enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Spectators watch as the Eagle passes Portland Head Light on Friday.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Mike Beaupre of Lyman and Jake Naum of Auburn are among the crew.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Some jobs on board are exhilarating, like being perched on the royal yard, the topmost cross member on the mast, 140 feet up in the air, where even a gentle swell is magnified into a heart-pounding oscillation.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Swabs Lidia Monks, left, and Steven Danseglio, at helm, are led by helmsman Bryn Barley, right, to guide the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle into Portland Harbor on Friday. Its mission is to train cadets in seamanship and teamwork.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Free tours of the Eagle will be offered today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is moored at the Maine State Pier off Commercial Street. The Eagle will leave the harbor at 9 a.m. Monday.

U.S. COAST GUARD CUTTER EAGLE — Chief Warrant Officer Paul Dupuis, scanning the ocean from on top of the bridge, barks out a command: "Right 30 degrees!"

Bryn Barley, the 19-year-old helmsman from Albuquerque, N.M., repeats the instructions even more loudly, making sure it is correct and that her team of five cadets understands the maneuver to come. Then, eyes on a gyrocompass, she leads the team as they spin three elegant wheels connected by a gleaming brass shaft, wheels that manually adjust the midship rudder to the proper position.

Checking the ship's heading on a vintage compass the size of a Frisbee, Barley bellows "Heading course 325 degrees," confirming that the Eagle, the Coast Guard's three-masted training vessel, is on the track line toward Portland Harbor.

"Heading course 325 degrees, aye" responds Dupuis, a 27-year veteran of the Coast Guard and an Augusta native who graduated from Cony High School. Now, he is the deck commander for the Eagle, responsible for the operation of the sails and rigging and for bringing the 295-foot ship into port.

The lone tall ship in the Coast Guard fleet entered Portland Harbor on Friday with an escort of a dozen smaller Coast Guard and Coast Guard Reserve boats, and was feted with twin geysers of water fired from the tugboat Andrew McAllister, and three smaller ones sprayed from the soon-to-retire City of Portland fireboat.

The ship, which is at the Maine State Pier, is open for public tours today and Sunday.

The ship was under sail until Thursday night, but Friday the sails remained furled. While it is magnificent when propelled by 26,000 square feet of canvas, it is less maneuverable, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith.

On board were a crew of 60 and 140 cadets, the youngest of whom are called "swabs," meaning they are still in boot camp and have yet to formally enter their freshman year at the Coast Guard Academy, which starts in a few weeks.

They wore green shields on the lapels of their ocean-blue uniforms and baseball-style caps reading "Class of 2013."

Others are academy second-year students, on board for six weeks of training in seamanship and teamwork.

The Coast Guard ferried dozens of guests out to the ship, to give them the chance to experience the approach and witness the work of the young men and women. The conditions were ideal, with a slow, gentle swell and little breeze.

Among the most thrilled to be climbing aboard was Ron Thurston of Fort Collins, Colo. Thurston had flown east to get a chance to visit his son, who was five weeks into boot camp and about to start his freshman year at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

"He has about as much experience with boats as I do with spaceships," Thurston said of his son Karl, but noted that after high school, the young man "wanted to do something that is real and tangible, to be somebody who is out there doing something."

Thurston expected to greet his son when the ship docked but was so excited, he showed up hours before it arrived. A member of the Coast Guard invited him out to the ship with the other guests where he was able to greet his son and watch him at work.

The swabs had boarded in Rockland and had spent the past week on board, learning the many jobs that make the ship run smoothly.

Some are exhilarating, like being perched on the royal yard, the topmost cross member on the mast, 140 feet up in the air, where even a gentle swell is magnified into a heart-pounding oscillation.

"It's a scary feeling, getting up there, but once you're up there, it's amazing. You feel like a bird," said Mike Beaupre of Lyman.

Their assignments also include the exceedingly mundane, scrubbing pots and pans and collecting the trash. James Diddell, a swab from Newark, N.J., was dutifully polishing a brass plate on the ship's rail.

"You clean it and you have to clean it over again,"...