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It seems strange that Navy Secretary John Lehman should wish to spend $20 million on a tall sailing ship when he already has one, the frigate USS Constitution.
The ship built in 1797 could not be used to train sailors but she more than fulfills the two other criteria, that of attracting recruits and giving the Navy a sense of history.
”Old Ironsides,” which fought the Barbary Pirates, defeated four British ships in the War of 1812, and circumnavigated the globe, is preserved in her birth port, Boston Harbor. She is the oldest commissioned vessel in the U.S. Navy.
