremast: Mainmast: Mizzenmast: |
147.3 ft (44.9 m) 147.3 ft (44.9 m) 132.0 ft (40.2 m) |
| Sail Area: | 21,344 ft² (1,983 m²) |
| Propulsion: | 1 Caterpillar (C399) diesel engine (1980) |
| Speed: | 17 kt (31 km/h) under sail; 10 kt (19 km/h) under diesel |
| Range: | 5,450 nmi. at 7.5 kt under diesel power (10,000 km at 14 km/h) |
| Complement: | 19 officers, 56 crew, 175 cadets and instructors |
The USCGC Eagle (WIX-327) (ex-Horst Wessel) is a 295' barque used as a training cutter for future officers of the United States Coast Guard. She is the seventh U.S. Navy or Coast Guard ship to bear the name in a line dating back to 1792. Each summer, Eagle conducts cruises with cadets from the United States Coast Guard Academy and candidates from the Officer Candidate School for periods ranging from a week to two months. These cruises fulfill multiple roles; the primary mission is training the cadets and officer candidates, but the ship also performs a public relations role. Often, Eagle makes calls at foreign ports as a goodwill ambassador.
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[edit] Segelschulschiff Horst Wessel
The ship was built in 1936 as the second of three similar vessels (Gorch Fock class) at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany and used to train recruits for service in the Kriegsmarine. (At a later date, two further copies of this design were completed.) She was launched on 13 June 1936 and named for the well-known member of the NSDAP, Horst Wessel. Commissioned as a school ship for the German Navy (Reichsmarine) on 17 September 1936, she was homeported in Kiel on the Baltic Sea.
In the three years before World War II, she undertook numerous training cruises in European waters, but also visited the Caribbean. In 1941 she was converted to a cargo ship, transporting men and supplies throughout the Baltic Sea, but continued to perform training missions as well. The ship is said to have downed three aircraft in combat during this period.
At the end of World War II, the four vessels then existent were distributed to various nations as war reparations (Gorch Fock I went to the USSR as the Tovarich, Albert Leo Schlageter went to Portugal as Sagres II, and the Mircea was completed and sold to Romania). Later, West Germany constructed a fifth vessel of the class, Gorch Fock II for its own use.
The Horst Wessel was taken as a war prize by the United States. She was first sent to Wilhelmshaven, Germany, for repairs and modification, and was commissioned on 15 May 1946 into the United States Coast Guard as the Eagle. In 1946 a U.S. Coast Guard crew, assisted by her German captain and crew still aboard, sailed her from Bremerhaven, through a hurricane, to her new home port of New London, Connecticut.
[edit] "America's Tall Ship"
The Eagle has a standing crew of six officers and 56 enlisted; on training missions, she carries on the average a complement of 12 officers, 68 crew, and up to 150 cadets. Each year, she takes one long training cruise to the Caribbean, or to Europe, and two shorter ones along the U.S. east coast.
During her many years of service, Eagle has traveled to ports throughout the United States and overseas. Among her various cruises, Eagle has participated in various Tall Ship races and events including the various incarnations of Operation Sail, most notably the bicentennial OpSail '76.
In the early 1980s, she undertook a yearlong cruise to Australia from her home at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. During this cruise Academy instructors were embarked to conduct the cadets' courses while underway. In 2005, as part of the Trafalgar 200 International Fleet Review in the Solent off Southern England, the Eagle was one of a number of tall ships from several nations to be reviewed by Queen Elizabeth II, along with the large Navy warship USS Saipan (LHA-2). Eagle returned to Bremerhaven for the first time since World War II in the summer of 2005, to an enthusiastic welcome.
[edit] Specifications
The design and construction of Eagle embody centuries of development in the shipbuilder's art. The Eagle is slightly larger than her sister ship Gorch Fock. The hull is steel four-tenths of an inch (10 mm) thick. There are two full-length steel decks with a platform deck below. The raised forecastle and quarterdeck are made of three-inch thick teak over steel, as are the weather decks. Her auxiliary diesel engine is with its (1000 hp) also somewhat more powerful than that of the Gorch Fock. There are two 320 KW Catepillar generators that can be run single or paralleled. The Eagle has a range of 5450 nautical miles (10,000 km) at her cruise speed of 7.5 knots (14 km/h) under diesel power.
In 1976, the Coast Guard added the "racing stripe" to her otherwise unadorned white hull.
More specifications are at http://www.uscga.edu/eagle/eagle_stats.aspx
[edit] Trivia
The Eagle has a significant presence in the Nantucket series of books by S. M. Stirling, in which she is visiting the island of Nantucket when a mysterious "Event" transports the entire island, including the Eagle and her crew, back to the year 1250 BC. Sent across the Atlantic Ocean to barter for the grain and stock the time-lost Nantucketers need to survive through their first winter, her arrival off the south coast of Bronze Age England leads the natives to name her crew (and, by extension, the rest of the Island's population) as 'The Eagle People'. Although the Eagle described in the books is based on the real-world ship, all of her crew is fictional.
The Eagle uses baggywrinkles extensively to protect its sails from chafing. People who see it for the first time are usually very intrigued by what it is.
[edit] See also
- See USCGC Eagle, USRC Eagle and USS Eagle for other U.S. ships of this name.
- See Sagres II, Gorch Fock I and Mircea for her sister ships.
[edit] External links
- The home page of the USCGC Eagle at the United States Coast Guard Academy.
- Old home page of the USCGC Eagle. This article is based in part on text from that site.
- uscg.mil: USCGC Eagle
- JanMaat page on the Horst Wessel (in German).
