(Tribune News Service) — “America’s Tall Ship,” a historic U.S. Coast Guard vessel, will visit Seattle, Wash., this week with a chance to take a tour.

The vessel will be moored at Pier 66, offering free public tours from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday and 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursday.

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle, known as “America’s Tall Ship,” is the country’s largest tall ship and only active square-rigger in the U.S. government service, the Coast Guard said in a news release.

The vessel is roughly the length of a football field at 295 feet long, and about as tall as a 15-story building, with its tallest mast standing at 150 feet. Its 23 sails total over 22,200 square feet.

The steel-hulled ship was built in Hamburg, Germany, in 1936, originally named after Host Wessel, a Nazi storm trooper who wrote the party’s anthem.

The U.S. seized the tall ship as a reparation after World War II and the U.S. Coast Guard sailed the barque from Bremerhaven, Germany, to New London, Conn., with the help of the ship’s German crew who were still on board, the military branch said.

Eagle has a permanent crew of eight officers and 50 enlisted personnel year round. The vessel has served as a classroom on the seas for future officers in Coast Guard Academy since 1946, offering an opportunity to practice navigation, engineering and professional theory, the Coast Guard said.

A “floating goodwill ambassador for US diplomatic relations,” Eagle also performs a public relations role for the Coast Guard, they said. The ship has hosted Presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Harry Truman.

The tall ship last stopped in Seattle in 2008. Seattle will be the seventh port call on Eagle’s two-week journey along the West Coast.

If you miss the ship in Seattle, you can trek to Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada to see it from July 15 to 18.

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