Filed under: Education, Environment, Nonprofit, maritime, sail training, tall ships
Okay if you visit this blog you must like boats. So join me in helping one of America’s most historic and beautiful vessels win a $100,000. grant from American Express.
How many times do you find yourself wanting to support a worthy sail training cause but can’t afford it? Well, here’s your opportunity to make a real difference and not have it cost you a dime! It’s pretty simple too, just watch this:
No excuses!
Go here everyday between now and May 12th and vote for Schooner Adventuress and the odds are she’ll win. She’s currently got a thin lead, let’s make sure she keeps it.
Here’s everything you need to know to make this happen.
Thanks!
Filed under: Education, Environment, Oceans, life, maritime | Tags: TED, Mission Blue, Sylvia Earle, TED Prize
TED and Sylvia Earle, the 2009 TED Prize winner and world-renowned, deep-ocean explorer, announced the launch of Mission Blue to raise awareness of the urgent need to create Marine Protected Areas – Hope Spots – ranging from the deepest oceans to sunlit reefs. The announcement came on the first day of theMission Blue Voyage, a first-of-its-kind conference hosted by TED from April 6-10 aboard the National Geographic Endeavour in the Galapagos Islands. (press release)
Here’s Sylvia Earle’s TED Wish:
I wish you would use all means at your disposal — films! expeditions! the web! more! — to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.
Here’s her great TED Talk:
The Mission Blue Voyage is a star studded expedition to the Galapagos Island that you can follow on their blog, Facebook and Twitter.
TED Conferences always seem awesome but this one is on a ship! How much more exciting than that can it get!
Filed under: Education, maritime, maritime heritage, sail training, tall ships | Tags: Sound Experience, futtock, Sea-Fever School, Adventuress
Welcome to Sea-Fever School, the best of online maritime culture education!
Today’s lesson comes to us from the National Historic Landmark schooner Adventuress and the amazing sail training / environmental education program, Sound Experience.
Pay attention, there may be a pop quiz later.
By the way, Sound Experience is running a contest on their Facebook page to give away a sail to a lucky winner and 44 of their friends and/or family. All you have to do is head over there and become a fan. And while you’re at it, follow them on Twitter too!
Filed under: Education, Experience, life, sail training, tall ships | Tags: Class Afloat, Concordia, sail training, tall ship
I will continue to update this post with articles about the sinking of the Concordia. There’s a lot of duplicate content out there so I’ll do my best to curate the best, most relevant. While I am a huge fan of the Class Afloat program you may see posts with different opinions since I think examining this incident from different perspectives can be valuable and instructive. Thanks for visiting and please feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment below.
Why I created this long post about Concordia sinking Sea-Fever blog – Feb. 24, 2010
Update March 24, 2010
Student Survival Story from High School Tall Ship Concordia Sinking (video) Sea-Fever blog – March 24, 2010
Update March 15, 2010
Sinking of ship and skiing out of bounds not similar Calgary Herald March 15. 2010
Class Afloat plans to sail again Calgary Herald March 12, 2010
Safety board interviews Concordia captain, officers The Chronicle Herald March 12, 2010
Students granted free use of town recreation facilities SouthshoreNow March 8, 2010
GME EPIRB credited for saving all 64 in schoolship sinking SailWorld.com March 8, 2010
Survivor talks of shipwreck experience Battle Creek Enquirer March 4, 2010
Canadian TSB Investigates The Sinking Of Concordia Off The Coast Of Brazil The Gov Monitor March 3, 2010
Bearspaw student reflects on shipwreck experience Cochrane Eagle March 3, 2010
Crew waited 40 hours for rescue: Concordia officer Toronto Sun – March 3, 2010
Tall ship passed stability testing, owners say Globe and Mail March 2, 2010
Class Afloat Sails On Southshore Now – March 1, 2010
BC Man Helped Others Off Sinking Ship WoodTV8 – Feb. 28, 2010
Buoyed by Coverage Calgary Herald – Feb. 28, 2010
Update Feb. 27, 2010 11:00 EST
Young heroes surfaced in high seas ordeal – Emergency training aboard tall ship helped produce maritime miracle Calgary Herald – Feb. 27, 2010
Ship Sinks, West Michigan Man Helps Passengers Evacuate FOX17 – Feb 26, 2010
Update Feb. 26, 2010 8:00 PM EST
Class Afloat to celebrate safe return – Reception planned to reunite students, staff who survived sinking of SV Concordia Chronicle Herald – Feb. 26, 2010
Safety, preparation go together EMC South Ottawa – Feb. 26, 2010 *must read!
Back on land, but not for good TVNZ – Feb. 26, 2010
Local teenager’s sailing trip abroad ends in open water NC Advertiser – Feb. 26, 2010
Sailing days over, says wreck survivor CBCNews – Feb. 26, 2010
Update Feb. 25, 2010 10:00 PM EST
Interview with Tall Ship Concordia Captain Bill Curry on Sinking Sea-Fever blog Feb. 25, 2010
Update Feb. 25, 2010 noon EST
Whitehorse girl home from tall-ship ordeal CBCNews Feb. 25, 2010
How to be prepared when disaster strikes The Globe and Mail – Feb. 25, 2010
Tall ship crew well-prepared for emergency, says survivor from Gatineau Ottawa Citizen – Feb. 25, 2010
The Sailing Yacht Concordia (Tall ship) due to call at Tristan da Cunha in March sinks off Brazil The Tristan Times (Brazil) Feb. 25, 2010
Tall ship sinking probe focuses on response time TheStar.com – Feb. 24, 2010
Cowichan Bay student at home after shipwreck off Brazil Times Colonist – Feb. 24, 2010
Agency investigating sinking of Concordia to interview ship’s captain this week MetroNews Vancouver – Feb. 24, 2010
Captain of sunken ship to face questions The Edmonton Sun – Feb. 24. 2010
Update Feb. 24, 2010 noon EST
Local native has ties to sunken SV Concordia Standard Freeholder Feb. 24, 2010
Local teen survived tall ship disaster Northumberland Today – Feb. 24. 2010
Class Afloat Ponders the Future The Chronicle Herald – Feb. 24, 2010
Survivors tell tales of 40-hour ordeal at sea The Windsor Star – Feb. 21 2010
NZ student on way home after boat capsized Otago Daily Times – Feb. 24, 2010
West Van teen survives 38-hour life raft ordeal North Shore News – Feb. 24, 2010
Class Afloat prof recounts shipwreck MetroNews.ca – Feb. 23, 2010
Grandmother relieved after hearing from granddaughter who was aboard SV Concordia The News (Pictou) Feb. 23, 2010
Incident Photo of The Week – Tall Ship Capsizes, Students Rescued At Sea gCaptain – Feb. 23, 2010
Update Feb. 23, 2010 11:00 PM EST
Brazilian navy faults Canadian ship for sinking The Montreal Gazette – Feb. 23, 2010
Could the Brig Prince William Replace the Barkentine Concordia Sea-Fever blog – Feb. 23, 2010
The Story Behind the Story Lloyd’s List Feb. 24, 2010
Two MOL-owned Woodchip Carriers Rescue Shipwrecked Students PRLog – Feb. 23, 2010
Probe to shed light on sinking of S.V. Concordia The Globe and Mail Feb. 23, 2010
Update Feb.23, 2010 6:00 PM EST
Lost-at-sea student describes 41 hours on life raft Peace Arch News – Feb. 23, 2010
Trenton teacher survives ship sinking Trentonian – Feb.23, 2010
N.S. teacher stays calm on rough seas – The Chronicle Herald – Feb. 22, 2010
Emotional bonds forged during 40 hours adrift at sea Calgary Herald – Feb. 23, 2010
Unanswered questions about the sinking Globe and Mail – Feb. 23, 2010
Update Feb. 23, 2010 10:00 AM EST
Concordia Rescue Photos via AMVER Sea-Fever blog – Feb. 23, 2010
Exclusive photos of the Concordia rescue – AMVER blog – Feb. 23, 2010
Dead calm to screaming winds – South Atlantic weather changes in seconds, says Brazilian sailor The Chronicle Herald Feb. 23, 2010
‘I didn’t think we would be rescued’: British teenager reveals how she spent two days in a lifeboat in middle of Atlantic after tall ship capsized – DailyMail – Feb. 23, 2010
Tall Ship Teens Saved After Two Days In Ocean SkyNews – Feb. 23, 2010
Concordia’s Voyage and Sinking (Graphic from The Globe and Mail) Sea-Fever blog Feb. 23, 2010
Raising children entails exposing them to risk – Vancouver Sun Feb. 23, 2010
Update Feb. 22, 2010 10:00 PM EST
First-hand account of the sinking of the Concordia Globe and Mail Feb. 22, 2010
Former Acadia prof recounts sinking of SV Concordia The Chronicle Herald – Feb. 22, 2010
Calgary teen watched ship go down CBCNews – Feb. 22, 2010
Two rainy nights singing Disney: How Class Afloat survived at sea National Post – Feb. 22, 2010
Burlington teen recounts shipwreck ordeal TheStar.com – Feb. 22, 2010
Islander safe after ship sinks off Brazil The Guardian – Feb. 22, 2010
Teen home after 41 hours on a life raft Peace Arch News – Feb. 22, 2010
Rescued teens reunited with families at Pearson (+video) TheStar.com – Feb. 22, 2010
Concordia, AMVER, EPIRBs and At Sea Rescues Sea-Fever blog – Feb. 22, 2010
more about “Students Survive Two Days at Sea – CB…”, posted with vodpod
Update Feb. 22, 2010 Noon EST
Interview with Ben Strong of the United States AMVER unit regarding epirbs and at sea rescues.
AMVER (Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue System) website | blog | Twitter | iPhone App
Update Feb. 22, 2010 9:00 AM EST
School awaits investigation into ship sinking CBCNews Feb. 22, 2010
Students who survived ship sinking arrive back home CTVEdmonton Feb. 22, 2010
Parents of rescued students say full tale of ordeal yet to be told Calgary Herald – Feb. 22, 2010
Students who survived ship sinking arrive at Pearson TheStar.com – Feb. 22, 2010
Rescue light in sky ‘best feeling in world’ for shipwrecked group Vancouver Sun – Feb. 22, 2010
British teenager saved after drifting for two days in Atlantic on a lifeboat London Evening Standard – Feb. 22, 2010
Update Feb. 21, 2010 10:00 PM EST
Message from Class Afloat About Returning Concordia Students – Feb. 21, 2010
Class Afloat program classes to continue Calgary Sun – Feb. 21. 2010
Concordia Timeline: From Abandon Ship to Rescue – Sea-Fever blog via Calgary Herald – Feb. 21. 2010
Shipwrecked teens to reunite with families in Toronto – Toronto Sun – Feb. 21, 2010
Update Feb. 21, 2010 8:00 PM EST
Survivor tells sister of ship ordeal The National – Feb. 21, 2010
Uncertainty over whether sea school program will continue after ‘miracle at sea’ Calgary Herald - Feb. 21, 2010
High school on the open seas – Globe and Mail – Feb. 21, 2010
Update Feb. 21, 2010 3:00 PM EST
Brazil defends its search efforts in shipwreck - The Washington Post – Feb. 21, 2010
Shipwrecked students drifted in rafts for 24 hours – News3 New Zealand – Feb. 21, 2010
Survivors of Canadian ship sinking prepare for return home from Brazil The Canadian Press – Feb. 21, 2010
Update Feb. 21, 2010 12:00 EST
Survival Stories: Pride of Baltimore Sea-Fever blog – Feb. 21, 2010
Update Feb. 21, 2010 9:00 AM EST
Concordia, sailing ships and microbursts Sea-Fever blog – Feb. 21, 2010
Domino effect of bad luck led to sinking The Globe and Mail Feb. 21, 2010
Survivors tell tales of 40-hour ordeal at sea – Vancouver Sun – Feb. 21, 2010
Ship’s survivors recall scramble to safety The Globe and Mail – Feb. 21, 2010
Class Afloat attracted only top students Calgary Herald – Feb. 20, 2010
Update Feb. 20, 2010 10:00 PM EST
Shipwrecked Students Feared Remote Death at Sea New York Times Feb. 20, 2010
64 People from Shipwrecked Canadian Sailboat Concordia Arrived Safe in Rio Latin American Herald Tribune Feb. 20, 2010
Update Feb. 20, 2010 8:00 PM EST
“It was like the Titanic” Passengers drifted for 30 hours before rescue TheStar.com Feb. 20, 2010
Update Feb. 20, 2010 5:30 PM EST
We’ve made it! British teenagers survive 40-hour ordeal after ship is sunk by towering waves Mail Online Feb. 20, 2010
Update Feb. 20, 2010 1:00 PM EST
Ship sinking was like the Titanic, student tells dad The Star.com Feb. 20, 2010
Survivors say Canadian tall ship sank in minutes (video/audio) CTV Edmonton – Feb. 20, 2010
Captain of floating university: Sudden ‘microburst’ knocked ship onto side off Brazilian coast The Canadian Press – Feb. 20, 2010
Rescued Canadians dock in Rio – The Globe and Mail – Feb. 20, 2010
Rescued students arrive in Rio - CBC News – Feb. 20, 2010
Training helped save students as Canadian ship sank: teacher The Star.com – Feb. 20, 2010
‘Absolute nightmare’ ends well for students Edmonton Journal – Feb. 20, 2010
Canadian agency won’t play big role in probe The Chronicle Herald – Feb 20, 2010
Updated Feb. 19, 2010 – 11:00 PM EST
Students safe after capsizing of N.S.-based ship CBC – Feb. 19, 2010
Canadian School Ship Sinks Off Brazil; All Rescued NPR – Feb. 19, 2010
Updated Feb. 19, 2010 – 10:00 PM EST There is still so little information available about what happened but the following story at least let’s us know that some communication has occurred with the captains of both the Concordia and the rescuing ship and that there are no serious injuries. The rest at this point is all speculation and conjecture. One thing that we do know for sure is that going to sea has always been and will always be fraught with risk and that’s one of the reasons why the experience can be so powerful.
Nova Scotia school ship sinks off Brazil; all safe but parents want answers The Canadian Press – Feb. 19, 2010
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Very sad news today about the sinking of the high school tall ship Concordia sinking off the coast of Brazil in heavy weather. Thankfully all students and crew were rescued.
This story is still developing so not a lot of details are available; however, here are a few news reports.
Students rescued from sinking ship – CBC News Feb. 19, 2010
Canadian students ‘safe’ after boat capsizes off Brazil – TheStar.com Feb. 19, 2010
64 rescued after ‘catastrophic problems’ strike Canadian ship off Brazil – The Gazette – Feb. 19, 2010
I’ve posted about Concordia’s amazing program in the past and know the former owner and several of the captains and crew from my American Sail Training Association days. If you are not familiar with the Concordia or Class Afloat, please take a few minutes to watch this video about their amazing life forming programs for young students.
During a time when so many sail training vessels and tall ships are experiencing challenges, this is even more sad news. Concordia was a wonderful ship that did great work over the years and she will be sorely missed.
Filed under: Education, life, maritime | Tags: GQ, Murray Fisher, Nautica, New York Harbor School, The Gentlemen's Fund
Great news! Here is a picture of the new home of the New York Harbor School.
It’s been a longtime coming, 10 years in fact, but the school is scheduled to relocate to a renovated Coast Guard hospital on Governor’s Island off the southern tip of Manhattan in the fall of 2010.
Justin Pope wrote an great article titled Special school makes NY harbor its classroom while awaiting a waterfront home which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on September 8, 2009. If you have any interest in kids, education and things maritime, you must read this article. 
I’ve posted about the New York Harbor School several times here because I believe it’s one of the most amazing maritime youth education success stories going. Please check out these old posts. 
While projects like these are really dependent on so many different people and organizations, this one is lucky to have Murray Fisher at the helm, a leader with vision, passion and a penchant for hard work. And now he has the chance to join the ranks of Adam Green of Rocking the Boat as a NYC maritime educator/fashion icon.
Each year GQ magazine asks readers to nominate “an agent of change striving for the betterment of society through charitable work, volunteerism, and/or community involvement—someone who is working hard to make this a better world.” GQ selected the five best submissions as finalists and readers will determine the winner by popular vote. Murray Fisher is one of the five finalists and for his sake, the Harbor School’s benefit and the benefit of maritime education in general, please visit website and vote for him and ask your friends, family and strangers to do the same!
Murray’s currently tied for second place but we can make a difference and if we do he’ll be featured in the pages of GQ, be honored at The Gentlemen’s Ball in New York City in October, $10,000 will be donated toward the accredited charity of his choice and he’ll receive $2,000 cash & $1,000 Nautica® gift card. (Come on, the Nautica gift card naturally should go to a guy in maritime education. Could you imagine a better sponsorship than Nautica of the Harbor School?)
Please help me help Murray, the Harbor School and maritime education! Vote and spread the word! Thanks!
Filed under: Education | Tags: A. P. Moeller, A.P. Moeller School, C.F. Moller, Maersk, Monocle
Here’s some shipping money put to good work. Check out this short Monocle video about a gift from A.P. Moeller and Chastine McKinney Moeller Foundation (Danish website) to the young people of Schleswig bordering Denmark and Germany. Looks like a nice place to learn.
The architect C.F. Moller website with additional pictures and info about the school.
Filed under: Education, Moby-Monday, maritime, storytelling | Tags: Amy Sedaris, Meg Guroff, Moby-Dick, Stephen Colbert
News that the 1956 film version of Moby-Dick had been named a “great acid movie” by blogger Erich Kuersten sent me to Hulu to find you a link. Till recently, you could watch that psychedelic Gregory Peck vehicle in its entirety on the site for free. Sadly, no more.
Instead, searching for “Moby Dick” on Hulu yields a clip from a year-2000 episode of the weirdly hilarious Comedy Central series Strangers with Candy, in which Amy Sedaris plays Jerri Blank, a washout who returns to high school in her 40s. In the clip, teacher Mr. Norbet Noblet (played by Stephen Colbert) tries to make the illiterate Jerri read the first chapter of Moby-Dick. Needless to say, she misses the fart joke completely. Still, Jerri offers a bold new take on the text. If you want to see the whole episode, it’s here. There are no further Moby-Dick references, but the Miracle Worker reference is priceless.
Margaret Guroff is editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick.
Filed under: Education, Moby-Monday, maritime, storytelling | Tags: Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, Debra Perry, Meg Guroff, Moby-Dick
Not since “On Top of Spaghetti” has one little sneeze caused so much trouble. According to a group of New Bedford fifth graders, the fateful chomp that launched Captain Ahab’s quest for revenge against Moby Dick was caused by a bad head cold.
“I sneezed, and when I did, I accidentally bit Captain Ahab’s leg right off!” says the hero of Moby-Dick Through the Eyes of the Whale, a new book written and illustrated by students at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School. “Believe what I’m telling you,” the whale continues. “It tasted horrifyingly gross!”
The book, which was published through Nationwide Learning, Inc., is a project of the school’s Moby Dick Club. The eight students read a junior edition of Moby-Dick and met weekly to discuss it under the tutelage of teacher Debra Perry. Now that they have created their own version of the story, the club is reading it to first graders at their school.
Is there a minimum age for hearing Herman Melville’s brutal tale of vengeance, obsession, havoc, and death? Not in New Bedford, an old whaling town that is, after all, where Ishmael, the novel’s narrator, hooks up with bosom buddy Queequeg. According to Perry, the ten- and eleven-year-olds chosen to read Moby-Dick in the club all knew the book’s ending already.
Margaret Guroff is the editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick.
Photograph by Allan Foster, licensed through Creative Commons.
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Filed under: Book review, Education, Moby-Monday, maritime, social media | Tags: Adam Koford, Dan Coulter, Meg Guroff, Moby-Dick, publicdomain, Twitter
“How many tweets would it take to tweet all of Moby-Dick?” cartoonist Adam Koford mused on Twitter last July.
The answer, it turned out, was 12,849, or about 45 Twitter posts per day for nine-and-a-half months—as programmer Dan Coulter, a Twitter follower and prior collaborator of Koford’s, discovered after he took the cartoonist’s question as a challenge.
Coulter’s robotic Moby-Dick Twitter feed started on July 28 and ended last Wednesday, May 13. While it was running, the robot (a script Coulter wrote in the PHP computer language) spit out one paragraph of Melville’s beloved and dreaded tome every hour during the business day, with the text sliced into Twitter’s signature 140-character-max dispatches. The account—with Twitter handle “publicdomain”—has attracted 418 followers, and today it begins blurting its next out-of-copyright text, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Why start with Moby-Dick? Koford says he was inspired by Twitter’s “fail whale,” the blissed-out white cetacean that appears onscreen whenever the micro-blogging network is overloaded. Though he had never read the full book on paper, Koford says, he’d read an “amazing” graphic adaptation by Bill Sienkiewicz. He had also endured an audiobook version narrated by actor Burt Reynolds. “He basically screams the whole book,” Koford recalls in an email. “Looking back, I’m not sure how I made it through that.” Still, Koford says, he loved the book.
Programmer Coulter was less enthusiastic. “I’m not a Melville fan,” he confesses. “I tried reading Billy Budd once, and I got about five pages into that. The language and the pacing has never been able to grab my interest.”
Reading 140 characters at a time, however, Coulter made it through Moby-Dick. And with the text in that format, he was able to appreciate Melville’s artistry with language. “It surprised me how poetic he could be at times,” Coulter says. “Stuff would come through that was really amazing.” Even more than the poetry, though, Coulter appreciated the humor inherent in the medium. “Twitter turned the book into this weird series of non-sequiturs—things that, taken out of context, were absolutely hilarious,” he says. “I don’t know that I would ever want to read Moby-Dick as a book, but as a Twitter feed, I really enjoyed it.”
A list of Coulter’s favorite funny Moby-Dick tweets appears in a wrap-up he posted to his blog last week. Fans of the book may recognize a few lines that are as amusing in context as out. This July 31 tweet, for example, follows narrator Ishmael’s first encounter with Queequeg, the Polynesian harpooner: “But I don’t fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It’s dangerous. Besides, I ain’t insured.”
Margaret Guroff is the editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick.
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Filed under: Education, Experiential education, life, sail training | Tags: Experiential education, sail training, Tall Ship Education Academy, Tall Ship Semester for Girls
From the Tall Ship Education Academy blog:
The Tall Ship Education Academy, like many wonderful non profits, has been losing significant funding over the past year of economic turmoil. Because of this, our Board of Directors recently made the tough decision to suspend operations of the Tall Ship Education Academy for the next year or two.
During this suspension, we will not run our programs: Tall Ship Semester for Girls, Girls Summer at Sea or Women’s Challenge. We will become a fully volunteer organization and close our office at SF State.
This year, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the very first Tall Ship Semester for Girls. As many of you know, the Tall Ship Education Academy began with a pilot project in 1998 run by Caitlin Schwarzman as part of her Masters Thesis at SF State University. Due to its success, Mercy High School supported Caitlin in expanding the one week pilot to a full semester program. In the spring of 1999, twelve girls explored the California and Mexico coast aboard the Californian. The next year, Nettie Kelly joined the 2nd Tall Ship Semester for Girls, as an instructor and the following year became the director of the program.
We are very proud of the work that we have done in providing a life-changing experience for over 125 girls. Our continued contact with these girls shows that they are confidently pursuing education, participating in their community and exploring the world. We will look to this core group of people to be a part of our research efforts in the near future, and as integral members of the next phase of this organization.
In ten years, the Tall Ship Semester for Girls has evolved into a Western Association of Schools and Colleges accredited non profit educational organization. We are recognized for providing powerful developmental experiences for Bay Area young women. We are truly a community based organization, depending on the support of individuals, organizations, foundations and institutions for our existence. The suspension of our programs is in some ways a symptom of the health of our community.
We want to thank you for your interest in and support of the Tall Ship Education Academy. We have done our work because you have been a part of our vision for girls’ education. We hope you will continue to play that vital role in our community.
Hopefully their suspension will be short-lived because this is exactly the type of program which we should be encouraging, promoting, supporting and celebrating. It’s where sail training can do it’s best work.
This is what will be missed.
YouTube – Tall Ship Semester for Girls
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