US Brig Niagara - The Ship's Log » Sail Training

Spring is Here! Due to Fair Weather Forecast, Niagara Crew to Uncover the Ship Early!

Billy Sabatini — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:53:33 +0000

In an annual effort to prepare the Flagship Niagara for the summer sailing season, the ship’s volunteer crew will don their work clothes this Friday and Saturday, March 19^th and 20^th to remove the ship’s winter cover. Originally scheduled for removal on Saturday, March 27^th, the project has been moved earlier due to the weather forecast for the next ten days.

Made of steel posts, wooden beams, and traditional canvas, the ship’s winter cover is designed to protect the ship during strong winter gales and heavy ice and snow. The volunteer and professional crewmembers will begin removing canvas at 11am on Friday, March 19, and will remove the cover’s framing on Saturday.

“This Saturday marks the beginning of the 20^th sailing season for the Flagship Niagara, and we intend to celebrate it by sailing more, taking more people out on the water, and delivering our educational cargo to more people this year than ever before” said Capt. Wesley Heerssen. “To do this, we need to get the ship prepared for sailing earlier than ever before. This was an El Nino winter…shorter and milder than usual, and we intend to take advantage of the early spring. We’re going to uncover the ship this weekend with volunteers, then get the ship cleaned up for the seasonal crew to move onboard when they arrive in Erie next weekend. With any luck, we’ll only see a couple inches of wet snow in late March, which we’ll have to plod our way through, and then we’ll rig up the ship in time for sailing on April 29^th.”

“The public are, as always, invited to volunteer as ship’s crew, and it’s never too late to get started. This Saturday, new and prospective volunteers are asked to show up at the rear entrance to the Erie Maritime Museum, directly at the dock, alongside the ship, at 9am. New volunteers should ask for the Chief Mate, Billy Sabatini, and he’ll get them signed up and started” said Capt. Heerssen.

TALL SHIPS ERIE !!!!!!!

Billy Sabatini — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:23:03 +0000

THE FLAGSHIP NIAGARA LEAGUE PROUDLY PRESENTS

TALL SHIPS ERIE 2010

WHAT: The first Tall Ships festival in Erie, Pa., in a decade!

WHEN: Thurs., September 9 through Sunday, September 12, 2010

WHERE: Dobbins Landing and the Erie Maritime Museum

WHO: The Flagship Niagara League will host a four-day Tall Ships festival in partnership with the Erie County Historical Society’s one-day Heritage Festival.

WHY: The Flagship Niagara League seized an opportunity to bring this breathtaking festival, which is unique to the Great Lakes region, to the Erie Bayfront in the fall of 2010. People from the tri-state region and beyond will enjoy four days of bayside sailing enjoyment and help to raise funds for the Flagship Niagara League, which maintains and operates Pennsylvania’s Flagship, the U.S. Brig Niagara.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: TBA, but activities will include public day sails, a parade of sail, school tours, public tours, free Erie Maritime Museum tours, private receptions, craft and food vendors, and musical entertainment.

Look for updates at www.tallshipserie.com

Essay Competition

Billy Sabatini — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:23:37 +0000

Erie students will have an opportunity to compete for trainee berths on Niagara this summer in a essay competition. Here is the press release for it:

Essay Competition Press Release

New Sailing Program for Niagara

Billy Sabatini — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:09:05 +0000

Here is the press release for our latest program that has been developed.

College Consortium Press Release

2010 Sailing Schedule

Billy Sabatini — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:47:21 +0000

Here is the latest Sailing Schedule. We are leaving for the college consortium earlier than in the last schedule.

2010 Sailing Schedule Version 3-2-10

I have also changed the schedule in the previous posts as well.

26 New Volunteers!!!

Billy Sabatini — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:59:33 +0000

The first class of Winter Sail Training 2010 will be Saturday, Jan 30th. There are 35 people that will be taking part in the training including 26 people that signed up last Sat. during the Volunteer Orientation. The day was a great success. Between the new volunteers and our regular group that comes down we have around 60 people here. These are the kind of numbers we want to see every weekend from now on. Thank you all who came down. We were able to get a lot of work down very quickly with that kind of workforce and we were on TV.

New Volunteer Orientation/Winter Sail Training

Billy Sabatini — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:07:02 +0000

This Saturday will be the start of this years Winter Sail Training beginning with a new volunteer Orientation. If you or anyone else is interested in joining out volunteer crowd come on down.

This is the advertisement that is going out on other websites and blogs.

If you’re age 16 or over, and interested in preserving history, sailing, or the great outdoors, then the US Brig Niagara, www.flagshipniagara.org, needs you! As the 2010 summer sailing season approaches, Erie residents and anyone from the tri-state area are invited to attend an orientation for new volunteers at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 16th, 2010 at the Erie Maritime Museum, 150 East Front St, Erie, PA.

US Brig Niagara Training

Our course will focus on the fundamentals of square-rig seamanship and the volunteers will directly apply those skills in fitting-out the ship for sailing in May

New volunteers may sign up to join our well-trained volunteer crew to help maintain and learn to sail the ship. Niagara volunteers form an invaluable part of the ship’s sailing crew each summer. They receive sail training during the winter and provide continuity from year to year, which helps whenever new volunteers and trainees join the ship.

“During the dark winter months, Niagara is an upbeat place where volunteers can come to find a special camaraderie with shipmates that stems from their mutual pride in caring for the ship. Niagara is a famous icon of Erie, with a story of great national significance. Her preservation and operation go hand-in-hand with the proper interpretation of her history. Has there ever been a more important time to consider the significance of our history and decide to preserve such a tremendous educational tool as Niagara?” said Captain Wesley Heerssen.

New volunteers are invited to attend a sail training course (at no cost), which includes hands-on training in the museum’s rigging loft, and on the full-scale indoor model of Niagara’s Topgallant mast. The course begins with the orientation on January 16th and continues on alternate Saturdays through April 24th.

While the course is free, the Niagara relies on volunteer service to maintain the ship. Volunteers are invited and encouraged to help sail Niagara in the summer months as their availability permits. “Our course will focus on the fundamentals of square-rig seamanship and the volunteers will directly apply those skills in fitting-out the ship for sailing in May,” said Captain Heerssen.

Sign up for Orientation no later than Thursday, January 14th by calling Julie Wagner in the Erie Maritime Museum office at 814-452-BRIG, extension 222.

Collaboration with the Bayfront Center for Maritime Studies

Billy Sabatini — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:48:26 +0000

Yesterday was the beginning of a collaboration with BCMS. The shipwright Bob Arlet gave a demonstration to 15 Erie School District high school students on how to steam bend frames for a boat. The t’gallant yards were then shouldered and brought over to the Bayfront Center by the students. The ship’s professional crew will be working with the Erie School District High School students starting tomorrow. Our goal is to dress the yards completely from sanding and varnishing to bending on the sails and all the work will be done by the students. We are all very excited to be working with the Bayfront Center on this project. This is a good opportunity for these students to see another aspect of the maritime world here in Erie. I hope that this is just the first of many collaborations between our organizations to utilise the wonderful waterfront maritime campus that we share.

2010 Sailing Schedule

Billy Sabatini — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:51:15 +0000

2010 Sailing Schedule Version 3-2-10

So the schedule has been put together as best we can this far in advance. We wanted to get this out there as soon as possible so people start making plans now. There is always a chance that the schedule will change and we will contact anyone who is affected by the change if you have signed up for a particular passage. As soon as we have determined what the TBD(To Be Determined) sections will be I will update the schedule with a new post.

I encourage all of you to sign up to be a trainee for passages soon. This is a big season for us with many great passages to make and thousands of miles to sail on all 5 Great Lakes. We are also going to be a part of the Tall Ships Challenge Race Series with ASTA racing against many other tall ships. With ports stops of Duluth, Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto, Green Bay and Put in Bay it’s sure to be a fun summer and quite the adventure. Trainees will start joining the ship once we start uprig and will leave once downrig is complete. Let’s fill the ship this summer!

Who wants to go sailing?

20 New Volunteers

Billy Sabatini — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:22:25 +0000

Orientation Day went very well on Saturday. With minimal advertising we still ended up with 20 new people. This is very exciting. The first sail training class is this Saturday.

In other news the Mast is almost ready to go. We have a few seizings to be done(outside in the snow) by the boatswain and hopefully we will be ready to go by the end of the week if the weather cooperates with us.