Coast Guard's Eagle to land in Seattle Tuesday

"America's Tall Ship," the nickname for the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Eagle, will be accompanied by the Coast Guard Heritage Fleet of vintage and famous Coast Guard vessels when it arrives in Seattle Tuesday afternoon.

The majestic three-masted barque, as long as a football field and half as high, is making its first stop in 20 years in Seattle before heading south for Tacoma's Tall Ships 2008 festival over the Independence Day weekend from July 3 to 7.

The Eagle won't be receiving visitors in Seattle, although it and about 20 other tall ships will do so in Tacoma.

The Eagle is the only United States-owned tall ship and a training ship for Coast Guard Academy cadets. It is in the third month of its Summer Cruise 2008, carrying more than 130 Coast Guard Academy cadets and U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen.

The Eagle, a floating classroom with the primary mission of training future Coast Guard officers, also carries a complement of 76 officers, crew and Coast Guard Auxiliary members.

The Eagle is making the Seattle stopover en route to Tacoma from a tall ship gathering in Victoria, B.C. last week.

The Eagle is slated to round Magnolia Bluff sometime close to 4:30 p.m., escorted by three historic Coast Guard vessels from the Coast Guard Heritage Fleet.

Those vessels include two World War II era boats with Puget Sound connections, a 64-year-old patrol boat, the CG-83527, and the 67-year-old buoy tender Blueberry; and another from the Vietnam War era, the Seattle Maritime Academy's 45-year-old Maritime Instructor, formerly named the Point Divide.

At 72 years old and built in the twilight years of sailing vessels, the Eagle itself predates all of them. Constructed and commissioned in Germany in 1936 to train German navy sailors, it was formerly named the Horst Wessel. It was acquired as a World War II war prize in 1946, recommissioned Eagle and has trained Coast Guard cadets ever since.

To learn about Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 and how to visit them, see www.tallshipstacoma.com or call 877-297-6801.

For more information about the CG-83527 and the Coast Guard Heritage Fleet or Combatant Craft of America, go to www.cg83527.org or www.combatantcraft.org.