The American Sail Training Association's mission is to encourage character building through sail training, promote sail training to the North American public and support education under sail.
On October 18th, ASTA Race Director Jonathan Harley, ASTA Education Director Eric Shaw and I attended a lecture at the Seamen’s Church Institute in Newport about an interesting tall ship project. Called The Future Ship Project for the 21st Century, aka FSP 21, it clear is not lacking in ambition.
“The physical base of this project is a four masted steel barque, 157 metres (515 feet) from the tip of the bowsprit to the end of the spanker boom, carrying over 8000 square metres of sailcloth in 31 sails, manned by 65 professional crew and 200 trainees.”
“FSP 21 – largest most modern square rigged education and adventure training sailing ship in the world”"FSP 21 will join a worldwide fleet immediately becoming a member of a peaceful international community and a leader in their realm of activity”
Whether or not this project is ever launched, it’s a great advertisement for sail training. Thanks to Rear Admiral David Bawtree (Royal Navy Retired) who travels the world spreading the word and reminding us of the possibilities if we dare to dream.
The ASTA conference is only a month away and it’s looking to be our best ever. Over the past few years conference attendees indicated their interest in going to warmer climes and we listened. We are on our way to Charleston, the home of ASTA Member South Carolina Maritime Foundation, owners and soon to be operators of the beautiful new schooner Spirit of South Carolina.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Measuring Success” and there are lots of exciting prsentations scheduled including an opening keynote by Captain Christopher Sinnett, the Commanding Officer of the USCGC Barque EAGLE. Professional sail trainers, marine educators, students, teachers, vessel ownver, Tall Ships festival organizers from the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark, India, Ireland and Poland will be in attendance. There will be something for everyone.
We launched a conference blog several weeks ago that has all of the latest info; check it out by clicking the above banner or going to www.tallships.wordpress.com.
This year we will also be holding our biennial Education Under Sail Forum which will be focused on “Ocean Literacy.” Our forum keynote speaker will be Ms. Louisa Koch, Director of NOAA’s Office of Education.
We hope to see you in Charleston at this not to be missed educational and networking event!
“…by just after 11.00 a.m. this morning the Master of the `Tenacious’ reported to the Coastguard that he considered that the fire was now out, but that he was planning to take the vessel back into Portland under sail to arrive early this evening after briefing his crew….No injuries have been reported.”
The Tenacious and Lord Nelson are fully accessible sail training vessels owned and operated by the Jubilee Sailing Trust.
In 2004, thousands of North American’s visited the Tenacious when she participate in our TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE Series. She is always a very popular vessel and has an incredibly inspiring mission.
ASTA Member, Mystic Seaport- The Museum of America and the Sea, issued a press release that they have joined NuRide, Inc., the nation’s first incentive-based ridesharing network.
According to the press release, Mystic Seaport ”has become a “100,000 Mile” sponsor and will reward regional commuters who are doing their part to relieve global warming by sharing rides using the NuRide service. Participating commuters will earn free admission to the nation’s leading maritime museum located in Mystic, Connecticut.”
The press release goes on to say…”(t)he Connecticut 2,000,000 Mile Rideshare Challenge was launched on January 1, 2006. The event involves thousands of commuters who will share rides resulting in 2,000,000 fewer miles driven and over 88,000 gallons of gasoline being conserved. To participate in the program, commuters use NuRide’s innovative online ridesharing program to find other people going their way. The NuRide website calculates the savings for each trip and awards participants with points for each confirmed ridesharing trip, which can then be redeemed with participating sponsors for exciting rewards.
This sounds like a great, innovative way to do your part in helping to save the environment and experience one of America’s great museums as a reward.
ASTA Member Sea Education Association of Woods Hole, MA is one of the longest running sail trainng programs in North America. While their primary mission is college accredited semesters at sea and high school summer programs, they recently launched an exciting adult sail training program called SEA Expedition. The next scheduled departure is in January 2007, so if you are up for some South Seas adventure, pack your bag and hop aboard. Just remember, sail training ain’t no cruise.
If you haven’t been to their website recently (www.sea.edu) I highly encourage you to do so. There’s lots of interesting information about their programs and ships.
On September 24th, the Boston Globe had a great article entitled “Full Sail: Joing the crew and standing watch on a seagoing classroom.” You can read it by clicking here. (registration required)
For the sake of full disclosure, I am an Overseer at Sea Education Association.
We have started a wiki. In case you are not familiar with wiki’s, they are living documents that are contributed to and resources for a community. The ASTA Tall Ships Wiki is designed to serve and inform the tall ship and sail training community. Anyone with an Internet connection can view it and any ASTA members (individual or organizational) can contribute. It will change and grow on a pretty frequent basis, so check back often.
Start exploring now by clicking here, following the link to Conferences and Forums, scrolling down to 2003 and clicking on the link for the Safety at Sea Forum. Here you will find a video presentation by Captain Sophie Morse about the 2002 incident involving schooner Ernestina in Long Island Sound. For a short cut, click here. The recording of this presentation was made possible by the generous sponsorship of Northeast Maritime Institute.
Please feel free to comment and offer suggestions here.
In case you have somehow missed it, this is a reminder that September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day. This is a good excuse to have some fun and, well, talk like a pirate. There are plenty of websites out there that can assist in planning your day and i have listed several below.
September 19th also marks one year since we lost a true ASTA friend, Captain Lane Briggs, an ASTA Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient.
I joined ASTA in January 2001 and our first TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE took place that summer. The first series stop was Kingston, ON, Canada and the most vivid memory I have from that summer was meeting Lane and spending time with him aboard the Norfolk Rebel. Lane was one of the warmest and most welcoming people I have ever met in my life and his ship was a crowd favorite wherever she went.
For years I would run into Lane in the most unexpected places including one time in Galveston for a party and sail on Elissa. Jenny, my wife, went out for a walk and called me on her cell phone arranging to meet in a bar. When I arrived, there she was sitting there with Lane and sharing a “spot of tea.”
To me Lane was a “Good Pirate” in that he represented adventure of going to sea under sail and meeting him conjured up dreams of sailors of a bygone era. He was good natured, big hearted and always willing to offer a helping hand. In his honor, please have some fun on International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle had a great article and slideshow featuring 2 ASTA members in the San Francisco Bay Area: Tall Ship Education Academy and Call of the Sea’s schooner Seaward.
Under the leadership of Executive Director Nettie Kelly, Tall Ship Education Academy does amazing work each year with young women from the Bay Area providing them with life changing sail training experiences. Their newsletter, To the Bitter End, is one of my favorites as the majority of it is written by program participants; it really captures the spirit of the sail training experience. You can download the latest version by clicking here.
Be sure to check out the slide and sound show. (click here)
I spoke with Captain Ken Neal Boyd, executive director of Call of the Sea, captain of the Seaward and ASTA board member and things have been pretty hectic as the orgainzation recently passed the major milestone of one year in operation. The vessel and Ken are keeping very busy but he plans on making the upcoming ASTA conference in Charleston, SC.
North Coast Harbor, Voinovich Park, the William G. Mather Steamship Museum, the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame make Cleveland one of my favorite venues for the TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE. Since the launch of the CHALLENGE, we’ve visited 3 times and hope to return again in 2010. The proposed merger between the Science Center and the Mather will include a physical connector between the sites that is scheduled for completion in 2008. This should make an already super TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE desitination even better!
One of the most rewarding experiences that sail training offers, in my opinion, is the incredibly close knit community that we belong to. This experience was underscored this past summer when fellow tall ship sailor, Emma Charles, and I reunited on the S/V Concordia.
Emma and I both started on the very same day in Philadelphia while serving as volunteers on the U.S. BrigNiagara during Tall Ship Ships 2000. We were both the youngest people onboard – I was sixteen, Emma seventeen. We forged a friendship that summer that has stood ever since. During the winter we rarely stay in touch, but we have ended up seeing each other every summer since through various ASTA Tall Ships gatherings. This year was no different.
This summer the schooner Bluenose II made a stopever in newport. Since I was working in the ASTA office there for the month of June, I decided to take a tour and low and behold, Emma was crewing onboard. She told me we were lucky to have caught each other because she was living in a week for the West Coast to sail on Concordia. While we laughed at the coincidence at ending up together again on Concordia, we somehow were not surprised.
This summer Emma and I were both living out a dream onboard Concordia. Having both started as volunteer deckhands, we were finally in positions in which we were teaching other young people, who were the same age as when we started in 2000, about tall ships and sail training. Emma was serving as the 2nd mate, and I as the Summer Shipboard Director.
The sail training community is more than just small and close knit. It is a community based on relationships, and the passing of knowledge to new sailors. Just as sail training has shaped Emma’s life and my own, we hope that we can share this gift with other young people.
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