1540 - 41.35.5'N x 81.55.3'W
By Matthew Maples
"Get ready on the courses! Only two minutes!" says Captain Vos. A flurry of activity follows his commands; canvas crackles as it tumbles from the yard and eager hands haul on lines. The billowing course sails, the lowest and largest square sails on our fore and main masts, are "tacked down", their clew corners hauled close to deck. Then, a mighty blast from our foghorn announces the beginning of the first of the Tall Ships Challenge 2010 races.

Now, hours later, the wind has died down and the ships lazily race for Pelee Island in west Lake Erie - less than thirty miles away. It is a short race, with barely a breeze. This race though, may instead be quite long as we creep ahead at barely two knots. Ahead of us now is the German brig Roald Amundsen, we have closed a lot of distance to her, but have not yet been able to overtake her as we grasp for inches in this race. With the spirit of competition in the air, Diven and Daniel, to amuse themselves, have rigged up a large makeshift slingshot from a galley pot and some bungee cords. They have already launched a water balloon at one of the Appledore schooners, with their ammunition landing a mere four meters away! They said that the Appledore IV crew was very surprised!

Though all plain sail is set there is little wind to work with, so Jay has taken to teaching our new trainees "the ropes;" "Sheet, clew, bunt, bunt!" I can hear her drilling them about the line location for square sails. No doubt they are confused after an afternoon of fast-paced sail handling as we scrambled to get canvas set aloft as the race began. With little time to explain, we thrust ropes into their hands and said "pull!" The rush is over though and now we will begin to take the time to explain more about just how our ship works - we want them good and trained for tacking and wearing ship since we are, of course, obliged to put the engine to rest and replace it with canvas, muscle and a lucky breeze.

There is plenty of teaching to do! We picked up eighteen more spontaneous souls then we expected in Cleveland, bringing our voyage crew total to twenty-five. The vast majority are green, but refreshingly eager. One of them, Nick Jameson, came to give the ship a casual visit yesterday. Now, less than twenty-four hours later he is on board and on watch! A spontaneous decision, but one he feels quite good about. After our afternoon of hauling on braces and halyards, I find him relaxing under one of our canvas towers. He tells me that as soon as he stepped on board he "knew it was awesome" and that "he had to do it." I ask him what he is hoping to get out of this experience, and he tells me that he expects "a little food, a little company…and maybe some direction." Then the deep New Zealand accented voice of Sam Swinburn, our chippy (carpenter) pipes in to our conversation; "You gunna find the meanin of life?" We all laugh. We'll see what happens! A few people claim nearly as much when they leave a ship like ours.

Cleveland now lies about eleven miles off our port - a city that treated us well. Many of us enjoyed our free passes to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and the Science Center. Our liason officers and their cadre of volunteers were awesome in getting us supplies, and most importantly, a television to watch the World Cup Final on (A match we will no longer talk about). We also thoroughly enjoyed our well-stocked crew party at Cleveland's Edgewater Yacht Club.
Cleveland now slowly falls into our wake as we make for Bay City. But first, a race!