This is a blog post shared by Hope Collins, a former crewmember of Niagara, on her personal blog. We encourage you to visit and see the impact Niagara‘s sailing programs can have on the lives of her students and crew, few could say it better.

https://ladymarinerblog.wordpress.com/2024/01/17/a-eulogy-for-niagara/

(I am going to attempt to do this without cussing.)

To everyone shutting down the US Brig Niagara and the Flagship Niagara League,

My life began on a June morning in 2013 when my mom dropped me off on the plaza of the Erie Maritime MuseumThe Erie Maritime Museum (EMM) is a cultural institution located in Erie, Pennsylvania, dedicated to preserving and showcasing the region's maritime heritage. Established in 1997, ... when I was 21. There was my life before that moment, and my life after.

I’m a therapist based in Erie, PA, but I was raised in Pittsburgh. I have a BA in English and a Master’s of Social Work. I’m the middle of three girls, my favorite color is purple, and for the past ten years my favorite thing about myself has been that I used to work on the US Brig Niagara. You don’t know me, and I’m about to tell you why that’s now a problem.

My time on the ship was one of the most pivotal eras of my life. This was where I was taught when to take in sails, when to run with the wind, when to call for help, and when to turn towards safety on land. That way of life for me and so many others is about to disappear due to the decisions of those who don’t understand that this is not just another boat. It is not just Pennsylvania’s flagship, a historic landmark from the War of 1812, and the underdog champion of Oliver Hazard Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie. Niagara is so much more than what you’re making her out to be. And I can’t go back to port without using the strongest tool at my disposal: my story.

Here’s my story: I had to choose between a summer internship in New York at Penguin Publishing, or go sailing for three weeks on Lake Erie. I chose the latter. I was transformed after sailing onboard for twenty one days as a history program trainee, wrote my senior thesis about my experiences onboard, worked there for 5 years after college, fell in love, had my first real devastating heartbreak, fell in love again, got engaged right on the midships hatch, got married, and received my masters in social work. I sailed over 10,000 nautical miles and have had experiences most people will never get to have themselves.

My ultimate dream, the thing I’ve been working towards, was a tall ship group therapy program for people in Erie. My husband’s dream was to be the first Erie native to captain Niagara. We uprooted our life in North Carolina to return home and start our journeys toward those goals. We were so excited to come back here for Niagara, for this place that we chose, to invest in Erie, and to start making these plans a reality. Those dreams in the last few weeks have been absolutely obliterated. He leaves tomorrow for a ship in Santa Barbara. And although we’re grateful that there’s work for him at all, we were looking forward to him being closer to home more of the time. We don’t know how long he’ll be gone for. There will be no first Erie native captain of Niagara. That option was taken from my family by those who don’t sail or understand what it’s like to be in the world of tall ship sailing. It’s because of you we’ll be on separate coasts for an undetermined amount of time when we thought we would be building a program together.

It’s a strange workplace to describe to others. (I doubt many other jobs have it where your boss comes and wakes you up for your shift.) You don’t know the kind of freedom that comes from being on the open water. The lows were incredibly low but the highs were so rewardingly high. I’ve never felt more connected to the people I worked with, more grounded at a workplace. You don’t know the kind of healing people get from being out on the water and working as a team, from having to rely on each other so intensely. That’s what we got to teach every single student who came onboard to sail with us: you have to work together.

I’m not surprised people in government are making decisions they have no idea about. Although your poorly disguised words of optimism and good faith speak loud and clear, your actions always speak volumes louder. What I hear is that you have no idea what this ship does for its people. You haven’t seen how two weeks at sea on this boat transforms lives. A trainee who complained the entire trip went back home to Texas and was volunteering to help in the rebuilding of his community following a hurricane. His mom called to tell us how much he’d grown and learned from his fourteen days at sea with us. A well-off New England student was taught how to do dishes for the first time by a trainee from the west side of Toledo at the galley sinks while we were underway. A girl conquered her fears and went aloft on her last day of the program and wept from pride. You’ve never had to find your own family away from home. You don’t understand how life-changing this place was for so many people. And the heartbreaking part is you’re not even giving us a chance to show you. You have no interest in working together with us, the people who know the ship literally inside and out.

My heart grieves for the 30+ crews this iteration of Niagara has had. It grieves for the crews I’ve worked with, the trainees and students I’ve taught and sailed with, and all the people who will never have this opportunity again. It hurts to think that this magnificent floating classroom will become nothing more than a dockside museum exhibit when it could be out on any of the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, or even the ocean, if given the chance and the support to do so.

You’ve cast aside and ignored our mighty assortment of volunteers, the very foundation of what made the Flagship Niagara League. There would be no progress, no sail training, no Niagara as we know it without the enthusiasm, tireless nature, and dedication of our volunteers. As a professional, I relied on them countless times, because at the end of the day, they knew the ship differently than I did. They are a priceless resource to us and to this community, and they are being pushed aside and silenced. Some of them may not know me, but I know them to be the strongest crew and our most passionate advocates, and I know they will not go down without a fight.

You’ve disrespected one of the linchpins to this entire enterprise: Captain William SabatiniFleet Captain William "Billy" Sabatini is the executive director and fleet captain of the Flagship Niagara League. Sabatini grew up in southeastern Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, and ... has made his life’s work the Niagara, sail training, the community of Erie, and the Flagship Niagara League as a whole for over 15 years. He has taught thousands of students, captained multiple crews, and made this program the success it is. I wouldn’t be where or who I am without his mentorship and guidance, and I know numerous other sailors would say the exact same. No one cares more about this ship than Billy does, and you’ve made up your mind to make him into something evil in your story. Fortunately enough, I know there are more of us than there are of you who, in our stories, Billy has never been and never will be the villain. He cares so deeply for this program and Niagara’s mission, and what we call the gospel of sail training. This is one of the most highly regarded captains and sail trainers in the country, and you’ve crafted him into the villian of your narrative.

You don’t know me. You don’t know any of us: the crew, volunteers, students, etc. who are deeply and irrevocably affected by your decisions. I hope you all find something that you can love as deeply as all of us have loved Niagara. And although I understand that Niagara’s not a place, it’s her people, there are those who will never get that opportunity on our ship again. A home has been destroyed, and lives have been changed, and none of it feels for the better for those of us here experiencing it. An entire future generation of Niagara crew and students was out there, and they are now lost.

You killed something so important for so many people in this community and beyond. A lot of my friends got to the acceptance stage of grief much sooner than I did, because I like to live in that sweet optimistic denial arena for as long as possible before I finally have to admit defeat. It’s not common for me to feel like that. I always believe there’s another way, another chance to make things work. I usually have more fight in me than I do right now. This whole situation has left me feeling so hollow and hopeless. I don’t know how to move on from this tragedy, which might sound dramatic, but that’s what this is. It didn’t have to be like this.

That’s where my life began. That’s where I met everyone. That’s where I met myself. I don’t want to know what my life would’ve looked like without it, I’m not interested in that version of me. She was home; she was a home of mine. It’s not even a person. It’s a thing, but that thing was alive. Niagara has a personality, it has a spirit. Sometimes, when it was quiet in the evening, and the water was gently rocking her back and forth, I wasn’t convinced the ship couldn’t breathe on its own. That place held me, held all of us. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never experienced it and difficult to describe when you have. That’s where I learned how to be bigger than my fear, how to move with the wind and not fight it, where I heard all my favorite people’s lore, where my heart first broke and then reopened. There’s a sacred quality to those deck boards, a holy nature to the masts, a quiet salvation in the luffs of her sails. She is too important to not write a eulogy for.

I can only get so many tattoos. Any way I think of honoring this ship feels like it’s not enough for everything it’s given me and so many others. So here’s my call for everyone who has ever set foot on, sailed on, or had any interaction with our beloved Niagara: tell your story. Keep her alive in this way. Make it impossible for us to forget her, the way we want to remember this magnificent piece of history. Her story deserves to be told by those of us who knew her in the way she’s meant to be known: at sea.

I often tell my grieving clients a few quotes to ease some of the pain: one from an interview I saw with Andrew Garfield on Stephen Colbert after losing his mother: “all this grief is just all the love I didn’t get to give.” And then another quote: in his lifetime achievement award speech, Saint Fred Rogers made the audience at the Emmys pause for 30 seconds to remember those “who have loved us into being.” To round out whatever this has been, it’ll be much longer than 30 seconds, but I will never stop being grateful for the ship that loved me into being.