Time was sail-powered vessels ruled the waves. The Age of Sail, as we now call it, lasted millennia. Then came steam engines and the internal combustion engine. For over a century, sail hung on. But the end was never really in doubt, and with the arrival of the 20th century, square-rigger sailing, in particular, nearly disappeared, despite the best efforts of such mariners as Australian Cape Horner, Alan Villiers. A handful of training ships, like the U.S. Coast Guard cutter, Eagle, hung on, the value of experience under sail having long been recognized by the navies of the world. A scattering of vessels also continued to make their living in places like the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and coastal New England: think Indonsian trading schooners and the windjammer fleet in Maine. But that was pretty much it.
A funny thing happened, though, on the way to the demise of tall-ship sailing: the tall ships of the world not only found a way to hang on but make themselves relevant again. An early milestone was the first official tall-ships race in 1956, organized by UK-based Sail Training International (sailtraininginternational.org). Soon afterward came the first Operation Sail, or Op-Sail, in the United States in the early 1960s, as envisaged by President Kennedy.
These days, Europe, in particular, is a hotbed of tall-ship sailing, with fleets of luggers, barks, schooners and any, in the August 2020 issue of .) Here in the United States, tall-ship sailing can be found not only on the West and East coasts, but on the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes as well.
