On Febuary 21-22, 51 scouts and scouters traveled to
Baltimore, MD for a weekend of living history. First stop
was Ft McHenry where the scouts watched an inspiring
presentation on the writing of the Star Bangled Banner before
exploring the fort.
We left there and went to the USS Constellation to spend the night.
We were divided into a port watch and a starboard watch. We learned
to rig the sails and then turned the yardarm. Then we raised a barrel using the
capstan. Then we lowered the colors and ate dinner. Dinner
consisted of hard-tack, beef stew and dried fruit. After that we
toured the ship. We went to bed in hammocks. Every hour a
different group of boys woke up to stand watch for an hour. Checking
the ship top to bottom and ringing the ship’s bell every ½ hour.
When we got up, we got dressed, packed and went to the bathroom.
Then we got into our watches and raised the colors. We ate breakfast
that was made up of oatmeal, bacon and a biscuit. Then we went to the
gun deck to learn how to fire a shell gun and actually worked the guns
to run-in, load, run-out and fire in 3 minutes. After that we went to the
spar deck and they fired a rifled gun.
When we left the ship, we toured 3 other vessels at inner harbor – the
submarine Torsk, the lightship Chesapeake and the US Coast Guard
Cutter Taney.