“You’d think you had seen it in a movie...” 2200 - Muskegon, Michigan. By Matthew Maples

I was surprised to see her, seeing as I came on deck, morning tea in hand without any expectations of anything unexpected. My hopes for a relaxing wake-up lasted for about a moment after I sat down – for I then stood in surprise! I had to squint to make out her form in the dawn; her expansive, un-split sails were silhouetted black against the morning sun - a form unmistakable to me; that of my old ship, the Brig Niagara.

But her, here and now? We thought she was miles away, having pulled away from us early in the race. Well, whatever we thought, it was clearly wrong, for here she was, a mile away on our port and closing - coming straight for us! With all the bravado of a privateer of elder days she traversed the sun before crossing our stern. Mere minutes later, she tacked, bringing herself on a course parallel to our own off our starboard quarter. This may have been a race, but there was little we could do but helplessly watch the nimble Niagara close the distance. 

“Now you’ve done it” I said to Daryl Sherman, who was pre-occupied with the shutter of his camera, whirring away photographic salvos with abandon. “We now have a navy warship after us! You must have annoyed them by shooting at them with your huge camera!”

Indeed, the Niagara ran us down, eventually brining herself up alongside us, no more than three ship-lengths away. It felt like we were playing out a scene from a Patrick O’ Brian novel as we watched this re-created War of 1812 brig chase us on open waters. Finally alongside us, the Niagara made her own finale by firing one of her starboard 32-pounder carronade guns: “Thud!” – The gun was loud enough that one could be excused for believing that they had fired a real shot! It was even loud enough that our mate, Harko, vaguely remembers a boom of a noise in a dream he had. The Niagara then tacked again, putting her on a course to finish the race.

Our time to finish the race would not be so forgiving. This short contest, about 120 miles in totality, ran parallel to the western end of Lake Michigan. An early westerly wind blew us and most of the other ships too far to the east of finish line (which was only a handful of miles wide). Unable to simply sail through the line from north to south, we had to tack our way across it. Unfortunately, our plans were fouled by a wind shift after our tack, causing us to miss the finish by line by less than a mile – agonizingly close! We then had to circle around the finish line almost completely before a favourable wind allowed us to cross it – a delay that cost too much of the day.

Regardless of the troublesome finish, this fourth and final race of the ASTA 2010 Tall Ships Challenge series was memorable, in particular for its beginning. For ourselves, we sailed off our anchor in Sturgeon Bay and then busied ourselves with hoisting our canvas aloft. Sail after sail was set as we manoeuvred to the start. As the race began, we were so busy trimming our canvas that I had no opportunity to look beyond our ship…but when I did it was a sight to remember! Right off our port, in close proximity was the Roald Amundsen, the Niagara, the Pride of Baltimore II and Denis Sullivan!  I have been in many tall ship races, but never before did I see a beginning in which the whole fleet was neck and neck, stacked together closely, all pushing their ships and crews for performance to pull ahead. It was that sort of “epic” start you want to see in a tall ship race, but nearly never do!

We have a lot to be proud about from this last voyage; we travelled from Green Bay, down the coast of west Lake Michigan, then up again to Muskegon strictly under sail. From the sail off our anchor, to the race, and entering Muskegon Lake we tacked, manoeuvred, and made our way with nought but wind and muscle! We only resorted to our “Iron Sail” (engines) to dock our ship on our final approach in Muskegon harbor.

Now if we can just keep that luck for our short trip to Chicago – our grand finale to the tall ship festivals this summer on the Great Lakes. We will be accompanied by WGN’s Jamie Bange and her crew to put us on TV – so stay tuned for our smiling faces!

By Tim Valbracht 23:30 – Lake Michigan

Ten years ago I met a lady in Halifax who, since first laying eyes on her, I have never been able to forget. It started innocently enough as a blind date that my cousin had arranged for me. Having travelled together for three months they were able to get to know each other quite well.

Starting in Amsterdam they had sailed to South Hampton before heading along the western edge of Europe to Cadiz. They crossed the Atlantic via Tenerife and Bermuda before turning north along the eastern seaboard of the US, making stops in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and finally Halifax where I would be awaiting their arrival.

I was anxious to see him again and was equally curious about this lady he talked about all the time. In fact I was so excited about it all that I showed up at the port the day before they were due to arrive and, wanting to stay close by, I slept in the back seat of my rental car that night. In the morning I met some of her friends who were already in town preparing for the weekends festivities. I did not know anything about this tall Dutch girl but if she was anything like her friends then I knew I would fall for her in an instant.

When they finally arrived around noon and I saw her for the first time I was certainly not disappointed. She was a lot taller then I had imagined her to be and I spotted her long before I saw my cousin. I was awestruck by her beauty and quickly realized that I was not the only one who took notice of her arrival. People stopped and stared at her with a star-struck gaze as if she were a visiting Hollywood legend. When some one is this good looking and knows it, they often can be pompous and act with an air of indifference - but not her.

She took it all in stride and seemed not to notice all the attention she was getting. She was very much in her element and looked the part.

Reuniting with my cousin is always a special occasion and this time would be even more so. He was very keen for me to meet this Dutch lady that he cared about so much and he knew I would like her. Introductions were made and as I expected, I fell in love with her. We spent a glorious weekend together before I had to leave her behind to return to the realities of every day life back home in Toronto.

Since that weekend so long ago we were barely able to keep in touch save for a few brief visits in Amsterdam a month after we first met. I did manage to see her several times over the years when she would drop by in Montreal or Toronto but nothing ever came of it.

Recently that all changed when I found myself in a book store shopping for a gift when I spotted something interesting hidden on the bottom shelf. The book in question had what looked like a picture of her on the spine and when I opened it to a random page I discovered that it was indeed about her.

Yes my dear reader, as you probably have guessed by now, this tall Dutch lady that I fell for all those years ago is no other than the ‘Europa’ and, thanks in part to that book, tonight she is now rocking me gently to sleep as she idly slips south on Lake Michigan.

Together at last.            

1510 - 44.50.0'N x 87.44.0'W - By Matthew Maples
"First Place" - That's what the burnished gold plaque in our library reads. The announcement of our Class A win was drowned out by roars of jubilation from our crew; who were outright psyched to see their hard work with the studding sails pay off. Captain Robert Vos grinned like a fox.

That was the last race; Duluth to Whitefish Point. As I write this we are on the eve of the fourth and final Tall Ships Challenge 2010 Great Lakes race; spanning the waters near Green Bay to the outskirts of Chicago, a 118 mile race.

That is for tomorrow - today we sail from Green Bay to Lake Michigan to get in position for tomorrow's 1000 start of the race. We will use the time in-between to acquaint our 22 trainees with the ship; their help will be needed to quickly get canvas aloft at the race's start.

With the conclusion of our hard-hauling race to Whitefish Point, we took it easy with a leisurely sail to Mackinac Island and through the shoals of northern Lake Michigan, before ending in Green Bay. We took a shortcut to Green Bay through the Sturgeon Bay Canal - a narrow canal lined with woodland so close that it created the illusion that we were sailing through a forest.

It is the nature of a world-venturing sailing ship that people are always coming and going. Today, on the quay in Green Bay we left three of our good shipmates; Frank the engineer, Rensje the cook and Captain Robert. We bid them a thunderous farewell with Europa's famously mighty foghorn. They are all going on holiday or to other ventures, but will return to us soon. We, of course, won't forget them, and in the case of Frank, can't forget him because he has, undoubtedly, left us a few surprises. Frank's pranks are well-known, and we will keep a sharp eye out for nasty things in strange places.

In their place we have Marius back as engineer, along with Captain Klaas, Marianne and the ship's dog Sirius. They left us in Panama for holiday and have returned to Europa. Apparently Sirius enjoyed his carefree holiday among green fields and trees while Klaas caught up on maintenance of his home in Holland. Sirius' return has finally put a timely death to a too-oft repeated joke; for whenever anyone has used the phrase for incredulity "Are you serious?" someone, (usually Diven) replies "Sirius! He left in Panama!"

Marius's return somehow coincided perfectly with a famous Europa braai BBQ - of which Marius is de-facto King of the Braai. That Saturday night (the 14th) saw an overly large Europa crew enjoy a huge spread of beef, breads, kabobs and sausages - far more than could be eaten! Perfect! A fine party for ourselves.

We are, of course saddened to part with our shipmates and friends, but it is lessened by the knowledge that we will see them again soon. Europa is a good ship, and you can know it by the fact that her crew, trainees and friends keep finding their way back on board to return from all corners of the world.

Today has been a noteworthy sail - a steady breeze of up to 20 knots from a favourable direction propels us toward the Sturgeon Bay Canal, where Lake Michigan awaits us. For Tim Valbracht however, it has been much more than that. Ten years ago Tim dreamed of sailing on Europa when he visited his cousin, the then engineer Rob Leering. After years of receiving ship's itineraries, insatiably reading the logbook and visiting her when she was in Canada, Tim finally found time to peel himself away from his aircraft maintenance/engineering job to sail away.

His final incentive to come on board came in a strange form; a random opening of a book. The silhouette of a tall ship on the binder of Pete Brown's "Hops and Glory" caught his attention. Tim opened it up immediately and saw, to his amazement: "Part 4 - Europa" - an account of one trainee's time on the ship. "No way!" he thought."If this isn't a sign."

Finally, Tim knew he had to make it happen - today was that day. He says it feels awesome to finally be the one on board, watching the shore fall away, instead of always watching the ship fade away to the horizon. His dream that he had ten years ago is "unfolding with every sail set."

Tim has already been aloft to unfurl the fore topgallant - a fine start. He is using his time on board to make a movie that he began when he filmed the Europa leaving Toronto in this year's parade of sail (from an airplane!) Perhaps it is a project to inspire other to sail.

"It is always going to be a part of my life, this ship," he told me. I think most of us here on Europa understand what he means.