Community Corner

VIDEO: Crowd Bids Farewell To Eagle At Fort Trumbull

Coast Guard training ship embarks on voyage to Europe

With a crowd of family members and well-wishers seeing her off, the Coast Guard training ship Eagle set sail for Europe from her berth at on a sunny morning Saturday.

The Eagle is heading for Hamburg, Germany and scheduled to arrive there June 3. The ship was built at the German city’s Blohm and Voss Shipyard in 1936 and taken as a prize of war after World War II. Since then, it has been training cadets from the and based in New London. The trip celebrates the ship's 75th anniversary.

“She’s always been here at the waterfront. She’s been here longer than the Gold Star Bridge,” said Capt. Eric Jones, who has served at the helm of the Eagle for two years.

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The Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut held a brief farewell ceremony, with Rep. Joe Courtney and Senator Richard Blumenthal in attendance. Blumenthal praised the role of the Coast Guard and other military branches in their hunt for Osama bin Laden, and said the Eagle would serve as an “ambassador of good will” while overseas. Courtney recognized Rear Admiral J. Scott Burhoe, the academy’s superintendent who will be leaving at the close of this academic year, and joked that he and Blumenthal had discussed how they wanted to join the trip.

“I was kind of hoping we could figure out a way to stow away,” Courtney said.

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Jones thanked the people who came to see the ship off. After it visits Hamburg, its stops will be Waterford, Ireland on May 27; London, England on June 10; Reykjavik, Iceland on June 24; Halifax, Nova Scotia on July 15; Boston, Mass. on July 22; New Bedford, Mass. on July 29; and New York City on Aug. 5. It will return to New London on Aug. 12.

A group of people from the region will be on hand at the stop in Ireland to see the ship again at the completion of the first transatlantic leg of its journey. Jones said the Eagle will also drop a wreath at the spot where the 327-foot cutter Alexander Hamilton was sunk in World War II, the first Coast Guard casualty of that conflict. About 250 cadets are on board learning to work at sea, he said.

Jeri Noel, of Groton, came to see the departure of her husband, Chief Tony Noel.

“It’s bittersweet, because this is his last voyage on this,” she said. “So we’re moving on. Harder more so on the kids than the adults.”

The Patricia Ann, a tugboat from , shot streams of water as it helped the tall ship out of port. The Eagle unfurled a large American flag, gave three blasts of its horn, and cruised past the Ledge Light out to sea.


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