Bermuda Sun - November 3 2006

All aboard for the Spirit's maiden educational voyage
B. Candace Ray
Our reporter joined 20 schoolboys on the Spirit of Bermuda — here's what she made of it

The Bermuda Sun was privileged, last week, to share with a group of 20 M3 boys from Sandys Secondary Middle School, 45-hours over two nights of the first educational five-day voyage aboard the STV Spirit of Bermuda.

The students were assigned to the foremast, mainmast or mizzenmast watches under leaders Melvin Martin, Zander Kirkland and Adam Goodwin. They raised and trimmed the sails, scrubbed the decks, polished brass, set-up and broke down bunks, served meals, washed dishes and attended to whatever other tasks needed doing.

They were taught the points of sail and aspects of navigation and steering, and they drew on information provided, for an understanding of the engine room and galley.

The trainees were instructed in tying seamen's knots, snorkeling and learning to identify hard and soft corals.

They were introduced to a pictorial labeling the parts of the ship and asked to associate the function of those parts with similarly performing persons or things in their lives.

The journals they kept of their experiences aboard helped them reflect on the interconnection of the ship's myriad systems in relation to the generator and establish an appreciation for the life support those systems provide. The journal had them question their position within themselves, among their peers and with respect to other social groups.

And having been removed from Bermuda and their comfort zones by 18 miles of ocean, they learned they had to depend upon each other when one of a buddy pair became seasick and the other had to bring water, perhaps clean up and otherwise care for their partner. They discovered tolerance in the snoring and sniffling of close quartered three-tiered bunks, suspended hammocks and two heads (bathrooms) for 20; respect for the sleep of those not on watch, and character in continuing their duties despite seasickness, wind, rain, cold, bumpy seas, dark skies and waves washing over the deck.

The hands-on activities produced the greatest attraction according to educator-on-board Darrin Lewis. They enjoyed practicing knots, making the so-called 'Spirit' bands (wristbands) with them, snorkeling and so on. And through the instructors' coordinating with teachers of the school's core subjects, the journals the boys wrote might later be used in their language arts classes.

Awareness
This traditional sail training expedition and the formal experiential learning that took place are Spirit's contribution to personal teen development in the Middle Schools' Programme, for which The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is the study guide.

The single five-day introduction to the sea is seen as stimulating for those youngsters who would take advantage of the exposure. For in addition to what they've learned about responsibility, discipline and teamwork, they'll remember how colour, sound and feeling bombarded their senses - the cloud-draped sun rising over rolling seas, the foul-weather gear of yellow-bodied ghosts dragging lifeline harness instead of chains and the newly baptized sailors picking out landmarks along the South Shore.

They'll recall the teak deck slowly materializing from the dark under the dorades (air vents) and the winds moaning above the mast, the sound persistent, eerie, powerful, perhaps see it as a breathless spirit endowed with the ancestry of the ship, like a living soul wrought from previous Bermuda Sloops.

Darrin Lewis noted: "Towards the end of the trip, we started to get more in the routine, but it was the end of the voyage."

Spice Valley Middle School M3 boys will make their Spirit of Bermuda trip November 6 to 10, while the school's M3 girls will do the expedition November 27 to December 1. And another group of Sandys Secondary Middle School students are scheduled before year's end.

When the tall ship tied up to her Dockyard pier, Capt. Chris Blake made it clear to the trainees that they're now considered Spirit's 'family' and as such are welcome to visit and volunteer at her West End berth.

For now, the pride of the ship rests in her name on the stern and on her dinghy and orange lifebuoys, in the flying of the Bermuda flag from her mizzenmast and on the shoulders of recent student-sailors walking a little straighter.