Sailing ships and ships of war

We were in Baltimore visiting our daughter Kathy, who lived there at the time, and did the town. One of the highlights was touring the USS Constellation, a three-mast sailing man-of-war. It was the last ship in the fleet commissioned by the United States that moved under sail power.

Named after two other ships by the same name, the ship was commissioned in the mid 1850s, was 181 feet long, and had a crew of about 350.

The Constellation had several decks, with 16 large cannon and four smaller guns, all on the same deck. In the hull, where the food was stored, the ship had dozens of large water tanks. There was no refrigeration, and all the food had to be salted to keep from spoiling.

The ship was all wood and beautiful.

Years later, while back in Bothell, we saw in the Seattle Times that the aircraft carrier USS Constellation had been decommissioned in Bremerton. The ship was having an open house and the public could come aboard.

We went.

I made excuses at work and the kids planned the same at school. I don’t remember our excuses, but they were put in jeopardy the next day when our family was featured in a picture in the Times.

The ship had opened its galley to give visitors a treat, and we were at the serving area when the photo was taken.

The carrier had a crew of 4,500 to 5,000, not all there for the open house.

They had enough sailors on duty to prevent visitors from taking off with an airplane or a set of Navy dishes.

We walked the flight deck, and I saw an iron nut laying on the surface. I don’t know why I did, but I bent down and picked it up. It was about two inches across and I knew it wasn’t holding the ship together. I figured I would give it to one of the sailors.

You guessed it, the iron nut is someplace in my garage.

My visits to unusual ships continued later when a Japanese sailing vessel was in port in Seattle and the Times announced the date for an open house. We went.

It was the Nippon Maru, a four-masted schooner, used as a training ship by the Japanese.

There were two visit times, one in the afternoon and the other at night.

We went in the daytime. The ship was immaculate, and its sailors put on a great greeting and were very friendly.

I guess it pays to read the Seattle Times because we noticed the story that a Russian ship would be anchored in port and would welcome visitors.

We went.

Our Navy checked us aboard a small Soviet ship. I guess they thought we might try to secretly leave aboard the ship.

The crew was very friendly, and we ended up in the galley where we served freshly baked bread and tea.

There we learned that they were allowing Soviet sailors to leave the ship for up to four hours. We were about a half hour from where we lived, so we invited three of the sailors to visit our home. One spoke good English.

The Navy (ours) checked us out, and we were on our way. The Russian sailors were full of questions. We served a treat at our home and turned the music on.

They were enthused and wanted to look through our albums. We let each of them take an album and they were delighted.

The three were very polite. We checked back with our Navy when we were at their ship.

I am not a boat person, but these were four boats well worthwhile to visit.