USS Constitution under sail in Massachusetts Bay, 21 July 1997.

USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United 1 States Navy. Named after the Constitution of the United States of America by President George Washington, she is the oldest commissioned vessel afloat in the world. Constitution, launched in 1797, was one of the six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 to be the Navy’s capital ships, and so Constitution and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed than the standard run of frigate. Built in Boston, Massachusetts, her first duty with the newly formed United States Navy was to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.

Her most famous era of naval warfare was the War of 1812 against Great Britain, when she defeated five British warships. From the battle with Guerriere, she earned the nickname of “Old Ironsides” because cannon balls glanced off her thick hull. She continued to actively serve the nation as flagship in the Mediterranean and African squadrons and circled the world in the 1840s. From 1853 to 1855 she patrolled the coast of Africa searching for illegal slave traders. During the American Civil War, the sailing frigate gave way to the progress of shipbuilding. For several years “Old Ironsides” was used as a training ship for the United States Naval Academy. Considered unfit to sea, the USS Constitution was rescued from destruction when Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem “Old Ironsides” launched a preservation movement in 1830. Retired from active service in 1881, she served as a receiving ship until designated a museum ship in 1907, and in 1931 she made a three year 90-port tour of the nation. The frigate was completely overhauled for its bicentennial in 1997 and it sailed under its own power, drawing international attention.

Now the oldest U.S. warship still in commission, Constitution remains a powerful reminder of the nation’s earliest steps into dominance of the sea. The Naval Historical Center Detachment of Boston is responsible for planning and performing her maintenance, repair and restoration, keeping her as close to her 1812 configuration as possible. She is berthed at Pier 1 of the former Charlestown Navy Yard, at one end of Boston’s Freedom Trail, and she is open to the public year round.

Internet: <www.wikipedia.org> (adapted).