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Travel: US Brig Niagara Home: greenlightwrite.com featuring Frog Find this page!
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Travel: US Brig Niagara Home: greenlightwrite.com featuring Frog Find this page!
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April 18, 2007: My adventure begins in Erie, PA, the home port of the
It took all day to untie all the lines holding the cover to the hull of the Niagara, roll the sections of the cover like rugs and carry/ease/slide the pieces to the landing. We spread them out in the sun to let them dry.
Then we started on each end of the ship and took off the side frames before dismantling and removing the center. It was a beautiful day and everyone was working very hard. By midday we were down to t-shirts. That night it snowed.
The picture of me (above) all bundled up was taken a couple of weeks ago while we were working under the cover near the bow. We've spent the last couple of days tightening the standing rigging on each side of the masts you see in the overhead picture. Once at the proper tension, standing rigging is left alone.
July 4, 2007: Here are a couple pictures of me living the glamorous life of a Niagara sailor.
Rob Blood, the third mat, and I are manning the tiller. He's looking at the radar and I'm watching the compass. The tachometers for the engines are in the foreground. In the background is the hammock rail where hammocks are sometimes stored, but we usually keep life jackets and immersion suits (for cold water) there. The heavy lines hanging in the background are for mooring the ship.
I'm still on the tiller. (The ship doesn't have a wheel.) The long sleeves and long pants are to keep the bugs from eating me. The ship is clean but the flying insects in the neighborhood like to visit. In the background you can see the raised bridge deck where the mate on watch can see outside the ship. Where I'm standing at the tiller I can't see over the hammock rail. Below the bridge deck are two of the ship's fenders, which keep us from being destroyed by rubbing against a pier. The ship is leaving for Sandusky, Ohio about 0600 Thursday. The original plan was to anchor in the Erie bay Wednesday night and watch the fireworks. But then we realized the bay would be full of drunken boaters who might hit us, and that would be more trouble than it's worth. I'm driving the ship's van to Sandusky, Ohio . (I was chosen to volunteer for the job.) I'll be providing ground support once the ship gets into town. Niagara is scheduled to leave for Erie late Sunday. They better hurry and get back because if the state legislature doesn't pass a budget, then several members of the crew including the captain and chief mate will not be allowed to sail the ship. They will anyway to get back, but they'll be laid off when they return. The Maritime Museum will also close.
July 11, 2007: Here are a couple of shots of the ship. We usually don't sail with this much canvas up. Raising this many sails is done just for the pictures.
We're back from a weekend in Sandusky. Only about 600 people visited. In Monroe, MI we had over 7000 visitors in two days.
August, 9, 2007: Hi kids, Another long deployment on the U.S. Brig Niagara has come to an end. It was almost a week away from Erie on a journey to Toledo, OH and back. Over the weekend we were there more than six thousand people came to visit. It's a good thing there was plenty of medicinal alcohol at my new favorite Toledo pub, The Blarney Stone. Too bad they weren't serving a drink we came to like in Sandusky called "A Phone Call To God." But we made do. We found the place just down the street from the Mudhens' ballpark. One more journey remains for the year. Next Tuesday we leave for what promises to be a wild weekend in Lorraine, OH. After that it's nothing but day sails for the remainder of the sailing season. Starting in mid-September we start taking her apart for her long winter's nap. It has been a great summer. I'm including some pictures I took (or had taken) on this trip. One day out of Erie, without a breath of wind, we put a cutter in the water so we could go for a ride and take some snaps of the ship. I'm the good looking sailor in one of them. Then we had swim call. The distance from the end of the head rig to the water is about thirty feet. It sure takes a long time to travel that far when you jump. The water isn't nearly as cold as it was in June when we were on our way to Monroe, MI.
One of the pictures was taken of the ship as we were passing Cleveland and shooting our starboard side carronade. The smoke is from two pounds of black powder. My job on the gun crew is to help pull on the tackle to position the gun for firing and to insert a brass pin into the touchhole to pierce the aluminum packet containing the charge. Then I duck out of the way so I don't get caught by the recoil. In the War of 1812, the ship fired a broadside of nine carronades with four pounds of powder shooting a 32 pound ball. Even the reduced charge is still a heck of a kick.
That's about it for now. Next week I'll be on a t'gallant yard (the highest ones in the pictures) loosing the sail and hoping to catch a favorable wind en route to lands of tropical enchantment. Sailing Niagara sure beats working for a living.
August 13, 2007: I had the conn for a gun ex. This is only two pounds of powder, not the four pounds needed to shoot a thirty two pound ball. The fighting top is the first platform up each mast from the deck. That is where sharpshooters would fire down on the deck of an enemy ship. I wouldn't have noticed it if one of the gunners, Ryno, had not mentioned it, but there is LARGE recoil with this shot. Note: Bob sent a video with this e-mail, but if you've been following my July and August weblog, you know I'm having trouble working with videos. Sorry, Nancy
The Niagara leaves the basin in Erie heading into Presque Isle Bay (note Rum Runners on the left under the expensive plastic palm trees).
August 23, 2007: Niagara returned safely from Lorain, Ohio Wednesday afternoon. Lorain is a small, sleepy city with little night life (except for the club where you had to submit to a search to enter) and a pretty good library. We only had a few hundred people visit the ship on the one day we were open for tours. The weather was mostly good. I had a new job when the ship was in the harbors and at anchorage: I was the crew of the small boat we have with an outboard motor, which we use to maneuver the bow of the ship in close quarters. The name of that position is "Bow Bunny." I only got hit in the head twice by Niagara's ready-to-drop-just-in-case anchor. We sailed to Put-In-Bay in the western end of Lake Erie and arrived Thursday afternoon. Later that day we took the ship's boats into the town and had time to wander around and sample the local brew. Another sailboat, Albacore V, anchored near us.
Anchored off Put-In-Bay near Albacore V
We got under way that evening and about 3 a. m., the gentle breeze we were enjoying rose up to about thirty knots. We kept having to go aloft to take in sail and then go up to put reefs in the few sails we were flying. A reef is taken in when a portion of the bottom of a sail is gathered up and tied in place to reduce the size of a sail when it's set. It was a dark and stormy night (sorry, but I couldn't resist), and it was also a little scary. The few people in my division on watch weren't enough to do the job, so we had to wake up more of the crew to assist. At the time we were rolling and pitching fairly strong. Around dawn the wind moderated for us. Friday morning, we were off Lorain and the wind picked up even stronger than the night before. It was a beautiful day but the wind was over thirty knots again and there were five to eight foot swells on the lake. We had to change the sail configuration several times. We spent over an hour aloft taking in sails and reefing others. Even with just four sails up, we were making almost ten knots. There was plenty of water splashing up on deck through the open gun ports on the bow.
Approaching the drawbridge entering the river at Lorain and then crossing under it. We braced up sharp (turned the yards as far from the ship's centerline as possible) in order to reduce the width of the ship under the bridge.
Lorain was south of our position on the lake. Because the wind was coming from the south, our arrival was delayed. We just couldn't go in that direction. We had to tack and work our way there. It was the roughest weather we've had all season. And the most fun. We were a hundred feet or so up the masts on the yards working hard, fighting the wind, working the sails and trying to hang on. We were laughing like fools and having a grand time that day. There is nothing in the world like it. The scariest part was climbing and descending the shrouds. Those are the heavy black lines that run from the deck to the first level of the mast. Then the next set runs from the fighting tops (the first platforms going up) on each mast to the next level up. As the ship is rolling, it's easy to move because you're leaning into the lines. Then the ship rolls the other way, past the vertical, and now you're hanging on for your life. The ship is pitching and the wind is blowing and I know I don't want to be anywhere else. (We can't hook up our safety harnesses while we're moving, just when we reach our destination.) Saturday was tour day and it was easy living. The crowds weren't too large, and the weather was pleasant. There weren't any receptions aboard on this trip so we got knock off right after dinner. Sunday we had a day sail with some members of a Cleveland yacht club. It rained like hell. All day. The phrase "collective suffering" more than applies here. The crew got soggy and stayed that way. Monday was no better so with heavy seas and wind from the east, we stayed in port to wait it out. We left Tuesday morning and because the wind was now so light, we motored most of the way before catching some air Wednesday and finally doing some sailing. Two hours of work followed that to put the ship to bed. Then after visiting that fine local [Erie, PA] drinking establishment, Rum Runners, I got in last evening and started my recovery. I can tell it wasn't a tough trip because I only slept for eleven hours last night. Plus two naps this afternoon.
The Niagara leaves the basin in Erie heading into Presque Isle Bay (note Rum Runners on the left under the expensive plastic palm trees).
This was the last trip of the season for Niagara. From now on until mid-September or so it's just day sails where we take paying customers out onto the lake in the morning and then back in by Happy Hour. There is talk of a multi-week trip next year to Chicago and Toronto and other exotic ports of call. Stay tuned. |
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John Baker took this photo of the Niagara after a Coast Guard inspection
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