CANCELLED: Coast Guard Tall Ship Eagle to sail into Rockland Harbor, welcomes public for tours
Aug. 4, 2024 update: The Rockland area Coast Guard has cancelled public tours of the Eagle.
The USCGC Eagle, a 295-foot, three masted barque carrying over 22,000 square feet of sails, will call in the port of Rockland.
The Eagle arrives on August 2 and will depart on August 5. During this visit the ship will be moored at the Coast Guard pier located at the harbor end of Tillson Avenue in Rockland.
The ship will be open to the public for tours on Aug 2, noon to 4 p.m.; Aug. 3, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Aug. 4, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Known as "America's Tall Ship", Eagle is the seventh U.S. Coast Guard cutter to bear the name since 1792. She is one of only two active commissioned sailing vessels in the United States military today, along with USS Constitution homeported in Boston, Massachusetts.
Each summer, Eagle deploys with cadets from the United States Coast Guard Academy and candidates from the Officer Candidate School on training cruises. The ship offers these future officers the opportunity to put into practice the navigation, engineering and professional theory learned in the classroom. Upper-class trainees exercise leadership and perform the duties normally handled by junior officers, while under-class trainees fill the positions of junior enlisted crewmembers. The experience builds character and helps future officers develop leadership and teamwork skills that prove valuable throughout their careers. A permanent crew of eight officers and fifty enlisted personnel maintain the ship year-round.
The steel-hulled, square-rigged barque was built by the Blohm and Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, and was originally commissioned as Horst Wessel in 1936. The ship was taken as a war reparation after World War II and sailed from Bremerhaven to New London, Connecticut
CGC Eagle Particulars:
Length – 295 feet (90 meters), 233 feet (71.02 meters) at waterline
Draft, fully loaded – 17 feet (5.18 meters)
Displacement - 1,816 tons (1,647.4 metric tons)
Rigging - 6 miles (9.7 km), standing and running
Height of mainmast and foremast - 147.3 feet (44.9 meters) above the waterline
Height of mizzenmast – 132 feet (40.2 meters) above the waterline
Speed under full sail – 17.5 knots; under power- 11 knots
Number of Sails – 23 with a sail area of 22,300 square feet (6,797 square meters)
Engine - 1,000 horsepower diesel Caterpillar D399 engine
Further information is available at: https://uscga.edu/mission/eagle/about-eagle/ or at