Annapolis, Maryland –
Baggywrinkle? Futtock? Cat-head? Scuttlebutt?
These are not exasperated guesses at Rumpelstiltskin’s name. They are nautical terms; part of a bizarre cornucopia of “olde tyme” sailing words. On a planet with a surface that is 70 percent water, with 80 percent of its commerce travelling on that water, someone needs the skills to conquer both waves and obscure maritime terms to keep the world economy in good order.
The U.S. Naval Academy, founded in 1845 along the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, Maryland, teaches its students to turn chaos into order upon the waters. It has maintained a robust student offshore sailing program for more than a 150 years to help with that mission. Nautical-minded midshipmen at the institution race their sporting peers from around the country during varsity-level intercollegiate sailing events staged throughout the Atlantic. Sailboat racing combines teamwork, decisive leadership and attention to detail into one intense – and frequently dangerous – wind and wave-driven package.
DLA Disposition Services staff members at Fort Meade, Maryland, recently coordinated the donation of a 21-boat fleet of two-person sailing dinghies previously used by the team for academy-hosted regattas on the Severn River. The dinghies – called Club FJs of Flying Juniors – are worth more than $5,000 apiece and were put through their paces for seven summers by the Naval Academy’s varsity offshore sailing team, beginning in 2005. According to academy sailing officials, the school replaced its fleet with a new set of Club FJs in October 2012, rendering the boats excess.
The recipient of the fleet lies 232 miles to the northeast – as the crow flies, not as the dinghy sails – at the State University of New York Maritime College, which has a mandate to supply the United States with sea-ready sailors. Its student body earns nautical-related degrees and travels the world each summer aboard the 565-foot Training Ship Empire State IV.
The New York City-based SUNY Maritime also got its start shortly after the Civil War, which crippled the nation’s shipping industry. There’s a historical precedent for the donation of the current fleet of Club FJs. SUNY Maritime – the first of its kind in the country – began as a water-based institution, existing entirely upon the USS St. Mary’s, a donated Navy vessel set up as a grammar school that would cruise with the students in the summer. In 1907, the school moved to the also-donated Navy gunboat USS Newport, which would move in and out of active Navy service in the following decades.