World Photo by Alex Powers Seven-month-old Matthew Swank, 5-year-old Brogan Markel and father Jeff Swank, Coos Bay, stand at the helm of the tall ship Hawaiian Chieftan on Wednesday.

COOS BAY — Although she spent Wednesday afternoon without her sister ship at the Coos Bay City Docks, The Hawaiian Chieftain wasn’t without company. More than 100 people boarded the tall ship to get a taste of high seas drama.

From 4 to 5 p.m., people poked, prodded and peered at every inch of the boat they had access to, from the poop deck and the bow, to the aft cabin below.

The Hawaiian Chieftain and The Lady Washington, which arrived later in the evening, are replicas of famous tall ships and were constructed by the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport in Aberdeen, Wash. According to a pamphlet on Grays Harbor, the original Lady Washington was constructed in the 1750s and fought as a privateer craft during the American Revolution.

On the poop deck, Boatswain David Bonner greeted visitors in his “funny clothes” — a waistcoat, dirty breaches and a torn, billowy shirt. A sunburn covered his entire face except for under his scruffy beard and a sunglass-shaped patch around his eyes.  A crew member since April, not including a three-week stint on the vessel through a class at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., Bonner said working on a tall ship is “awesome.”

“A lot of what we do is education stuff, so seeing the reactions of the kids and their enthusiasm is incredible,” Bonner said.

Visiting teachers sometimes tell him that even their most inattentive students are completely enraptured while aboard.

When at sea, the 24-year-old said, students help the crew sail The Hawaiian Chieftain.

“We’ll put the lines in their hands and make them do the work. We just guide them through it,” he said.

Visiting students are split into groups and visit stations — the deck, aft cabin and bow — to learn about a sailor’s life, an officer’s life and about trade in the 18th century.

Bonner said The Lady Washington was the first American vessel to visit the Pacific Northwest, where it traded otter furs before heading to China for tea, silk, spices and porcelain.

“Pretty much the standard stuff you’d get from China,” Bonner said.

Sailing and teaching go hand-in-hand for Bonner, who hopes to inspire children to become tall ship sailors.

“This is a trade that is kind of fading out of practice. ... There aren’t that many tall ship sailors out there. You have to keep people coming into it,” he said.

Students also get a new perspective on historic events such as the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Describing a less than 2-pound block of condensed black tea found in the aft cabin beneath him, the boatswain said it’s the equivalent of 2,500 cups of tea. A protest against British taxes on tea imported by American colonies, dissenters disguised themselves as American Indians, boarded British ships and dumped nearly 45 tons of tea overboard into the Boston Harbor.

“It made it click more why this was such a big event,” Bonner said.

As her children touched and inspected different parts of the deck, Dallas resident Kristie Storm said she and her family came to Coos Bay just to see the tall ships.

“It’s impressive. It’s beautiful. We’re home schooled, and we just look for opportunities to see new things,” Storm said, adding her two sons are interested in Navy vessels and the movie “The Pirates of the Caribbean.” “It’s just a great way to jump start a new unit.”

Storm’s oldest son, Manny, 7, seemed overwhelmed by the sails, mast ropes and the grandeur of The Hawaiian Chieftain.

“It just blows my head off because it’s just so cool,” Manny said as he looked over one side of the ship.

On the bow, topman Kari Thorensen watched as people toured the ship. The 18-year-old volunteer, who lives in Victoria, B.C., said she’s been on the ship for a month, and has learned a lot in that short time, including teamwork.

“The entire crew — we just pitch in, help out and do what needs to be done,” said Thorensen, dressed in a woolen blue “monkey coat” with tin buttons. “You can’t do it without help from your shipmates.”

Recalling the trip to Coos Bay on Tuesday — which involved a more than 10-hour delay — Thorensen said a storm hit the ship pretty hard. While it would have been much more difficult to sail into the area without the modern conveniences of radar, sonar and navigational equipment that can be found on the ship, she said the tall ship is more exposed to the elements than most crafts.

“(We) had an instance where a 20-foot swell came at us from the side. ... We pitched over to 80 degrees. If we had gone 10 more degrees, we probably wouldn’t have come back up. It shows really what power the sea has.”

Life on a tall ship for sailors came with its own set of challenges, the volunteer said.

Two hundred years ago, sailors would have eaten hard tack and salt junk, essentially hard-as-nails bread and “whatever kind of meat the owner of the ship could buy from the butcher as cheap as possible.”

“It could have been horse. It could have been dog ... the sailors called it salt junk because they didn’t know what it was,” Thorensen said, laughing.

Of course the crew members of The Hawaiian Chieftain aren’t suffering through tooth-breaking meals. A view through a small window of the ship’s galley revealed a pan filled with handmade burritos.

McKayla Jeffs, 8, said looking into the ship’s kitchen was her favorite part of seeing The Hawaiian Chieftain. The Bunker Hill Elementary School second-grader said she’d never seen a tall ship before.

“It’s cool,” McKayla said. “You actually get to see a real pirate ship.”