posted on Oct, 26 2004 @ 03:31 PM
BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- The only Civil War-era vessel still afloat left its mooring Tuesday for a leisurely cruise to the Naval Academy -- its
first trip to Annapolis in 111 years.
The venerable USS Constellation can no longer make the 30-mile trip on its own power, so the sloop of war was being pushed by tugboats. The six-day
visit is part of a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Constellation, launched in 1854.
It's the ship's first time out of Baltimore's Inner Harbor since 1955, said Christopher Rowsom, executive director of the USS Constellation Museum.
The trip was expected to take about seven hours.
Built at Gosport Navy Yard near Norfolk, Virginia, the three-masted sloop has patrolled some of the most romantic and dangerous ports of call in the
The ship served in the Mediterranean Squadron before becoming the flagship of the African Squadron, which was charged with stopping the illegal slave
While patrolling the African coast off the mouth of the Congo River from 1859 to 1861, the ship captured three slave ships. The Constellation was sent
in 1862 to protect U.S. merchant shipping from Confederate raiders during the Civil War, according to museum records.
The ship is 186 feet long, with a beam of 42 1/2 feet. The hull is made of white oak.
The Constellation served as a training ship at the Naval Academy from 1871 to 1893. In 1890, Midshipman Edward Campbell wrote that about half the
cadets on the Constellation were seasick, adding, "For pure, unadulterated, indefinable misery I will heartily recommend seasickness."
Constellation website : www.constellation.org...
*Attention..... Hand Salute *