USCGC Eagle (WIX-327)

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For other ships of the same name, see USCGC Eagle.

Career (Nazi Germany)
USCGC Eagle under sail.
Name:	Segelschulschiff Horst Wessel
Namesake:	Horst Wessel
Laid down:	15 February 1936
Launched:	13 June 1936
Commissioned:	17 September 1936
Fate:	Transferred to United States
Career (United States)
Commissioned:	15 May 1946
Homeport:	United States Coast Guard Academy (New London, Connecticut)
Status:	Active in service as of 2008
General characteristics
Displacement:	1,784 LT (1,813 t/1,998 ST) full load
Length:	295 ft (90 m) overall 234 ft (71 m) waterline
Beam:	39 ft 1 in (11.9 m)
Draft:	17 ft 6 in (5.3 m) full load
Propulsion:	1 × Caterpillar (C399) diesel engine (1980)
Sail plan:	Foremast: 147.3 ft (44.9 m) Mainmast: 147.3 ft (44.9 m) Mizzenmast: 132.0 ft (40.2 m) Sail Area: 21,344 sq ft (1,982.9 m²)
Speed:	17 kn (31 km/h/20 mph) under sail 10 kn (19 km/h/12 mph) under diesel
Range:	5,450 nmi (10,090 km/6,270 mi) at 7.5 kn (13.9 km/h/8.6 mph) under diesel (range unlimited by fuel under sail)
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 only active commissioned sailing vessel in American government service. 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.

1 Segelschulschiff Horst Wessel
2 "America's Tall Ship"
3 Specifications
4 Trivia
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Segelschulschiff Horst Wessel

Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany could not be militarized. Hitler ordered the creation of this sailing ship and its sister ships to train Navy cadets, but the ships were constructed with the exact same engine room setup and frame as U-boats. By the time World War II would begin, the Navy had already trained many of its U-boat machinists and officers.

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 by Adolf Hitler himself 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. Equipped with two antiaircraft guns on its bridge wings, the ship is said to have downed three Soviet aircraft and one "friendly" German aircraft in combat during this period. The crew had realized the "friendly" aircraft they had shot down was German when it was spiraling into the sea. The crew set a rescue mission and retrieved the German pilot. When he set foot on the ship, he was furious and wanted an explanation. Upon further research of the logs and radio personnel the pilot had been using the wrong codes for the battle group, showing the now embarrassed pilot that it was actually his fault.

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 Tovarishch, Albert Leo Schlageter went to Portugal as Sagres III, 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 Coast Guard Cutter 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, the Pacific Coast, or Europe, and two shorter ones along the U.S. east coast.

USCGC Eagle leading a parade of ships, New York, July 4, 2000.

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 September 1987, 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, at 1,000hp, is also somewhat more powerful than that of the Gorch Fock. There are two 320 KW Caterpillar 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.

Eagle has over 6 miles of running rigging and approximately 22,300 square feet of sail area. Overall she displaces 1824 tons.

In 1976, the Coast Guard added the "racing stripe" to her otherwise unadorned white hull.

The current Commanding Officer Chris Sinnett, EAGLE's 25th Captain

[edit] Trivia

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

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 them for the first time are usually very intrigued by what they are.