Tag: tall ship

Great Lakes Sloop Sails Into the Past

  • Bonnie Wilson, left, and Megan Blough, right, act as crewmembers on the Friends Good Will dressed in full period costume. (Photo by Tamar Charney)

This summer there’s a new ship plying the waters of the Great Lakes. The ship stretches 101 feet from end to end and is a replica of a sloop that did battle in the War of 1812. Those on board are hoping to provide a glimpse of what it was like to sail the lakes in the 1800’s. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney takes us on board the “Friends Good
Will”:

Transcript

This summer there’s a new ship plying the waters of the Great
Lakes. The ship stretches 101 feet from end to end and is a replica of a
sloop that did battle in the War of 1812. Those on board are hoping to
provide a glimpse of what it was like to sail the lakes in the 1800’s.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney takes us on board the “Friends Good Will:”


There’s this famous phrase from the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of
1812. U.S. Commodore Perry sent a dispatch that read,
“We have met the enemy and they are ours.”
It goes on though, and reads “Two Ships, two brigs, one schooner and a
sloop.” That sloop was the Friend’s Good Will.


The sailboat looks like a pirate ship or something out of the movie Master
and Commander. 19-year-old Megan Blough and 75-year-old Bonnie Wilson are
loosening ropes from wooden pins so the ships biggest sail can be raised.


(Sound of orders and talking)


WILSON: “Being a crewmember, you get to go out once or twice a week on it.”


CHARNEY: “Now, as a crewmember, what do you do?”


WILSON: “Whatever the captain tells me to do. I just generally help; I try to let all the heavy stuff go to the men. I have gone out in the bowsprit, but I prefer to let the younger ones do that.”


That’s because she’d have to climb out on that piece that sticks out over
the water in the front of a one of these tall ships while wearing period
clothing to boot.


WILSON: “This is supposedly a typical uniform from a sailor in 1812. Wore the
plants with the flap in front and they usually wore a striped shirt and a kerchief and a
straw hats.”


Replicating the Friends Good Will was Jim Spurr’s idea. He’s a lawyer and
an avid sailor. He worked with the Michigan Maritime Museum in South
Haven to research historic records and come up with a ship the Museum
could recreate and let people sail.


“It is the only ship sailing the Great Lakes as a tall ship that
served both as a merchant vessel, a Royal Naval vessel, and a United States
Naval vessel all in just three short seasons. She had penchant for being a
wrong place at wrong time, and it is really a great story. So it enables
the museum to educate visitors and school children about all three different
maritime traditions.”


But this isn’t a teacher and classroom sort of education. The idea is
that people onboard will experience what it was like to sail at that time
in history. Barbara Kruiser is the executive director of the Michigan
Maritime Museum.


“This will be a performance, and as the season goes on and we get
better at what we’re doing, it will be a performance and they will talk to
one another as they would have spoken 200 years ago, and we’ll try to be
using some of the same language of that day as well as just of this
particular occupation.”


She says Friends Good Will will take out school groups. There will be
sails for the general public including sunset cruises and overnight sails.
And while there are a number of places around the Great Lakes where you
can see a tall ship or even sail on one, Barbara Kruiser says Friends Good
Will is the only one where the crew is in costume.


Jim Spurr says he is thrilled his idea is now reality. But didn’t get to go
out on this sail. As Friends Good Will left the dock, he had to go back to
work. Which may be why he could best put his finger on what it is about
being out on the water in a ship at the mercy of the winds that so
captures our imagination.


SPURR: “Well perhaps all of us in our hearts wish we had more adventure in
our lives and there’s nothing more adventurous than setting out in a
historic tall ship for parts unknown going roving or exploring.”


And even if Friends Good Will will rarely sail out of view of its home
port, it’s still fun to pretend.


(Sound of singing)


For the GLRC, I’m Tamar Charney.

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The Allure of Tall Ships

  • Tall Ships cross the starting line in one of the many races over the waters of the Great Lakes. Photo by Todd Jarrell

This summer, tall ships are plying the Great Lakes, offering millions of people on-board tours and the spectacle of the Parades of Sail. But most people don’t sail, and certainly not on tall ships. Most have no idea how a sailboat sails. So, what is the fascination with these ships? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Jarrell has spent several years sailing the world on the tall ships, and he offers some personal perspective:

Transcript

This summer the tall ships are plying the Great Lakes offering millions of people on-board tours and the spectacle of the Parades of Sail. But most people don’t sail, and certainly not on tall ships. Most have no idea how a sailboat sails. So, what is the fascination with these ships? What is it that they come to see? Writer and adventurer Todd Jarrell has spent several years sailing the world on the tall ships, and he offers some personal perspective.


With their canvas palisades and pennants flying, today’s tall ships are every bit as grand and romantic as their ancestors, perhaps more so for their rarity. One’s imagination follows them to sea; envisioning sun-drenched decks and star spangled night watches.
One sees the crews lay aloft on towering masts to loose billowing sails as deckhands work in concert below. One expects the cobwebs of a sedentary life or the stresses of the workaday world to be swept away on the freshening breeze. Truly, it is difficult to find in our world of instantaneous gratification, more fitting symbols of a straightforward way of life.


To the novice the attraction to a tall ship is a kind of infatuation, a friendship, but to some it becomes a love, founded in sweat and bound in mutual trust. The sailor’s term, “One hand for yourself and one hand for the ship,” describes this symbiosis: each does their part to keep both above the waves.


The wind ships, once mankind’s most vital vehicles, were the far-ranging satellites of the Age of Discovery. It was the tall ships that carried the conquerors, colonists and zealots, as they crossed the hemispheres, their chart lines stitching the known world to the new.
Their determination is humbling – however suspect their motives may be – as many sailed for glory, certain Providence was at their side, and with the promise of riches before them like a golden carrot at the end of every jib boom. They claimed the riches and real estate – even the souls – of lands they considered “new” and “undiscovered.”
Religions, foods and philosophies all were carried to a world that was, like a child, only beginning to comprehend its own size, shape and cultural complexities.


Today the tall ships are icons of that adventurous time and, worldwide, festivals swarm with those who bask in their grandeur. Strolling the decks of their own imaginations people visit a common heritage, seeking a sense of connectedness, a tangible link to their histories and ancestors for surely all were touched by the ships – the pilgrims, the immigrants, the natives, the slaves. The masts and yards tower and sprout as upturned roots of a collective family tree.


The mission of the ships has forever changed; the heart of the fleet no longer beats to the drum of war but pulses still in the veins of the adventurer. By one sea skipper’s estimation, more people have in the last forty years orbited earth in space than have circumnavigated in a traditional tall ship. But the arcane arts of the sea are still preserved in sail-training programs for young men and women and it is an undeniably expansive experience – if not an easy one.


Witnessed from shore, the stately vessels set out to sea with ease, but from on deck, one appreciates fully the learning curve of the tall ship trainee – a curve as near vertical as the masts themselves. Here one sees the blistered hands and homesickness, the dismal days spent in wet weather gear and the bleariness of crew for whom a good night’s sleep seems the stuff of a long ago life. Here are 4am wake up calls to crawl from a warm rack to work on a dark, rolling deck in a stinging cold rain – and much worse.


Far from the familiar, trainees must plumb themselves for unknown depths of character.
The distance many journey cannot be calculated in nautical miles, nor by latitude and longitude, for the vanishing point of well-developed confidence and curiosity is far beyond measure.


So when the crowds call on these vessels, when they line the shores awaiting the whimsy wind to carry the ships past, it has nothing to do with blockbuster entertainment or bang for the buck. Rather it’s that people somehow sense that here is found a promising future in the past.

Tall Ships Set Sail

  • The Pride of Baltimore II will be plying the waters of the Great Lakes this summer along with dozens of other tall ships from all over the world. Photo by Thad Koza

A dozen or so tall sailing ships are dropping anchor at Great Lakes ports this summer as part of an event that’s both a race and a tour. The Tall Ships Challenge will be an opportunity for thousands of people to see replicas of a bygone era. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Barnett has more:

Paul Cox wrote and produced this story.

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