Executive Director Malcolm Kirkland and Project Manager Nick Hutchings of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation and Jay Sanders of Digicel

We have a lot going on right now and I hope the results of our efforts bring some great benefits to this country.

Spirit of Bermuda

Executive Director Malcolm Kirkland and Project Manager Nick Hutchings of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation have gone back to Bermuda and I hope with some good soundings from our end about the upcoming visit of the Spirit of Bermuda. The visit, which they are calling a pilgrimage has the intention of sharing their studies in the maritime historical links between these two archipelagos.

And they loved it here. We went to Bluehills and they saw what was, as far as a glance back in time to a more relaxed Providenciales. At Sailing Paradise Baba entertained them and they entertained him, especially when the conversation went to the maritime exploits of the Harveys of Bermuda. It was the same with the forty or so other Belongers they talked to on their eight day visit. And as should be they spent most of the time out of Provo, splitting it between Grand Turk and Salt Cay.

The session we had on How Culture Works will be played again tonight so I can see it, just joking, it is really because some had heard about it but had not tuned it in last Wednesday night at 9PM on Channel 4. They were greeted on Grand Turk by a lot of people as a result of the broadcast, which surprised me because I thought the reception was supposed to be bad as far as the sound goes.

Malcolm and Nick spent a lot of time at the National Museum, as all of us should, and came away with a lot of information that assists their own private research. The National Museum on Grand Turk will be one of the land sites that the students crewing the Spirit will have to go and experience as a part of their educational objective in traveling aboard the 112-foot one and a half year old three masted schooner.

They gave a speech to the student body at HJ Robinson Secondary School that was filled with questions about family histories. One interesting phenomena is that the archipelago of Bermuda spends $20,000 per student per semester on their public schools but has one of the lowest graduation rates in the Caribbean Region. So, they expected the students here to be along the same lines but found the questions to be adult and leading to other questions with no shame in asking. They found the students here to be a healthy head above what is normal in Bermuda.

There will be fifteen students crewing the replica of a slave ship chaser that was developed in the 1830s (I reported wrong before, saying the 1790s) specifically as a patrol boat for the British Navy. And Spirit is fast. Something that will not be lost on those who will be sailing here during the excursions planned for Grand Turk.

I should also say that the Government of Bermuda is a 20% partner in the vessel and she cost $6.5 million to build in state of the art materials.

And this event begot its own event…

Digicel Windward Passage Symposium

Using the term Windward Passage was brought back into the mind by Dr. Gilbert Morris in discussions about the re-creation of the Turks and Caicos Islands Shipping Registry and the inclusion of a Historic Ships Registry within that portfolio. Dr. Morris saw the natural flow of ships coming and going through the Windward Passage on their ways to Caribbean Basin countries and from those areas to Atlantic ports or further. The Turks and Caicos Islands sit right on that entrance and exit, so we decided that because the Bermuda Sloop was refined and evolved to keep a windward passage to the Turks Islands for salt, that the title of the event become Windward Passage.

The concept that evolved is that of creating all the components here and internationally to place the Turks and Caicos Islands where it belongs historically as an ingredient in the development of many port settlements that became cities and as a reason for development of many vessel designs that eventually made their ways back to Europe and the North American continent.

Waiting for application forms for two students headed for Bermuda…

One very outstanding feature of the visit and one of the very generous offers they have made is the free crew positions for two students between 14 and 17 years of age aboard the Spirit of Bermuda on the cruise back to Bermuda.

	Dr. Michael J. Jarvis, Rochester University, New York, USA

The speakers who have been invited and have accepted the invitations without pay are

Key Note Speaker’s Theme: Dr. Michael Jarvis, the foremost authority on the Bermuda Sloop, will speak from a world maritime historical perspective and the progressions that created the Bermuda Sloop design concept

Speaker’s Theme: Kimberly Monk will be discussing cultural values that become economic assets through archaeological exploration and field studies programmes.

Speaker’s Theme: John Franklin will speak on the need to combine maritime histories in the Western Hemisphere, especially in the Caribbean Basin, where so much of the international evolution of vessel design has taken place but has not been exposed because of a persistent isolation of cultures.

Speaker’s Theme: Dr. Clarence Maxwell will speak on the boatbulding skills that made the Bermuda Sloop an African American vessel.

Speaker’s Theme: Dr. Vincent DeForest will speak on the strong alliance that can be had through a centralization of information on the maritime cultures in the Caribbean Basin.

	Dr Gilbert NMO Morris is an economist & legal scholar who taught at several American universities. He founded The Landfall Centre for Finance, Trade & International Affairs, which gained international prominence advising financial centres during the blacklisting. He is Chairman of CAICOS Brothers LP & MDB International.

Speaker’s Theme: Dr. Gilbert Morris will speak on the importance of a Shipping Registry and a Historic Ships Registry to the economy and exposure of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Speaker’s Theme: Professor Gene Tinnie will be speaking on the Importance of interlinking African American maritime heritage throughout the Western Hemisphere

Dr. Donald Keith has been working to promote the archaeological and anthropological identity of the Turks and Caicos Islands for donkey’s years. He has been a part of the community and has worked with the school systems here, as well as founding the National Museum. Dr. Keith knows the Turks and Caicos Islands from the academic perspective.

	Dr. Donald Keith , Turks and Caicos National Museum, Ships of Discovery, USA

Speaker’s Theme: Dr. Donald Keith will speak a few weeks before the Spirit arrives, as a prelude to the Windward Passage symposium on Providenciales and Grand Turk on the unique opportunities that marine archaeology has for Turks and Caicos Islands here at the entrance to and exit from the gateway to the Caribbean Sea: Windward Passage.

This is a chance of a lifetime but we are finding that most Belonger families have a problem with sending their children off on a sailing ship for a long cruise such as this. We will be filling in the reality of life aboard the vessel and the focus on education that carries on during the voyage. The normal charge for the crew positions is $1875.00.

You can get more information about the Bermuda Sloop Foundation by visiting their website at http://www.bermudasloop.org/

There is an application form on the website if you wish your child or know of a child who might want to go for a sail.

	On February 25th 1966 Her majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Prince Phillip visited South Caicos arriving on board the HMS Britannia. The memorable day caused the people of South Caicos to try and remember this Royal Event and though of no better way that holding an “Annual Regatta.

South Caicos Regatta 2008

The forty-first running of the South Caicos Regatta this 22-24 May, as usual, has its problems in forming. The sailors are not content with the way things were and would like to see the Federation holding the safety boat payment and prize monies. Or, having an independent body organizing the racing part of the Regatta.

The attempt to organize a Regatta Commission did not materialize, probably more my fault than anybody’s, through non-follow up. I went away during the beginning and returned to too many things happening to focus attention on that as a major time priority.

But, the Regatta Commission, made up of a group of impartial detailists, is really all that is needed to put on races on the water. When there is a ruling body to say the race starts at 1PM and five of the six boats show up at 4PM to find the race committee gone and no race to be run after all the work they did to get there late, they will be there on time next time.

When somebody rams the stern of another vessel and a foul is called it will not be up to the skippers and crews of the two boats to decide the outcome of the protest but a group who hears and weighs the rules in favour or against… and that is that.

The boats will have to be better prepared with safety as much of a rule as starting at the starting line. The sizes of the vessels will have to conform to specific class regulations with no argument. One main ingredient to this mix has to be the division of contemporary vessel designs and traditional vessel designs. We are almost about to lose our traditional builders and sailors if we do not create a special category for them. On Chalk Sound we have to teach in both the gaff or leg o’mutton rigs and the triangular Bermudian or Marconi rig. We can also teach in split rigs, catboats or anything else that is Caribbean utilized.

The racing also, since I am on this soapbox, should be hosted by local clubs, such as the Bluehills Sailing Club or the Wheeland Sailing Club or the North Caicos Sailing Club, etc. Each club having their own races and invitation racing with the other parts of the Turks and Caicos Islands. When international competition is in mind there can be the best representatives of each of the clubs on the TCI racing team. All will know who they are by the in-house competition.

It is too bad that the Sports Commission cannot understand the importance of sailing as a sport that all families here comprehend and have attachment. We now have the boats to stage some beautiful events in front of a lot of people and those events can be utilized for tourism promotion as no other sport can.

Provo Day Regatta

Provo Day Regatta 2008

The annual event that officially started back in 1983 as an addition and alternative to the South Caicos Regatta is held in August and has become the Culture and Music Festival with the Provo Day Race also playing.

The actual races are hot and competitive, given the weather is usually at least boisterous. But, the appeal has aged especially with entertainers from abroad bouncing on the stage in the evenings compared to boats out there on the water moving steadily.

	Honorable Wayne Garland, Minister of Tourism, Turks & Caicos Islands

Two separate worlds. But, this year Honourable Wayne Garland ain’t playing around any longer. He is worried that the sailing and the traditional aspects of the celebration. He is personally, as the main Minister for Tourism under the Premier, pushing a livelier parade with the possibility of having the Sloops in the parade. He wants to line the streets with vendors of traditional goods and the street closed off for an all day foot trafficking festival in Bluehills.

All of this stuff is not difficult and we should encourage Honourable Garland and also we should volunteer to get this to be an all TCI affair.