Paine Lincoln P. Sail Tall Ships. A Directory of Sail Training and Adventure at Sea

Newport, RI: American Sail Training Association, 1996. — 223 p. — ISBN: 0963648322.In the United States and Canada, there are many sail training vessels which serve as laboratories and classrooms at sea. College and high school students regularly embark on semester-long voyages of offshore discovery while younger children explore local waters on gradeschool field trips. Water, sediment and biological sampling provide students with tangible lessons in the marine environment as they themselves physically encounter the effect of wind and wave. Formal study aboard a ship is frequently referred to as sea education.
Historic vessels, or their reproductions, function as interpretive museum exhibits, conducting voyages of outreach to the public. Most North Americans can trace their ancestors’ arrival by ship. The last sailing vessel to regularly carry immigrants to America still plies New England waters, now a sailing school vessel, extending her venerable history of more than one hundred years service — from fishing the Grand Banks to Arctic exploration to African packet.
There are reproductions and restorations of ships representative of each of America’s naval conflicts. We may board important sailing ships of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and some which played their part in the World Wars. We may experience life at sea aboard Grand Banks fishing schooners, mackerel seiners, oyster boats and whalers. Cargo ships. Pilot boats. Merchant vessels. Immigrant ships. Those pressed into the slave trade. There is not a chapter of our history which does not have a waterborne link. The smell of pine tar and manila, the sounds of a working ship, the view' of a whale-spotted horizon from the top of the rig, the motion of a rolling deck — history is a compelling study in this physical context.
Other North American ships sail ambassadorial missions for the public they serve, issuing invitations of hospitality and promoting opportunities for economic development. Other sail to save the environment. Or to promote international relations through citizen diplomacy, as did a Soviet-American crew sailing past the final sputters of the Cold War. These vessels draw our attention and focus us on their missions because sailing ships are powerful icons, symbolizing strength, beauty and harmony wherever they go. Those who sail know the ocean to be that which connects us to foreign lands — not a boundary which separates us.
Several American sail training ships serve as residential treatment centers for adjudicated youth while others provide exclusive corporate team building exercise or offshore adventure travel — from coastal cruising with gourmet cooking to blue water voyaging. While the clientele could not be more different, these ships are all in the business of enrichment.
As diverse an agenda as this may seem at first glance, these ships all provide sail training. The common denominator is that each uses wind and sea to teach us something else. Sail training, like reading, is not a subject in and of itself. It is a means to an end. A medium. An environment. We at ASTA often say that sail training is not learning to sail, it is learning from sailing. From the ship, from the sea and perhaps most importantly, from yourself.