Setting Sail on the Oliver Hazard Perry
This past summer, Zach ‘18, Sam ’18, and I were given the opportunity to sail on the Oliver Hazard Perry (OHP) sailing school vessel. The OHP is a 200-foot, fully-rigged tall ship, with three masts, twenty sails, and over seven miles of rope, all managed by the trainees brought on board each week to learn the history of the ship, how to sail a tall ship, and what life is like at sea.
On the afternoon of July 30th, the thirty trainees and fifteen professional crew members left Boston Harbor for Gloucester, MA. On the first night, we took hour-long shifts on ‘anchor watch,’ which involved logging our bearing, depth, longitude and latitude. The next morning, we ran through some safety training, practicing man overboard with a coconut, mustering for a fire alarm, and drilling to abandon ship. After we got those out of the way, we set sail and did not anchor for the next five days.
While at sea, each day was broken up into four-hour watches (except around dinner, allowing for everybody to eat together), which rotated between three watch teams. One team always got a very long day, which included the midnight to 4:00 am watch in addition to the noon to 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm to midnight watch, totaling twelve hours of watch duty throughout the day. Watch duty consists of navigating and steering the ship, keeping an eye out for other boats on bow watch, and running the sails.
After our time at sea, we sailed to Portland Harbor, prepared the ship to enter dock, and finally anchored for a day. Prior to anchoring, we needed to roll every sail onto its mast in a "harbor furl", and secured all lines so they would not get in the way of anchoring. The next morning there was a swim call when they allowed us to jump off the boat to go swimming before we all disembarked the boat to explore, shop, and relax in Portland. The next morning, we moved the ship onto the dock behind the US Coast Guard Cutter Eagle, which we later had the opportunity to tour. This concluded our week staffing the OHP. Soon, it was time for our crew to leave and for the next one to set sail on their own adventure.
It was a great week to push myself out of my comfort zone and discover new things which I never thought I would have the opportunity to try. I will never forget some of the views we had while aloft on the rigging, and I will always remember the new friendships which were formed.
