Bermuda Sun - April 1st 2005

Sloop project offers many solutions
Commentary By Stuart Hayward
(Opinion from 2005-04-01 Edition)

Amid the list of problems and complaints flooding our little Island, it’s a huge relief to hear of a potential solution. The Bermuda Sloop Foundation (BSF) is well on the way with a plan that could perform wonders with several of the challenges we face.

First, the scheme: BSF has designed and is building an 88 foot sailboat, a Bermuda-rigged schooner that will provide sail training for virtually all of Bermuda’s 14 to 20 year old youth. The ship and the scheme are designed for hands on teaching. Starting with the upper levels of middle school, the scheme will capture youth through senior school age-levels, even those who have dropped out of school. Middle school youth will start with a one-day orientation. They will progress to one-day then five-day voyages. By the time they are at senior school level, public and private school-age youth will be spending extended time on board — during holiday time, of course — and serving as ships-mates and para-teachers for the incoming crews.

There’s more to it than I can describe in this space but here are some of the benefits we can expect:

• Discipline: Anyone who goes to sea learns quickly the importance of disciplined conduct. The ocean is a strict and unforgiving taskmaster. Mistakes or lapses in discipline have consequences that shake a mind and body with raw reality, leaving lessons that are never forgotten.

• Reduced race/gender prejudice: When the sea demands full attention, stereotypes give way to core guts. Strength and toughness are equally useful so the supposed differences between males and females diminish. Likewise racial stereotypes are minimised as each individual’s core self emerges.

• Increased national pride: Bermuda has a stupendous maritime history that is still hidden to most of us. Our ancestors gave the world the Bermuda rig, the fastest practicable sailing rig on the planet. Our sailors pulled off the most adventurous of maritime ventures. Plugging in to that chain of history will swell the hearts of these newly seafaring youth.

The ship itself and its promotional package are designed to re-brand Bermuda as a major maritime player. If its speed matches its design predecessors, this ship is expected to lead the pack when racing and bring pride of victory to the crews and doubly to us landlubbers here at home.

• Technical training: By linking the more boring academic learning to the more exciting hands-on seafaring, we can anticipate the BSF scheme to elevate learning in all our students. Navigation enhances the desire to learn mathematics. Maritime research will enliven student experiences of science and journalism. The teamwork and training in crewing on a sailing vessel sharpens skills that can be used in virtually any industry, from service to international business to science.

The real benefit of this scheme is that it has an impact on our youth before rather than after they might get into trouble. Our youth will be training in the skills of celestial and electronic navigation, engine maintenance and repair, and hospitality-related preparation and service, all alongside basic academics. The BSF will be giving our youth the experience of being busily out of trouble. The emergence of their individual and national self-identity alongside the inner strength that attends a healthy relationship with the ocean will go a long way to put them on the good enterprise path.
In a nutshell, here are the outcomes we have come to expect from sail training schemes:

• Respect for order and organisation;
• Recognition of need for practiced skill;
• Understanding value of planning ahead;
• Obligation to depend on and look out for our crew mates;
• Survival value of staying calm in emergencies;
• Need to tell the truth no matter what the consequences;
• Making good decisions.
Imagine our youth, all our youth, in possession of these qualities — some more, some less, to be sure — but just imagine.