With a New Purpose:Roseway

Once a Banks fishing schooner,
a WW II picket boat, a pilot schooner,
and a passenger-carrying
windjammer, the Roseway
now serves as a floating
classroom. BY CARL LITTLE
Kate Wood
I
T IS A TUESDAY AFTERNOON IN
late January on a long loading dock on
Gallows Bay, St. Croix. At one end, where
the Virgin Islands Port Authority is busy moving goods from ship to shore and from where
the fast ferry to St. Thomas takes off, stand 31
sixth-graders from the Claude O. Markoe Elementary School in Frederiksted. At the other
end, the crew of the schooner Roseway, who
are also the faculty of the World Ocean
School, spread out in a line. At a signal, the
kids run the length of the dock, each and
every one receiving high fives and fist pumps
from the crew as they hurtle in. A remarkable
class on the Caribbean begins.
On this, the second day of the week-long
program, the excited students sport red
Roseway crew t-shirts with pride (the interisland trader Norma H II is the sponsor of
one sleeve; Schooner Bay Market, the other).
They form a circle on the dock, where crew
member Stephanie Miller leads them in a
series of exercises to “pump them up.” The
kids count to three, then leap into the air
while yelling, “I’m a star.” You can hear them
even over the sound of a sea plane as it takes
off from nearby Christiansted.
To get them into sailing mode, the crew
takes turns asking questions related to what
the students learned the day before. “Why do
we need a chart?” one of them calls out.
“Because you could run aground,” a student
shouts. “In what direction is the rope
Left: The thrill of sailing is central
to the World Ocean School experience.
Opposite: The members of the Roseway crew come
from several backgrounds but share a single goal.
32
photographs courtesy World Ocean School unless otherwise noted
With a New Purpose:Roseway
and the World Ocean School
33
Learning how to plot where you are is part and parcel of discovering who you are.
It takes a gang of youngsters to get under way.
coiled?” asks another. “Clockwise,”
another kid answers. In 15 minutes
they’ve covered bow and stern, halyard
and sails, knots, fenders, and furling. “We
are a community and a crew,” declares
Miller, and everyone goes aboard.
The students, a nearly even distribution of boys and girls, follow crew instructions, eager to volunteer for any task. After
the vessel is under way, they break into
groups named for the sails: jib, jumbo,
fore, and main. Today, the four stations
focus on the wind (where it comes from
and how to measure it); the history of sail,
including the St. Croix slave trade; navigation, where the kids learn to read charts
and work with compasses; and knot-tying
and coiling. They also take turns at the
helm, steering with Captain Tom Ryan.
The theme for the day is teamwork,
but the lessons for the week include
understanding the physics of a block and
tackle; buoyancy (how the schooner
floats); ocean optics (why the water is
blue); and local marine ecology. The
crew covers subjects that are being
taught in the children’s St. Croix classroom, but from a nautical perspective.
How do the sails convert the wind to
motive power? Lift.
In school the students have been
reading The True Confessions of Charlotte
Doyle, a young adult sea adventure by
Avi. Now they get to climb the ratlines.
olina, Oregon, even Sweden. They have
signed on to the Roseway for a year, about
half of it to be spent in St. Croix, the
other half in Boston. Many learned about
the schooner by word of mouth, but the
school also posts crew openings with the
American Sail Training Association and
on Craig’s List. The crew is complemented by a couple of regular volunteers,
snow birds from Virginia and Maine who
want to give back to their favorite island
retreat via community service.
The U.S. Virgin Islands are promoted
by the tourism trade as America’s paradise.
While St. Croix has its wealth of beaches,
it is a working island with an oil refinery
and rum distilleries. Many of the kids who
sail aboard Roseway live in housing projects and know poverty. They are amazed
that the crewmembers, who are mostly in
their mid-to-late 20s, aren’t married with
children. The girls will ask the women
where their husbands and babies are. They
are intrigued: Can anyone do this? Which
leads to a conversation about going to
school and having a career and, yes, maybe
starting a family one day.
The crew will finish the week by discussing “dreams”—what the students
hope to achieve in their lives. According
to World Ocean School Education Director Eden Leonard, they will be “blown
away by the amount of things they have
learned and experienced aboard Roseway.”
34
Sailing is physical—and empowering:
these youngsters have raised a one-ton
sail. They have also learned the lesson of
many landlubbers, that when the sea
runs rough, they may find themselves at
S/V ROSEWAY
LOA: 137' (41.8 m)
LOD: 112' (34.1 m)
LWL: 90' (27.4 m)
Beam: 25' (7.6 m)
Draft: 13' (4 m)
Propulsion: Sail, 400-hp diesel
Sail Plan: gaff-rigged schooner
Total Sail Area: 5,600 sq. ft.
(520.3 m²)
Hull Material: white oak,
pine, Douglas fir
Builder: John F. James & Son
Shipyard, Essex, Massachusetts,
built for Harold Hathaway of
Taunton, Massachusetts
Launched: November 24, 1925
U.S. National Register of Historic
Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
the rail. Character and camaraderie are
built in many different ways.
The Roseway’s eight-person crew
hails from Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Minnesota, Georgia, North Car-
MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS
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June / July 2011
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Issue 115
After a week aboard Roseway, students are often more motivated to learn than they ever were.
She doesn’t stop there. “No kid walks away from this experience
without tremendous discovery or insight, whether it be about
themselves, the world, academics, or sailing.”
Leonard has proof of this claim: the crew hears from teachers and school administrators that these students are more
motivated in the classroom after a week aboard Roseway.
Another proof is Arius Lawrence, a graduate of the program
who is standing at the dock when Roseway returns; he will join
the crew to work on the sunset cruise. Time on the vessel has
inspired him to dream of college and beyond.
he World Ocean School represents the fulfillment of a
dream, that of its co-founders, Abby Kidder and Dwight
Deckelmann. The two met at Principia College in Alton, Illinois. They later reconnected in Maine, where Deckelmann built
houses and boats along the coast and Kidder worked for the
Institute for Global Ethics in Camden.
Over the years the two friends often spoke about how great
it would be to have an education program where kids could experience something outside their daily lives—a kind of adventure
in education that would transform them. The attacks of September 11, 2001, spurred them to act. “When 9/11 happened,”
Kidder said, “it seemed there were suddenly a lot of unknowns
in the world.” She and Dwight felt that if there ever was going
to be a time to help kids understand their responsibility within a
community, it was now. “In many ways,” Kidder added, “9/11 was
a catalyst because it felt like it was time to contribute something
bigger to the world, even if it was in our own small way.”
The two developed a mission statement and by April 2002 had
filed papers to establish a nonprofit incorporated in Maine. Their
choice of name, World Ocean School, was important. “We wanted to make it clear that we were thinking globally and working on
the water,” Deckelmann explained. It sounds “a little grand,” he
admitted, “but you have to dream.”
The two had planned to start slowly—raise money, maybe
eventually lease or build a boat—but circumstances dictated otherwise. Deckelmann got wind of a schooner, Roseway, that was on
the auction block. As it happened, Kidder had been on the vessel
as a 12-year-old when her grandfather chartered it for his wife’s
birthday.
T
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MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS
The Roseway undergoing restoration in Boothbay Harbor.
35
The schooner was in poor shape, sitting in the water at Rockland Marine.
Deckelmann spoke to shipwrights he
knew, and they assured him the vessel
could be saved. He and Kidder wrote to
the owner, the First National Bank of
Damariscotta, outlining their project
and their need for a vessel. The bank
quickly responded: Roseway was theirs
for $10 as long as they could take possession of it within ten days, when the
insurance would run out.
The scramble began. The Allen
Agency in Camden agreed to insure the
vessel if it were on land. How to get a
260-ton, 137-foot vessel out of the
water? Sample’s Shipyard in Boothbay
Harbor (now Boothbay Harbor Shipyard) agreed to haul the schooner and
undertake the repairs. To this day, Kidder isn’t sure “what those guys were
thinking” when they bought into a
scheme by a brand-new educational
nonprofit to rebuild a schooner, really
quickly, with payments to be made
month by month.
After managing to get the boat to
Boothbay, thanks to a 3:00 a.m. hitch
with a passing tugboat, Deckelmann and
Kidder got serious. They quit their jobs
and began a full-time focus on the vessel. Deckelmann recruited a team of
boatbuilders; Kidder led the fund-raising charge. In 18 months, the schooner
was ready to sail—no mean feat considering that vessels of Roseway’s vintage are
often lifetime restoration projects.
“Repurposed” has become a buzzword in recent years: one reads about
buildings or products rescued from
destruction or obsolescence by a sharpthinking entrepreneur who finds another, different use for them. Roseway has
always been a schooner, but it might be
the poster child for repurposing as
applied to a sailing vessel.
Commissioned by Harold Hathaway
of Taunton, Massachusetts—the framing
came from a stand of white oak on his
property—the Grand Banks schooner
Roseway was designed by John F. James
and built at his family’s shipyard in Essex,
Massachusetts, in 1925. While the origin
of the schooner’s name is not certain, the
most circulated story involves a Hathaway
mistress “who always got her way.”
In the spring of 1942, Roseway underwent its first transformation when it was
fitted with a .50-caliber machine gun and
assigned to the First Naval District (New
England) to guide ships through minefields and anti-submarine netting. After
the war it became a pilot schooner based
in Boston; it was retired in 1973, the last
pilot schooner in the country.
The Roseway’s next incarnation
began that same year when a group of
Boston businessmen bought it and
began to outfit it as a passenger windjammer. Their grand plan didn’t work,
and Captains Jim Sharp and Orvil Young
purchased the vessel in 1974; they added
14 cabins, and began to take passengers
on coastal cruises out of Camden,
Maine. In 1977 the vessel starred in a
made-for-TV adaptation of Kipling’s
novel Captains Courageous.
Roseway remained in Camden
under new ownership after Sharp and
Young sold it, and continued to ply the
tourist trade until it was repossessed by
the aforementioned Damariscotta bank.
In the summer of 2005 Roseway, resurrected by the World Ocean School,
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June / July 2011
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Issue 115
made its maiden voyage to the Great
Lakes. The following May, schooner and
school relocated to Boston, with the
office headquarters remaining in Camden. Winter programming in St. Croix
began in November 2006.
he Roseway, which is a U.S. National Historic Landmark, is a stunning
sight, from the 103-foot-high mainmast
to the original wrought-iron steering
wheel manufactured by A.P. Stoddard of
Gloucester. What was once the fish hold
has been fitted with cabins, planned to
maximize space, for the students. All is
functional; the only art on board is a
small oil portrait of the vessel by Maine
artist Colin Page.
Deckelmann is the Roseway’s maintenance czar. “During the year the crew
is constantly sanding, scraping, varnishing, and painting,” he said. The vessel is
hauled out at Gloucester every fall for
seam work and bottom painting. Two
years ago, the rudder was rebuilt; last
year the Duradon sails, which are a distinctive tanbark, were replaced.
In recent years the engine room has
T
been remodeled to make it more user
friendly and also to make space for the
600-gallon-per-day reverse-osmosis water
maker. Next up: rebuilding the old cabin
and rudder trunks. When the latter work
is completed, said Deckelmann, “There
will not be a part of the major structure
we have not addressed.”
Because it was used mainly for pleasure cruising in its early years and never
fished aggressively, Roseway experienced
less wear and tear than other Grand Banks
schooners. “When we got her,” Kidder
recalled, “she still had her shape, which is
pretty amazing for a boat that old.”
With its incredible history, Roseway
makes for an out-of-the-ordinary educational platform. “She is the real thing,” said
Kidder, and that is part of the reason why
the kids and crew become invested in the
vessel and eager to take care of it.
n addition to the winter programming
in St. Croix, World Ocean School
offers a Summer Ambassador program.
The 20 or so 12- to 16-year-old students
in the program, a number of them from
the Virgin Islands, spend two weeks-plus
I
MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS SHOW Exhibitor
. August 12 – 14, 2011
aboard Roseway, learning about the vessel and participating in a variety of outreach programs along the way. Last year,
navigating the Great Lakes, the students
mentored kids from a Boys and Girls
Club. The year before, they helped finish
building a daycare center on Vinalhaven
Island in Maine. The program is meant
to help the new sailors understand what
it means to participate in community.
“Roseway is a community in and of
itself,” Kidder pointed out, “and we practice what that means in terms of how we
care for the boat and for each other.” She
reported that several of the St. Croix students from the 2010 trip became more
involved in their island communities,
volunteering and tutoring after school.
The ambassador program is pretty
intense for the new sailors, some of
whom have never been away from home,
let alone lived on a sailing vessel. “We
demand a lot of them,” Kidder noted,
from standing watch to community service, and all their electronics—cell phones,
music players, etc.—are left behind.
This summer, Roseway will sail to
Nantucket, Block, and Cuttyhunk islands,
37
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and then to Sag Harbor and New London,
where they will visit the Coast Guard
Academy. (WOS has made a point of
introducing the students to the possibility of maritime education and careers.)
During the rest of the summer it will be in
Boston, engaged in programs with Boys
and Girls Clubs, YMCAs, and several
schools around the city. The school is
actively seeking new partnerships with the
National Park Service, camps, and other
organizations in the region.
Come next winter, Roseway will be
back in St. Croix for its sixth year working under contract with the Virgin
Islands Department of Education. Governor John de Jongh has been supportive
of the program, as have the teachers. The
school now serves 750 island students
between November and May.
As part of its year-round fundraising
efforts, but also to make the historic
landmark available to the public, the
Roseway crew also hosts a sunset sail out
of St. Croix every day. Former President
Jimmy Carter chartered the vessel for an
evening in 2010.
While Deckelmann and Kidder consider the World Ocean School’s future—
expansion, new programs, fundraising—
certain experiences keep them focused
and moving forward. One that sticks in
their mind is a teenage girl from St.
Croix who looked back at her island
from Roseway saying in wonder, “My
island is so big and beautiful—I’ve never
seen it.”
Kidder is realistic: “Who knows what
it all means in the long run,” she said. “Is
there more we can do? What’s the bigger
picture for these kids? How can we help?”
Such questions inspire Roseway’s
crew to consider new ways to make the
most of their remarkable floating school.
“We are still a nonprofit struggling to
survive,” said Kidder, “but we’re ready to
make the leap to the next level.” Deckelmann concurred; he wants “to expand
the program, have a greater reach, affect
more kids.”
And then he added: “to build another
Roseway, because she is unbelievable.” N
Carl Little is a freelance writer and poet who
lives on Mount Desert Island.
Offices in Camden, Rockland and Southwest Harbor, Maine.
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MORE INFORMATION:
www.worldoceanschool.org. The school offers
some scholarships for students.
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