Roy Wilkinson won the

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Deborah Henderson
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1 1 Roy Wilkinson won the lottery. Finally! For a decade he d entered the drawing to board the USS Constitution for her yearly Turnaround Cruise the one time each year that the majestic sailing ship left dock and crisscrossed Boston Harbor. At the salute to old Fort Independence that had guarded the harbor during the Revolution and the War of At the end, she d be docked facing the opposite direction 1

2 Man the Guns, my mate turned around so that the sides of the old wooden ship would weather evenly. Ten long years he d had to eat his growing disappointment at not making it through the drawing for a ride on Old Ironsides, the greatest of the U.S. Navy s sailing ships. He d always brought along some of his marine engineering students to watch the event from a tour boat the tall majestic three-master, gliding out under tow across a Boston that had looked so different when she d leapt to her city s defense in the War of She lost none of her nobility for moving through a harbor transformed by buildings of glass and steel rather than brick and stone. The Constitution was scheduled into dry dock for the next couple of years and he d been dreading that deeply if he missed the lottery this year. But he hadn t. Roy had certainly walked her decks enough times, but that was far different from riding aboard as she across the harbor, even if it was only under tow. 2

3 M. L. Buchman She d only raised her sails twice in the last century. But now he had his Golden Ticket, his E-coupon, his season pass actually, his friendly little with a code. He was allowed one guest. A colleague? Most of them already thought him a little off center, he really didn t need to prove that hypothesis for them. His sister? She was in Seattle married to a Microsoft engineer. No, he d go himself and simply enjoy his three-hour tour. Maybe they d get marooned on some desert island in Boston Harbor. He really had to get a life one of these days. Soon! Maybe he d meet somebody there. A pretty, intelligent woman who lived in the Back Bay or Beacon Hill, was interested in old sailing ships, and ran a small but highly successful catering business. Or maybe he d win a free trip to the moon. The latter was far more likely. 3

4 Man the Guns, my mate There were certainly strings he could have pulled to get on the Turnaround Cruise sooner, but it didn t feel right. While he wasn t in the Navy, but rather was a professor of naval architecture, he worked with the Navy. That connection had left him with a feeling of duty to follow the aboard. Taking advantage of his friendships in the Navy or his MIT professorship had simply not been an ethical course. But ten years had been a long time to wait. That the of his success arrived on the same day his taxes were due only made it all the sweeter. This year, some small portion of his taxes would be taking him on a cruise around Boston Harbor aboard the country s oldest Naval vessel; only the third ever commissioned this one by old George Washington himself. With a heavy black marker he d blocked out the week before July 4th on his wall calendar in addition to his electronic one to 4

5 M. L. Buchman make sure he didn t double-schedule himself, plus a day after to relish the experience. He had summer school classes to teach in the mornings, but had posted a notice weeks in 30-July 5 for Constitutional. Anyone who d commented on his odd use of italics would launch him into a long-winded history of the origin of the word constitution dating back to the Latin constitutio act of settling and order (which itself went back to constituere to cause to stand ) and the al being a Johnny-comelately addition in the 1670s. Torturing students and colleagues was MIT professorship. Roy mapped out his plan of attack. While still in college rather than teaching it he d purchased and read most of the books on the design of the Constitution and her famous career. But to truly appreciate every aspect of his cruise along with a 5

6 Man the Guns, my mate he now prepared to immerse himself each day after teaching. He would start with the a brief tour of the ship. Then he d plunge into the museum for two days and gather everything he could there. Afterwards, he d spend July second and third aboard the ship, going over her carefully, from Humphrey s forward-thinking design choices starting at the keel to her most recent restorations of the original curvature to the Spar Deck to aid in rainwater shedding. He knew it was being ridiculously anal, but he d gone to the local craft and farmer s market and found a hand-sewn tooled-leather journal to record his impressions and sketches. He already owned a perfectly serviceable fountain pen, so he avoided being utterly irredeemable. After his morning s lecture on Naval Ship Conversion Design and hydrodynamic implications of hull extensions something for which the modern Navy had been showing a recent penchant he set out to 6

7 M. L. Buchman bicycle the two miles from campus to the Charlestown Naval Shipyard on the walking path along the Charles River Basin. Late June at the Boston waterfront was a delightful temperature and he walked glimpse of the towering 220-foot tall mainmast. The modern world of a hustling, blaring Boston seemed to fade away the closer he came to the ship. 7

9 2 Commander Deborah Reynolds stepped out of her four-hundredth meeting about the upcoming Turnaround Cruise, at least it felt that way. She d been aboard less than a week, so it was probably only the two hundredth. And then, impossibly, as if stepping through a time machine, she climbed the stern gangway onto the wooden deck of the greatest sailing ship of the U.S. Navy. It took her breath away every time and she hoped it would never stop doing so. 9

10 Man the Guns, my mate The three-masted frigate towered above the urban port. Hundreds of lines, over those towering sticks. She tried to imagine with canvas, but could never quite do it. Despite the lack, the old ship rested here wonder. Even though her two-year stint in command of the USS Constitution wouldn t technically begin for four weeks, the ship already felt as if it was hers, as if they d only been waiting for each other. She d been released early from her command of a Perry-class long-hull frigate because they d decommissioned the USS Reuben James right out from under her. Despite it being a part of the planned retirement of the entire class, it had been deployment down the western side of the her ship was retired after thirty-one years. 10

11 M. L. Buchman She d ignore any ominous implications of her own age matching her ship s. She d had no real hope of gaining a tour of command aboard the Constitution, but command the old sailing vessel. The former was a matter of some pride, the latter no longer seemed to matter in the modern Navy. About damned time, even if the news was making a deal out of it. She d wanted to be known for her ability to sail, but while she d won a lot of races, she hadn t been Olympic level good. Being known for her ability to command was as much a surprise to herself as to the review boards that kept promoting her she d found a deep joy in leading a smooth-running ship and hoped to go on doing so for a long time to come. Her two ships, technically both classed as frigates, had a few similarities and a lot of differences. Her new command was a hundred feet shorter and a hundred and 11

12 Man the Guns, my mate to-side beam and draft depth. Instead of two hundred crew on the James, she now commanded seventy though Constitution in her heyday. They paused from their tasks or chatting with tourists to salute her as she strolled across the quarterdeck to catch her breath. Her boots softly thumping her progress on wood rather than ringing on steel as she was used to. The Constitution had been designed almost two hundred years earlier than the Reuben James. Wood rather than steel. She had a top speed of twelve knots, versus thirty. Forty-four twenty-four pound cannons missile power, and torpedo power to put anything other than a destroyer to shame. And her rope rigging would kill any helicopter that even thought about coming close. The Constitution lacked the pair of Seahawk helicopters that could kick some serious anti-submarine butt when needed. 12

13 M. L. Buchman But there was one overwhelming factor in the old ship s favor. Instead of forty-one thousand shaft horsepower of roaring twin diesel engines, she ran on chunks of canvas the size of a basketball court each. That was certainly enough to humble a girl about her new command. Actually, this command was humbling her in a wide variety of ways; she would soon be in charge of the most visited ship of the Navy. Intrepid, Midway, Missouri, and Arizona were all decommissioned. Constitution was still a commissioned ship of the Navy since The next oldest ship was the Pueblo commissioned in 1967 and she was still in the hands of North Korea. Deborah could feel the weight of her new command threatening to choke her as surely as the high collar of her 1812-era uniform. Walk the ship. That s what the former Reuben James commander had said to her as he d handed over his ship to her care. 13

14 Man the Guns, my mate When in doubt, walk the ship and listen. She ll talk to you. It was surprising how often it worked. and walked slowly forward. By the great twin, spoked wheels of the helm, she received a casual salute from a tourist. He really snapped to when he realized she wasn t just an actor inside the period uniform, which was surprisingly gratifying. He turned out to be a Navy SEAL Lieutenant. She chatted with him and his red-headed helicopter pilot girlfriend for a few moments and left feeling somewhat better and more cheerful about her new role working out. She also appreciated that bit of respect due her rank, which she d worked damned hard to attain. It had surprised her how often over the last week she d received salutes from Navy personnel, and occasionally other forces soldiers who were touring the ship. A naval commander was still a naval commander. 14

15 M. L. Buchman And a ship was still a ship. If she could handle a Perry-class frigate, she could handle a sailing frigate as well. 15

A Frigate vs A Ship-of-the-Line: What s the difference?

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