Under sail

When I woke up, it was very clear something was different. I had fallen asleep to the (not at all gentle) purr of the twin diesel screws. Now, being woken up for the 2300 to 0300 watch, I couldn't hear them at all. The deck was pitch black, but I could tell the ship was rolling a lot more than what I was used to. I swung out of the hammock and onto the deck, making a futile attempt to avoid stepping on the people scattered across the deck sleeping. Then came the fun of rummaging through my seabag. If you want to know what using a seabag is like, try the following:

1. Buy a military surplus duffelbag
2. Set up duffelbag so it is mostly vertical (Try hanging it from a doorknob, this is close to the right height)
3. Place an item you know you will need into the duffelbag first.
4. Pile 2-3 weeks of dirty laundry on top of said item.
5. Turn off all of the lights in the room
6. Dig through the clothes. (Hurry! You only have 2 minutes until you have to be on duty on deck!)
7. Items deemed in the way are only to be removed in a last ditch effort.

Did you find what you were looking for? Didn't think so. As I stepped rather unprepared into the crisp lake breeze late this evening, it dawned on me why the engines had mysteriously fallen silent. We were sailing. The ship rolled gently back and forth, and I sat there stunned by a few things. First, sailing was a really, really nice alternative to motoring. Second, I felt like an idiot for not recognizing earlier that we were sailing. Third, sailing was a really, really nice alternative to motoring.

Then came tiller duty. For those of you that don't know what this is, instead of having a wheel that turns the rudder, the Niagara has a big stick attached directly to the rudder. To turn the ship, you get some people to push the stick. But mostly you just hold the stick steady, and watch a compass to make sure your holding the stick right. When you're rolling a lot however, the compass swings like 10 degrees to either side, and it's impossible to tell how well you're steering the ship.

Normally, this would drive me mad, but under sail, it didn't bother me as much. You quickly learn to just take the average of these huge swings and guess that as your heading. From there it's easy. The procedure goes as "Admire stars, look at compass, move tiller to correct, look at compass to make sure you're right, rinse repeat." This pattern becomes second nature very fast. It may have been my first time steering a 200 foot long sailing ship, but I was going to get a lot more practice in before I left the ship.

My assigned duty station for most of the time was tiller, meaning that if we were docking, practicing emergency drills, or had an actual emergency, another sailor and I would be in control of making sure the ship went the direction it was supposed to go.

It was nice. The tiller at times can be tiring, but emergency maneuvers are plain exciting. For man overboard drills, it usually requires turning the ship as fast as possible while it is still at its cruising speed. The tiller transforms from something of a toy, to a deadly weapon. There is no goofing off in this situation. You are in control of the safety of the other tiller worker, and they are in control of yours. If your grip slips or you let go, the momentum of at least 200 pounds of solid wood moving at a very high speed will come crashing into your partner. It works vice versa for you as well. Speed and precision rule supreme over the situation.

© Kyle Packer

To pick up from earlier

If anyone that reads this is actually interested in sailing with a ship, I highly recommend doing what I did. No, not giving a taxi card as a tip, that was an asshole move. I joined on with the ship during a big tour week, that's the only lesson you should take from me. You get to learn all about the ship, pretend you've known it all along, and tell little kids to refrain from falling into the water.

When the ship is in a port that isn't Erie, it typically goes like this. You wake up, have a good breakfast, and the day pans out in some combination of the following ways

1. You work maintenance, tarring aloft or any number of other projects. Tip: Be sure to wear your best attire, because the second you step off the deck, either aloft or into the headrigging, cameras will start clicking like your king kong swiping at aircraft.
2. You work tours, greeting tourists and answering their questions, making sure they have a good time. Tip: Brush your teeth well, and be glad that the camera can only see your teeth, and not smell your B.O., tourists, you're out of luck here, sorry.
3. You have the day off, go wander around aimlessly! Tip: Put on something besides your denim crew shirt, go out and window shop. Consider buying something, and then chuckle and realize you have no room to put it anywhere. Eat a greasy burger, and then find a coffee shop to check your e-mail at if thats your thing.

Overall, great choice. That way, when your out at sea, theres much less (still a lot) of asking what someone means by a phrase like, "We have some dead babies in those sails" (Hopefully though, your sails aren't furled if you're on the water though, am I right? am I right? You have no idea what I'm talking about, let's move on.)

For now, I am planning on leaving out most details about the cities unless they're relevant. If your interested in learning more about any of the cities I went to, I highly recommend visiting them in person (man I should get paid to promote these places.) or just use good old fashioned search engines.

Keeping in line with what I just said, after leaving Cleveland, we had to motor back to Erie thanks to the winds wanting to fight us the whole way. My summary of Erie goes something like this. The ship has lots of heavy stuff on it, and I got to move it back and forth for a week or two. However, the warm showers were nice. From there we went back out to sea, bound eventually for Duluth Minnesota.

I'm not sure if you get that, I mean I sure didn't, being from Arizona. The trip would take me from one side of Lake Erie, up the river past Lake Saint Claire, all the way across Lake Huron, AND all the way across Lake Superior. This is around 1000 miles. That is one miserable car ride, but on a ship lucky to be going 1/9th the speed? It's awesome. I went to bed knowing something great would happen.

© Kyle Packer

The Rooftops are Pointy

When I finally landed in Cleveland, Ohio after nearly ten hours of red-eye airport waiting, flying, layovers and more, I was thoroughly exhausted. I felt like I would have trouble telling up from left, and the duffel bag on my back certainly made me lean something like that. I quickly exited the airport to find a taxi, having discovered my final destination as the Browns Stadium.

My cabbie and I passed back the usual chit chat, about how it had been hot: "Oh your from Phoenix? You must be cold here than." "No, we don't get any humidity." "Oh yes, it is a, ah, dry heat there?" "Yep."  All in all he was a very nice man, and when he offered his card that didn't have his name on it, I took it. (If your reading this cabbie, that card ended up being part of a tip for an ihop waitress that included a free Circle K hotdog, an oil change, some soggy receipts and several gold dollar coins. So if you meet a cute ihop waitress from Tempe, AZ, you know who to thank.)

As he drove me through Cleveland, I took note of several things very quickly.

• Steep roofs. We don't have them in Arizona, because guess what, there is no snow to pile up on them.
• Tall buildings. Older than anything in Arizona. I mean like, marble and granite and statues of founding fathers old.
• Green. It's a vibrant color I had only heard guarded rumors of existing outside of Arizona.

And then the ship masts came into view. I mean wow, these things are tall. I am going to try my best to do one of those comparisons to help you visualize it, like the ones that compare cars stacked on top of each other to a building or something. Imagine Shaq. Now imagine 14 Shaq's standing on each others shoulders. this is a horrible comparison. Point is, if you had pennies stacked as tall as these masts, you could afford some prada shoes or something, that's how tall they are. I promise to never try these comparisons again.

It had completely blanked my mind until this point however, that several tallships sailing to a city from across the world to put on a festival, a "tallship festival" would be exciting for anyone but me. I'm selfish like that. But here they are, wall to wall people, tens of thousands of them wandering up and down the docks, taking pictures and slurping diet cokes. Point is I roll up in my taxi to a ticket booth and immediately think "Oh right. How in the hell did I not see this coming? I must be as blind as Ray Charles, and 1/500th as musically talented."

Lucky for me, this port had a huge "VOLUNTEER ENTRANCE" sign (that no other ports had, man did I luck out). No biggie, I can just tell them I work on the ship, no problem. All thats left is convincing the security I belong inside these gates for free, and I can dance my way onto the ship and sleep my jet lag off in a hammock. Let's look at this from the security guard's point of view.

A haggard looking kid wearing cutoffs, some trashy shirt, and torn up shoes approaches your security booth. On his back is a surplus military duffel bag absolutely PACKED with who knows what. Let's go with explosives, he could have enough explosives to blow up the block. Assessment? Sketchy. Let's interrogate him, see if he has any credentials or knows his stuff.
Security: "Do you have any papers proving you work on the ship?"
Me: "No."
Security:  "Do you have a crew shirt?"
Me: "No."
Security:  "Do you know the name of the Captain?"
Me: "No."
Security: "Do you know the ship's phone number?"
Me: "No."
Security: "Do you know the name of ANYONE on the ship?"
Me: "No."
Security: "Do you know anything about the ship?"
Me: "Um, I am guessing it's that one way over there?"

Overall, this candidate is horribly qualified for crew, and very well qualified to be a person with bad intentions. Final verdict from security?
Security: "Mmm, you don't look like a terrorist. Let's go find the ship."


Yeah me! Score! I wander around until I find the Niagara, and then cut the two hour line with a suave, "Uh, I think I uh, work here? Can I go onboard?" and quickly find some friendly crew mates who help me drop my stuff off in some back room and don a crew shirt. Finally, I can at least fake it. I get on the schedule, and lo and behold, it's my day off. Sweet, I think? Not really.

It boils down to "You can't go home, and you can't stay here. With the ship packed full of tourists and me not having the slightest idea what to do, I embark. I wander aimlessly, unsure of what to do, and where to go. If I recall, I ended up just passing out in some grass looking like a bum for like five or six hours. I then got up, ate, tried to fake doing something to kill a few hours until tours were over. (Passing out on park benches, looking like I am REALLY interested in every single item in every store, smelling bad, you know, the usual.)

Everyone on the ship says the first day or two are overwhelming, and I agree entirely. I couldn't have told you the time of day or which way was up. Everyone on the ship also says that you will not sleep the first night, and on this they were dead wrong. I was dead to the earth, and awoke a fresh new person who still had not the slightest idea what the heck was going on. But that was OK, because hey, here I was in a new city, trying something new. I hoped I'd eventually get the hang of it.


© Kyle Packer

How I got to the nowhere I am today.

Growing up in Arizona, it can be hard to get into sailing. Very hard. Harder still to get into tallship sailing. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but it's true. That's why I've decided to make a log of my adventures. I'd like to share how a teenager from one of the hottest and driest landlocked states in the nation woke up and decided to start sailing and working on ships that reach 100 feet tall and twice as long.

It all started with the books I read as a kid. Treasure Island, books about pirates, all the good stuff your average eight and nine-year-old boys are in to. I loved the idea of the open sea, and getting to see far off lands. However, my interest in sailing was rather squelched along with many other adventurous notions by responsible parents. (Looking back, it's a wonder I didn't burn a house down). I moved on to friends, school, girls.

Then, my senior year came around. Around the same time about a year ago, I realized I was on my way to becoming a bit of a man-baby. I couldn't cook, clean, do laundry, fix or create anything. As manliness points go, my dad had made me learn how to drive stick. I realized this wouldn't do, so I sat down and tried to figure out how to take a crash course in self-responsibility and start getting back on track.

Sailing came to mind pretty fast. I mean let's be honest, hauling on the lines to raise sail as a krakken rips men from the deck, while a torrent of hellwater pours on you from the skies, and the ocean itself opens its maw in a whirlpool to plunge you to the fathoms below, is hands down, the manliest stuff ever. I had to make it happen. But I also wanted to do it right. That meant no sunbathing, no cruise ships, no working only if I felt like it, and it most certainly meant climbing around the sails.

 I had to do my research, anything less and I would feel even less manly than when I started. After looking through many "Sit on the deck, feel the breeze, sip a tequila sunrise, haul on a line if you feeeeeeeel like it" sailing programs, I found the one I was looking for. The Flagship Niagara. Boasting a program for ages 16 to whatever, featuring "Spartan-like sleep and work schedules" and encouraging all trainees to be "able and willing to go aloft", I knew it was perfect. There was no better way to get on the track to manliness than to arrange to fly by myself across the country, make a connection flight, land in a city I'd never seen, figure out how to get from the airport to wherever the ship was (What do they call them? Docks? Marinas? how many places could this thing be? will I just be able to say "Take me to the Niagara!"?) and go bare bones for the next month of my life.

As I hugged and waved my parents goodbye outside the airport, 2000 miles away from my final destination, I knew no matter what I had gotten myself in to, it would change my life.

© Kyle Packer