Flagship Niagara - Don't Give Up the Ship!

Bobby 5 months ago

I just saw a story posted on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Web site. Kudos on getting the word to those of us in Pittsburgh who consider Erie our second home.

I donated and spread the word, but please keep us informed if there is anything else we can do!

Jodie 6 months ago

I've been getting some great responses on today's post for my blog regarding the fundraiser and the brig! http://lakeeriebeachglass.blogsp...

Rick 6 months ago

I have received about 10 phone calls at work concerning tomorrows fundraiser for Niagara, I am not involved in the planning, so please call the Erie Maritime Museum for more informaiton at 814 452 2744.. Thanks Rick

Billy 7 months ago

This is a testimonial from Conrad Risher. He sailed with us in 2005 and again in 2006 as a Deckhand.

I came to the US Brig Niagara after a recent string of successes, and so was feeling fairly high on myself, confident in my abilities to pick up new things quickly and excel. This is not to say I was arrogant; I knew I was entering a new world about which I knew nothing and was quite resolved to quietly learn from those who knew better. I just expected to impress everyone by how quickly I learned. There could hardly have been a better reality check.

I was stunned by how incredibly stupid I was. Despite the patient repetition of explanations from countless crew members, I was completely baffled. Not a single name could remain affixed in my head for any line on board, not even labels with which I had been familiar before I arrived. Buntlines and clewlines aplenty I knew there were, but their locations and uses seemed wholly beyond my ken. As Erskine Childers once put it, "my part became that of the clown who does things after they are already done." I could not even derive any satisfaction from my preternatural ability to be in the way of never less than two people at once.

For two weeks, every evolution on board was a frustration and embarrassment. And then, on a day just like the one before, it occurred to me that a tack was imminent and that, on the last tack, I had stood by the port forebrace. By rights, then, at some point within the next twenty minutes, I would need to stand by the starboard forebrace. It took me two minutes to find -- not a thing to admit with any pride on a deck less than 100 feet long -- but, when the cry, "Ready about!" sounded from the captain, for the first time in weeks I did not have to wonder where I needed to be. Freed of that terror of being in the way or out of place, I could glance about the deck and see the wiser hands rushing to haul the spanker amidships or cast of the lifts and trusses. Suddenly, the logic of it all pierced through the clouds of my mind and the confused jumble began to make sense.

From that day forward, I could embrace Niagara as she had embraced me. The mysterious mare's nest of line suddenly became crystal clear and as familiar and welcoming as a child's game of cat's-cradle. The crew that had, seemingly, tolerated my idiocy with undue, inexplicable kindness welcomed my contributions and I fell in love with a world I never could have imagined. Those weeks aboard Niagara gave me a new lease on life. She took me places I should never have gone otherwise and taught me things I never realized I didn't know. Most formative moments come early in life, but I shall be ever grateful that Niagara was still there when I finally realized that she was what I had been looking for all along.

Claudia 7 months ago

Erie Yacht Club Announces Evening Cocktail Reception and Charity Regatta to Benefit the Flagship Niagara

Erie, PA – The Erie Yacht Club, recognizing the need to show additional local support for one of Erie's premier cultural icon's the Flagship Niagara, will host an evening reception and charity regatta.

The Erie Yacht Club has directly and indirectly supported marine activities from coast to coast for over a century. As a result of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's request for Erie to show more local support for the Flagship Niagara, the Erie Yacht Club will host two charity events on the ship's behalf. An evening cocktail reception dubbed “Pull Together Erie: A benefit for the Flagship Niagara” is scheduled for Tuesday, May 5th, and is open to the entire Erie community. The club will also host the first annual Flagship Niagara Regatta on August 9th.

Pull Together Erie: An Evening Benefit for the Flagship Niagara will commence at 6:00 p.m. in the Grill Room of the Erie Yacht Club. The evening will include a cash bar with Hor d'ouerves, a silent auction of Flagship Niagara artwork, and a keynote address from the noted maritime historian and Senior Captain of the Flagship Niagara, Walter Rybka. Local politicians and area business leaders are expected to be on hand. The evening will conclude around 8:30. According to the Event Chair, Douglas Boldt, “the evening will be a time where the entire Erie community can come out and show their support for their tall ship and local icon”. A suggested donation of $10 per person is strongly encouraged by the organizers.

This August will mark the first ever Flagship Niagara Regatta. The regatta will actually use the Niagara as the committee boat with the entire EYC racing fleet sailing around the ship that will be docked in the middle of Presque Isle Bay. The Erie Yacht Club has extensive experience conducting charity regattas, some of which have raised funds in excess of $50,000 for the non-profit benefactor for a single day event.

The Erie Yacht Club is proud to be an eager supporter of the Flagship Niagara. The club sincerely hopes that other Erie businesses, foundations and organizations will follow their lead by supporting and contributing to one of the premier tall ships in the United States, and one of the finest cultural icons in Erie, the Flagship Niagara.

Claudia 7 months ago

Letter by Flagship Niagara League's board president Brian Scott
Published in INSIDE ERIE on Thursday, April 16, 2009

Thanks for publishing your article about the U.S. Brig Niagara. As the Flagship Niagara League’s president, I thought it would be important to inform your readers about some key points regarding the Niagara.

1. We have about a $100,000 funding gap, assuming that we can raise $90,000 in donations — which is in our budget. The state has historically sent about $575,000 per year to Erie to fund the ship’s crew and maintenance. We have proposed a budget that would cost the state about $350,000 this year — but they think they have only $250,000 to give us. So we have about a $100,000 funding gap, assuming that we are able to generate the $90,000 in donations that are in the budget. The reality is that we need to come up with almost $200,000, unless the state can find additional funding.

2. The Niagara’s sailing program makes money and helps reduce the overall maintenance cost of the ship. It costs about $200,000 each year to sail the Niagara, but the sailing program generates between $200,000 and $350,000 each year in revenue. So sailing the Niagara actually reduces the maintenance cost for the ship. More important to the sustainability of the ship is that our sailing revenues have been consistently growing.

3. If minimal maintenance is put into the ship, even for one year, the sailing program could end completely. If we do not sail this summer, our seasonal crew and volunteers will probably not return. The seasonal crew wouldn’t return because crew members planned to get paid to sail all summer and would lose their jobs at the last minute. Volunteers probably won’t return because they worked all winter to prepare the ship to sail but won’t have the opportunity to sail, which is their reward. Losing key members of the full-time crew would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace once they take other jobs. And we will lose all credibility with other ports because they won’t be able to trust that we won’t cancel our season at the last minute. Finally, imagine closing a retail store for a year and trying to open back up a year later — it isn’t easy to do.

4. The flagship has to sail to survive. If Niagara doesn’t sail, we will lose all of the seasonal crew that completes most of the maintenance jobs. Our full-time crew supervises the work, but our seasonal crew and volunteers do most of the work. Without sailing, none of those “workers” will be available to do the work. We could also lose our Coast Guard license if we don’t pass a “sailing inspection.” We are still on our original license with all of our original exemptions. If we lose our license, there is a very good chance that we could never get a new one because regulations are much tighter today than they were 20 years ago when Niagara was originally approved.

5. The Niagara is in port 85 percent of the time. We occasionally hear that the Niagara is not available because she is in foreign ports, but on average she is available for tours 85 percent of the time. We are very careful to post our sailing schedule at the museum and on our Web site so people who really want to see the Niagara know when she is available for tours.

6. The Niagara is a world-renowned sailing ship. Our seasonal crew and “live aboard” trainees come from all over the world to join Niagara’s crew, and we have trained many of the best sailors in the United States, including several of the crew members of the USS Constitution. Sailing aboard the Niagara is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is open to anybody in Erie. No other active square-rigged sailing ship is as historical and as accessible as the Flagship Niagara.

I could go on for hours about the virtues of the Niagara, but I suspect many of your readers will do that already. So finally I’ll mention that many people have asked us how they can help fill our funding gap. Individuals and families can book a day sail aboard the Niagara most weekends this summer. People can join the Flagship Niagara League for as little as $25 ($40 for a family), which provides unlimited access to the Erie Maritime Museum and Niagara tours. People can donate money on our Facebook page under the cause “Flagship Niagara — Don’t Give Up the Ship”; a link is also on our Web site. Companies can offer to join the Flagship Niagara League with a corporate membership (starting at $250), book an event aboard the ship or in the museum, or help us sell Flagship Niagara tokens during May. For any of the above activities, you can contact us at 452-2744 or www.brigniagara.org .

Brian Scott

Claudia 7 months ago

Editorial INSIDE ERIE, written by Pat Howard
Thursday, April 02, 2009

All hands on deck for Niagara

The image of the U.S. Brig Niagara hanging on a wall at home – a print of Rich Forsgren’s stirring Erie Times-News photo of the reconstructed ship’s maiden sail – is considerably more inspiring than the Niagara memories I carry from childhood.

In those days, a previous incarnation of the brig sat landlocked along the west side of lower State Street, hardly a fitting setting for a sailing ship. Having all that water within spitting distance merely highlighted the Niagara’s sad fate.

That changed a couple of decades ago when the efforts of local people with grander dreams for the ship culminated in her third reconstruction since the remnants of the original were raised from Misery Bay in 1913.

The words below Forsgren’s photo said it all: “She sails.”

She’s been sailing ever since, under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, working the waters of Presque Isle Bay and Lake Erie and, in some years, setting off for far-flung ports. As an ambassador for Erie and Pennsylvania, the Niagara makes quite a first impression.

Now the sour economy has the state threatening budget cuts that could drastically curtail or eliminate the brig’s sailing program this year and perhaps beyond. That would leave her bobbing at the dock outside the Erie Maritime Museum.

The Niagara would still be a treasure as a museum piece, albeit one that’s a little too close for comfort to the earlier version perched across State Street. “She floats” doesn’t evoke history and capture the imagination quite like “She sails.”

Flagship Niagara League members and others committed to keeping the brig under sail are pushing back. They fear, among other things, that losing the sailing program would unravel the network of volunteers vital to keeping a wooden vessel shipshape.

A long-term disruption in the funding and labor necessary to maintain the ship also raises the specter of a worst-case scenario. After all, a version of the Brig Niagara was parked ashore once before.

One branch of that pushback is a local fundraising effort meant to demonstrate local commitment and prime the pump of state funding. The hope is to drum up $200,000 to help bridge the financial gap in time for the 2010 sailing season, if not this year’s.

And it’s striking that volunteers committed to getting a 19th century-era ship back under way are turning to 21st century tools to spread the word.

They’ve creating a “Don’t Give Up The Ship!” page on the Facebook social-networking site. The Facebook page had drawn 975 members, but just 33 donors, as of earlier today.

There’s no telling at this point whether the local uproar and fundraising will dissuade the state from idling Pennsylvania’s flagship. The financial pressures of this recession are immense.

What is sure is that seeing the Niagara under sail now and then has become part of the fabric of this community. And remember: The Niagara and her crew have been in tighter spots than this.