Navy For Sail
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The U.S. Navy, more so than the other armed services, is steeped in tradition. There are many ceremonies that have endured among the ships of the fleet since John Paul Jones, and even before. Some have become archaic, displaced by improvements in technology and made obsolete by the size of the ships.
For example, even before Columbus, ships used bells to tell time, relative to the watch being stood - eight bells to each watch. Today, ships are much too large for bells to be heard normally, yet even on the biggest aircraft carrier, the bells still chime - but they are carried to every part of the ship by the loudspeaker.
The Bosun's Pipe is the same kind of tradition. It's a shrill whistle that alerts the crew to such things as "passing the word," welcoming a dignitary on board, or notifying the time for mail call or a meal. Today, it, too, is still sounded, but needs a loudspeaker to carry it to every part of the huge ships of today's fleet.
Now here's a tradition that is not well known among Naval circles - and in fact some of the Navy's highest ranking officers will avoid talking about it.
All Navy ships, no matter how large, are required by tradition and naval regulation to have the capability to make sail.
Really.
Somewhere on each Naval ship is a locker that contains the rigging and the canvas, and at least once during a ship's life, the crew will haul it out and put it all together. Imagine the incongruity of seeing a large destroyer or guided missile cruiser skating across the water under a billow of sailcloth. Funnier yet, imagine an aircraft carrier having to launch its planes differently, lest they be fouled in the lines for the job sails at the bow.
And imagine a submarine - well, the Navy makes provision of a change, there. But the tradition still holds - the conning tower of a submarine is officially known as a sail!
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