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USCGS Eagle question for Dr. Tilley, or anyone else re: Eagle's eagle

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  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Monterey Bay, CA
Posted by schoonerbumm on Saturday, December 15, 2007 12:08 AM

Working on a mid 50's Eagle.

Photos from 1955 book 'Sailing Eagle' (Villiers) show Horst Wessel's figurehead with CG shield instead of swastika under the bobstay & martingale stay fitting. 

1957 book 'The Coast Guard Academy (Engeman) shows a diminutive eagle trailing scrollwork as in a trailboard with "Eagle" inscribed (painted) on the scroll, above the bobstay/martingale stay fitting. 

1976 Operation Sail photos show the current eagle under the bobstay/martingale stay fitting.

What were the dates that figureheads were changed? Are there more than these three?

Thanks in advance

Alan

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, December 15, 2007 1:49 PM

I don't have the dates off the top of my head, but I can fill in a little of the story.  Essentially, all the references in schoonerbumm's post are right.

When the Horst Wessel was taken into U.S. service and renamed Eagle, the original figurehead was retained except for the replacement of the swastika in the eagle's claws by the Coast Guard seal.  That figurehead remained on the ship until it rotted.  I'm not sure how long that took, but I think the original was replaced by the early to mid-fifties.

The next figurehead was, as schoonerbumm implies, really too small to fit the ship.  It had, in fact, been removed from the Eagle's predecessor as Revenue Cutter Service/Coast Guard training ship, the little bark Chase.  This figurehead was affectionately known as "the pigeon."  I think it stayed on the ship until sometime in the seventies - but I'm foggy about the date.  It's also the one that's reproduced on the old Revell plastic kit, which was released in 1958.

The current figurehead is a rather abstract, very non-traditional one; frankly I think it looks more like a seagull.  I'm not sure when it was installed, but it certainly was indeed there by 1976.

So far as I know, those are the only three figureheads the ship has had.  I may be mistaken about that, though; I seem to recall (vaguely) having read somewhere that somebody carved a near-identical replacement for one of them.

If you're shooting for the ship's configuration as of the mid-fifties, the undersized "pigeon" is almost certainly correct.

Be warned about one other point concerning this ship.  Most plans and virtually all kits (the one exception being from our late lamented friends at Imai) are seriously out of proportion, due to an honest but frequently-repeated misunderstanding.  We've discussed this point before here in the Forum; here's a link:  /forums/483801/ShowPost.aspx

I've got a book or two about the Eagle elsewhere in the house; I'll do a little more digging and see if I can find any more trivia about her figureheads.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Monterey Bay, CA
Posted by schoonerbumm on Saturday, December 15, 2007 3:09 PM

When I started my layout I used a package from the Coast Guard Museum in Seattle. Three different plans, the Blohm and Voss "S-515", Dr. Tilley's layout from the 19990s and a hull lines plan. I found discrepancies between all three sheets and elected to go with the Blohm and Voss sheet (it had actual dimensions for the masting and rigging, I avoid scaling from Xerox prints whenever I can), and the data within the book "Eagle Seamanship".  I used Underhill only for deck furniture where it agreed with Villier's photos in "Sailing Eagle".

I'm doing illustrations, so discrepancies will not be as obvious, but I am curious to know if the Blohm and Voss 515 plans are the right ones for Horst Wessel, and what are the specific differences that you found between Underhill and Eagle.

Thanks

 

Alan

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

  • Member since
    May 2006
Posted by thunder1 on Saturday, December 15, 2007 5:14 PM

 I'm not sure if this factoid is relavent in your search but here ya' go: On January 27, 1967 the USCGC EAGLE collided in Baltimore Harbor with the Philipine flagged freighter SS JOSE ABAD SANTOS. The EAGLE's damage was assessed at $200,000, to repair the bow and foremast. In a photo the figurehead appears to be a "major casuality" and perhaps at this point a new figurehead was procured. The repairs to the EAGLE were accomplished at CG Yard Baltimore.

I recall that in the mid to late 70's that a lifesize replica of the EAGLE's figurehead was on display at the CG Academy museum, being suspended from the ceiling. I'm not sure if it was wood or fiberglass.

Regards

 Mike M.    

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, December 15, 2007 8:56 PM

Wow.  I did that drawing in 1994, and ye old memory isn't what it used to be.  I remember that Bob Browning, the CG Historian (then and now), provided me with at least two sheets of drawings that were labeled in German and had the name Horst Wessel on them.  On that basis I concluded that they could be relied upon.  Those two sheets obviously did not constitute a full set of plans for the ship.  I don't recall exactly what was on them; I think I remember an inboard profile and some cross sections.  I think there also may have been one sheet showing a couple of rigging details - obviously one sheet from a rather large series.  Bob Browning and I had the impression that these were the only plans of the Horst Wessel that had survived the war.  That may, however, have been an incorrect assumption on our part.  The bottom line was that they were the only German drawings in the CG Historian's Office's collection at that time.  (I guess it's possible that something else has turned up since then.)  I don't remember what, if any, numbers were on them.

Then there were several sheets that had been prepared by Coast Guard draftsmen fairly recently.  I recall in particular a combination above-waterline outboard profile and sail plan (reproduced at, I think, 1/96, so the drawing was pretty huge).  As I remember the hull outline on that one matched the German version (which was on a considerably smaller scale, I think) pretty well.  But I had my doubts about the reliability of that modern CG drawing.  Specifically, the draftsman took some pains to indicate a series of "eyebrows" over all the portholes in the hull.  (I can testify from experience that, even on a relatively large scale like that, drawing all those eyebrows, and getting them to look symmetrical and identical, by hand - in the days before CADD - was a bit of a challenge.)  The problem is that, so far as I can tell, the Horst Wessel/Eagle has never had such fittings over her portholes.  Why the draftsman put them there I have no idea, and the detail isn't particularly important, but it has to make one wonder whether he looked at the actual ship.  I don't remember what date appeared on it; I seem to have a vague recollection that it showed the ship in her sixties configuration, but I could well be wrong about that.

Then there was an enormous, scantily-detailed sheet called a "docking plan," which apparently was drawn in conjunction with the preparation of a drydock for one of the ship's periodic major overhauls.  This one certainly looked as though it had been drawn on the basis of measurements taken directly from the ship.  It consisted of a simple profile and a very few details that would be relevant to the people responsible for overseeing the ship's transit into the drydock.  Extremely basic but, I think, entirely reliable.

My drawing represents an attempt to reconcile all those earlier efforts - and the hundred or so photos I took myself on board the ship (the one time during the project when I was able to catch up with her).  As I mentioned in that other Forum thread, I had about an hour and a half on board her in Baltimore, sometime in the summer of 1994.  I took a draft of the drawing I'd been working on with me, and got as much input as time allowed from the captain, Patrick Spillman, and the boatswain, Keith Raitsch.  (I've probably misspelled both those gentlemen; I hope they'll forgive me.)  Mr. Raitsch was particularly helpful; he'd done a detailed study of the changes the ship had undergone over the years and, I think, had been instrumental in the decision to restore the double-spanker rig on the mizzen mast.

The bottom line regarding the Underhill plans is that, for my particular purposes, they were just about useless.  Don't get me wrong; I'm a big admirer of Underhill - as both a draftsman and a ship modeler.  But those drawings - as he himself was careful to explain in the text of the book in which they originally appeared - show the Horst Wessel's semi-sister, the Gorch Fock.  The Horst Wessel/Eagle is about 24 feet longer.  And the drawings date from the 1950s.  The job that had been given me was to draw the ship in her then-current (1994) configuration.  Practically every piece of deck furniture had been altered by then in one way or another.  The boat complement was completely different, a deckhouse had been added to the break of the quarterdeck, all sorts of changes had been made to the spars, etc., etc.  In 1994 she'd recently come out of yet another major overhaul, which had seen, among other things, the restoration of the double spanker.  I took an admiring look at the Underhill drawings, concluded that she'd been a beautiful ship back in those days, and worked from the sources Bob Browning gave me.

I just remembered on other source I consulted.  I drove up to Newport News and looked the ship up in the files of the library at the Mariners' Museum (with which I was still on speaking terms at that time; I haven't been since).  I'd figured that since Bill Wilkinson, director of the museum when I worked there in the early eighties, was one of the world's biggest USCG enthusiasts, something worthwhile might be there - and I was right.  The library had a big, fat folder of 8x10 black-and-white photos that had, if I remember correctly, been taken sometime in the fifties, and showed just about every external feature of the ship.  For my purposes they didn't help a lot, but if you're trying to nail down her fifties configuration they'd be near-ideal.  Just how to gain access to them I don't know; the MM has become notoriously difficult in that regard lately.

That's about all I can remember about the project at the moment.  Hope it helps a little. 

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    October 2005
Posted by CG Bob on Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:28 AM
The "new" double spanker boom was made in 1992 by the USCG Support Center New York Industrial shops.  I was the Support Center Industrial ATON officer at the time, and was marginally involved because I was responsible for the paint shop.  The actual boom was made by a flag pole company, after we consulted with the folks at the South Street Seaport Museum.  The Industrial shops welded on all of the fittings for rigging and did the painting.  All of the welds were x-rayed, and passed the inspection.
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Sunday, December 16, 2007 12:19 PM

Well, that's encouraging.  The date 1992 matches my memory that she'd recently undergone a major overhaul when I took all those pictures, in 1994.  (I think they call the spar in question a gaff, though; the term "spanker boom" is, I think, reserved for the one at the bottom.  I may well be wrong about that one, though.  The double spanker rig is so unusual outside northern continental Europe that I'm not at all sure about the English-language terminology associated with it.)  I'm not sure just what happened during that overhaul, but I have the impression that it was a big one.  In 1994 she looked, in virtually every respect, like a brand new ship.  It was hard to believe that she was in fact more than fifty years old. 

On the other hand it was fun to look for little pieces of evidence of her former identity.  If you knew what you were looking for you could, for instance, see that the space on each side of the wheel box, where there's a wood plaque with the name "Eagle" carved in it, was intended to accommodate a considerably longer name.  I tried to show that point on my drawing.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    June 2005
  • From: Walworth, NY
Posted by Powder Monkey on Monday, December 17, 2007 7:36 PM

I checked the drawings I got from the Coast Guard. None of them show the figuehead. They sent me several sheets, including an inboard profile that is about 5" long ( 1/4" = 1' ). I also got an original sail plan and belaying plan in German (Blom and Voss ), a set of lines, body plan and what is called the general booklet of plans which show the layout of each deck ( from the 80's ). I had also contacted the National Archives. Here is their response to my inquiry: 

"This is in response to your 10/13/2006 e-mail request for information
on the availability of certain ship engineering drawings among the
holdings of the cartographic section of the National Archives.

Plans for the U. S. Coast Guard are located among the Records of the US
Coast Guard , Record Group 26 and the Records of the Bureau of Ships,
Record Group 19. There are 155 drawings that include original German,
copies of the original German and English drawings filed as USCG
WIX-327, Eagle ( RG 26 Cutters 1915+ flat file). These engineering
drawings are concentrated on system plans and construction details.

Filed as RG 19 Alpha flat Horst Wessel are 2 German plans of the sail
plan (online outboard profile) and an inboard profile. In addition,
there is an English body plan."

 

Maybe one of those 155 drawings could help with the figuehead ? 

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