The Horst Wessel (now USCGC Eagle) is a three masted barque, one of the sister ships of the Gorch Fock, built in 1936 as the second of five ships, at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was launched on 13 June 1936, and commissioned as a school ship for the German navy on 17 September 1936, homeported in Kiel. USCGC Eagle under sail The USCGC Eagle (ex Horst Wessel) is a three masted barque serving as a school ship for the United States Coast Guard. ...

In the three years before World War II, she undertook numerous training cruises in European waters, but also visited the Caribbean. In 1941 she was converted to a cargo ship, transporting men and supplies throughout the Baltic Sea, but continued to perform training missions as well. The ship is said to have downed three aircraft in combat during this period.

After the war, she was confiscated by American troops, and was commissioned on 15 May 1946 into U.S. Coast Guard as the Eagle. Her German crew, including the captain, together with American sailors, sailed her from Bremerhaven through a hurricane to her new home port of New London, Connecticut.

In mid-1976 the Coast Guard added the "racing stripe" to her otherwise unadorned white hull. She was the last cutter so painted.

The Eagle is slightly larger than her sister ship Gorch Fock. She has a sparred length of 89.7 m (295 ft), a beam of 11.9 m (39 ft), and a displacement of 1,755 tons. She carries 22 sails for a total of 1983 m² (21,344 ft²) and can reach a top speed of 17 knots (31 km/h) under sail. Her auxiliary diesel engine, with its 560 kW (750 hp), is also somewhat more powerful than that of the Gorch Fock. The Eagle has a range of 5,450 nautical miles (10,000 km) at her cruising speed of 7.5 knots (14 km/h) under diesel power.