VESSELS

America’s Tall Ship

USCGC EAGLE BARQUE (WIX 327)

The U.S. Coast Guard Eagle is used as a training ship for Coast Guard cadets.   The ship offers 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 50 enlisted personnel maintain the ship year round and provide a strong base of knowledge and seamanship for the training of up to 150 cadets or officer candidates at a time.
 Known as “America’s Tall Ship”, Eagle is the seventh U.S. Coast Guard cutter to bear the name in a proud line dating back to one of the original Revenue Cutters built in 1792. The square-rigged barque was built by the Blohm and Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, and originally commissioned as Horst Wessel in 1936. The steel-hulled ship was taken as a war reparation after World War II, and a U.S. Coast Guard crew – aided by the German crew still on board – sailed the tall ship from Bremerhaven to New London. To maneuver Eagle under sail, the crew must handle more than 22,000 square feet of sail and five miles of rigging. Built during the twilight era of sail, the design and construction of Eagle embody centuries of development in the shipbuilder’s art.
Think you’ve seen the Eagle before?  Eagle was recently outfitted with a new figurehead. The job took 3 years resulting in a new 2,000 pound, 15 foot bald eagle in gleaming gold made, for the first time, of fibergalss, its wings lifted on either side of the bow.

USCGC Ida Lewis

Home ported in Newport, Rhode Island, USCGC IDA LEWIS’s area of responsibility spans from Long Island Sound, New York to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. USCGC IDA LEWIS is responsible for a total of 374 aids to navigation. In addition to her primary mission of aids to navigation, USCGC IDA LEWIS also conducts search and rescue, domestic icebreaking, and ports, waterways, and coastal security.

Enviro-Lab II “Project O”

Project Oceanology provides more than 20,000 students and adults annually with opportunities to learn about the ocean through firsthand exploration and experiences. Nurturing interest and inspiring enthusiasm for science and for our planet’s marine environment from our year-round waterfront facility in Groton, Connecticut, our vision is to be the center of excellence for inquiry, and place-based science and marine education serving the evolving needs of our global community.