Royal Gazette – September 29th 2006

She’s coming home!
By Elizabeth Roberts

The first glimpse of the homeward-bound Spirit of Bermuda should be possible from the South Shore this afternoon.

The three-masted schooner, which offers world class educational programmes to 14- to 20-year-olds, set off on her maiden voyage from Maine on Sunday.

According to Alan Burland, chairman of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation, the ship should be visible off Church Bay in Southampton at around 4 p.m.

She will then sail down the South Shore and around the east end before mooring for the night off Ferry Reach near the Oil Docks. She will set off again tomorrow morning to clear Customs in St. George's.

Although many in Bermuda are looking forward to welcoming the 32-strong crew, Mr. Burland warned: "There will be no contact at all with the ship on Friday. She will be flying a quarantine flag until she clears Customs the following day and we would ask the public to refrain from going out there."

However, one group of people who will be in contact with the Spirit today are the students of Whitney Institute, which has former pupils Kanhai Woolridge and Rockai Evans on board.
Executive director of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation Malcolm Kirkland will give a presentation to 87 pupils in the M3 senior year at around 2 p.m. Then, a live-link up is planned to communicate with those on board via satellite phone.
Cindy Weeks, head of the M3 department and a science teacher, said the 12 and 13-year-olds in her year group had been reading regular 'blog' updates from the ship during its journey.
"The kids are quite interested in the whole trip and a few of them would like to do the sail training one day," she said.

Many plan to attend the welcome celebrations tomorrow, and a group of teachers will also visit the Spirit in Dockyard to see how the marine classroom works.

Meanwhile students from the Studio Art Department at Saltus senior school have been using the Spirit as inspiration. Visual Studies instructor Steven Masters said they had been using it both as a subject for art work and also for research.

"It presents a whole series of beautiful shapes to paint from," said Mr. Masters, who added that students had been following the ship's progress with interest online.

Conditions during the trip have been rough, and the ship battled rain and winds of up to 32 knots on Wednesday evening. However, conditions had calmed by yesterday afternoon when the ship was sailing at seven knots in a 12-15 knot breeze around 130 miles from Bermuda.

"This has been a fantastic journey and the crew's spirits remain high," said Captain Chris Blake.
Latest details of the plans to celebrate the ship's homecoming tomorrow are detailed on the website www.bermudasloop.org.

As they stood yesterday, she is set to arrive at HM Customs, Ordnance Island, at 8 a.m. She will depart Town Cut, St. George's and sail up the North Shore, arriving at Hamilton Harbour at 1.15 p.m. An official welcome ceremony will kick off at 2 p.m and the Spirit will depart for her home base in Dockyard at 5 p.m.