Brig Niagara- Saturday, June 8, 2019

     It was just a little day-trip to Erie, PA, but it was such great day, we should give it a blog page.  Around Mothers Day last month, Julie asked Scott what he wanted to do on Fathers Day.  After thinking about it for a bit, he finally said that he wanted another Day Sail on the Brig Niagara.  He had done it once before with Brian Seibel back in 2010, but since we've visited Erie earlier this Spring and have the Tall Ships festival coming up in July, Scott has been wanting to do it again.  The ship doesn't go out every weekend, and some weekends are full, so he and Julie went down today for an early Fathers Day.  Anna and Emma were happy staying home.
    Scott had loaded up a thumb-drive with  chanteys, Great Lakes songs, Stan Rogers, Great Big Sea, and lots of other appropriate tunes, which made the drive to and from Erie very enjoyable.  We got to Erie early so that we could find a drug store where Scott could get his second MMR shot, required to start at UB this fall.   We then went to find a quick lunch.  We ended up just getting McDonald's, but we found a great place to park near the Bicentennial Tower, and watched the boats on the water, as well as the geese, gulls, and ducks.  At the Erie Maritime Museum, we were given yellow lanyards (which assigned us to lifeboat #2 in case of emergency) and waited to board.
     The original Niagara was built here in Erie, PA during the second year of the War of 1812.  Oliver Hazard Perry used a small fleet of ships built in Erie and in Buffalo to challenge the British for control of Lake Erie.  He eventually met the British fleet on the west end of the lake, near Put-in-Bay, and captured it in its entirety.  "We have met the enemy, and they are ours," he reported.  The victory on Lake Erie was one of the few American successes of the war, and gave the Americans control of the four Upper Great Lakes (above Niagara Falls) and access to the Northwest. 
     The brig was never intended to be for pleasure cruises and the views from the ship were often obstructed for both military and modern safety reasons.  That fact is probably a disappointment to many people.  When the captain addressed everyone,  he described the ship as a very large, man-powered machine.  The real show, he said, is not what you can see on the shore, but rather what the crew is doing around and over you, and how the brig's intricate workings come together.  
The captain said it was actually not legal for the ship to carry passengers.  For the purposes of the day sail, we were considered to be students and, while we were not required to help pull ropes, there were many times when we were invited to help the crew.  A lot of us just wanted to stay out of the way, but that was difficult.  Wherever you stood, it seemed like it was only a short matter of time before someone on the crew needed to get past you.  They weren't rude about it, though.  On the contrary, whenever someone asked them a question, they always seemed to be eager to share their knowledge and explain the mysteries of sailing and the history of the ship.  But we were somewhat hesitant to ask them anything because they always looked busy, and if they ever stopped moving, it seemed like it was only for a moment.
     The weather was beautiful-- warm and sunny, with a cool breeze coming out of the east.  However, that breeze also meant that we motored out to the lake before the sails were finally set.  One of the officers used a model to explain how the ship could make a turn- either into the wind (tacking) or away from the wind (wearing ship).  Julie said, "The ship probably can't turn on a dime."  Scott said, "The Bluenose can."   Anyway, after using the model to explain how they "shiver" one of the yards, they soon did it with the real ship and we got to watch that.
     Scott got a lot of video, but shots from the ship are harder to make interesting than shots near the ship.  Scott chose not to take video when they loaded the carronade- the short muzzled cannon like the ones the original Niagara was armed with.  He opted to plug his ears instead, since he already has to wear hearing aids and blames much of his hearing loss on the summers he spent re-enacting and working at Fort Niagara.  Still, the carronade made an impressive amount of smoke. even to someone who is used to seeing that sort of thing, and Scott wished that he had gotten a shot of it as it was blown back across the deck. 
      When we first boarded the ship it looked like there was no place to sit anywhere.  It seemed odd to remember that moment three hours later, because it seemed like all of the day sail students had found somewhere to rest.   Most of these "students" were our age or older, and some of them were even a bit frail.  We wondered if they really knew what they were getting into when they signed up.   Even so, the trip seemed to be about an hour longer than it needed to be, and we all seemed like we were ready for it to end quite a bit sooner than we should have been.  The trip was scheduled to be four-hours long, but even then it ran a little long.  Julie was starving for a burger from Five Guys by the time we were back on dry land.