USCGC Barque EAGLE to Participate in  
TALL SHIPS® ATLANTIC CHALLENGE 2009

Photo by Thad Koza

NEWPORT, RI:  The United States Coast Guard announced today that destinations for the Coast Guard Barque EAGLE's 2009 summer cruise have been determined and will include her participation in the TALL SHIPS® ATLANTIC CHALLENGE 2009 Series.

The crew of the EAGLE will depart for Rota, Spain, from New London April 20, 2009, and begin a training cruise that will cover Europe, Bermuda, and the Atlantic Coast of the United States and Canada.

The EAGLE is operated and maintained by a permanent crew of 49 Coast Guard enlisted personnel and six officers augmented each summer by additional active duty members, as well as Reserve and Coast Guard Auxiliary crewmembers. This professional crew guides the cadets through a rigorous underway and in-port training schedule that is dedicated towards learning the skills of navigation, damage control, first aid, engineering, and deck seamanship. The EAGLE's crew spends each summer training hundreds of Coast Guard Academy cadets, and occasionally has Naval Academy midshipmen aboard. The EAGLE also conducts training courses for officer candidates and has served as a floating classroom to future Coast Guard officers since 1946 offering fundamental leadership, teamwork and seamanship skills. 

Bert Rogers, Executive Director of the American Sail Training Association (ASTA), said in response to this announcement, "We are delighted that EAGLE will participate in TALL SHIPS® ATLANTIC CHALLENGE 2009.  As America's Tall Ship, it is fitting that EAGLE will represent our national maritime heritage and lead the fleet of sail training ships from around the world.  We are deeply grateful to EAGLE's Captain and Crew, and to the United States Coast Guard, for their commitment to the values of traditional seamanship and their dedicated support of education under sail for the youth of America."

The TALL SHIPS® ATLANTIC CHALLENGE 2009 is a series of tall ships races and port festivals organized jointly by Sail Training International (STI) and the American Sail Training Association (ASTA), a founding member of Sail Training International.

The course of the TALL SHIPS® ATLANTIC CHALLENGE 2009 series circles the North Atlantic Ocean and includes port stops in Vigo, Spain (April 30 -  May 3); Tenerife in the Canary Islands (May 14 - 17); Bermuda (June 12 - 15);  Charleston, South Carolina (June 25 - 29); Boston, Massachusetts (July 8 - 13); Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (July 16 - 20) and  Belfast, Northern Ireland (August 13 - 16).  Sail training tall ships from around the world are expected to participate in this 7,000 nautical mile odyssey following the traditional trade route taken by sailing ships of a bygone era.

The American Sail Training Association is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization focused on youth education, leadership development and the preservation of the maritime heritage of North America. In addition to organizing the annual TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE® Series, ASTA manages scholarship programs to make sail training experiences more affordable for young people, grant programs to assist crew of ASTA member vessels with the costs of professional development courses and licensing requirements and publishes SAIL TALL SHIPS! A Directory of Sail Training and Adventure at Sea. 

To view the EAGLE's full schedule visit: http://www.uscgnewengland.com/go/doc/778/215084/

For more information on the TALL SHIPS® ATLANTIC CHALLENGE 2009 visit the following Websites:

American Sail Training Association:  www.sailtraining.org
TALL SHIPS® ATLANTIC CHALLENGE 2009: http://www.tallshipsraces.com/atlanticchallenge/