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Spirit of Massachusetts to Promote Ocean Awareness in State Waters

Provincetown, MA----Calling upon the need for better understanding and protection of the state’s fragile coastal and marine environments, the executive directors of the Center for Coastal Studies and Ocean Classroom Foundation today announced the creation of a collaboration called MassSail that will use the 125-foot schooner Spirit of Massachusetts to conduct a series of public education programs.

Scheduled to begin in Boston next May, MassSail programs will be conducted entirely in Massachusetts waters from May to September. While the schedule for 2005 has not yet been set, the two organizations have come up with a “menu” of different programs, designed for a broad spectrum of public audiences, age groups, and constituencies. These include: community sails based in various communities with shipboard programs for different grade levels. There will be one-week summer camp programs for teens ages 13-16, a two-week whale research program for college credit for students ages 16-22. There will also be public information sails designed to inform the general public about the real environmental circumstances that exist behind the policies and politics of marine resource management.

All photos by In the Wild Productions

Bert Rogers, executive director of the Ocean Classroom Foundation and a former captain of Spirit, hailed the joint venture as “a new chapter in the life of Spirit and an exciting opportunity to share our love and concerns for the sea with the general public.

“Our hope is that over time, every school child in coastal Massachusetts will come to know about the Spirit of Massachusetts and her message of marine environmental awareness and look forward to the time when it is their turn to sail in her,” said Rogers.

The foundation, which recently relocated its headquarters from Cornwall, New York, to Watch Hill, Rhode Island, is a non-profit educational organization, which conducts a variety of educational programs aboard the Spirit and two other schooners, the Harvey Gamage and Westward.

Peter Borrelli, executive director of the Center for Coastal Studies based in Provincetown, Massachusetts, said “We hope to bring the Spirit back to Massachusetts, literally and symbolically. The Center is especially pleased to have the opportunity to work with communities from the North Shore to Buzzards Bay. We hope that experience of sailing aboard Spirit, even the sight of her sailing on, will inspire people and fill them with a deep sense of responsibility.

“While the challenges are never ending, Massachusetts has done a good job of defining and responding to the environmental crisis on land, but we have only begun to understand and respond to the environmental problems at sea. Massachusetts, the Bay State, has a rich maritime history and is blessed with an abundance and diversity of marine resources. We can be leaders in the nation if we act now to manage and protect our oceans now. On a political or ethical level, this program is about accountability,” said Borrelli.

Built in 1984 at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston for service as a sail training ship, the Spirit is modeled after the Gloucester fishing schooner Fredonia, designed by Edward Burgess in 1889. These schooners were famous throughout the world as the fast and able vessels of the North Atlantic fisheries, sailing winter and summer to the rich grounds of the Grand Banks and Georges Bank. It was acquired in 1997 by the Ocean Classroom Foundation for conducting education programs for middle and senior high school students and undergraduates from the Canadian Maritimes to the Caribbean.

Contact:

Theresa Barbo, PCCS Director of Communications, 508-487-3622 x103