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South Caicos Regatta Remember that the South Caicos Regatta is about to happen at the end of May. Tim Severin Tim Severin has moved around the earth to a lot of places using a lot of different methods to prove that legends can be real tales and has done so over 14 times in his very interesting life. A few of us were privileged to either talk to Tim or listen to his reporting of how to do a scientific expedition with the trappings of an adventure story. He is back in Ireland now and has sent his regards to those he met here and felt that the Turks and Caicos has a specialness that is solely here. Severin has also said that after some further research he might be putting the TCI in his next sequel of the Hector Lynch series. He is now on the Federation Log mailing list so I am saying thank you for coming here and impressing preparedness as the main ingredient to any project.
Malcolm Kirkland Coming to the Turks and Caicos Bermuda Sloop Foundation Executive Director Malcolm Kirkland will be coming to Providenciales and Grand Turk from 31 March through 8 April to reconnoiter the Providenciales Bermuda Sloop wreck site and assist in arranging for the arrival of the Spirit of Bermuda this coming May. This visit by Director Kirkland is the result of a lot of preparation by the BSF to come and find out if this is really such an important historical vessel. There are no other known actual Bermuda Sloop remains and the concept is to take the lines from the vessel and eventually replicate the most well known fore and aft sailing vessel that was developed to come to windward to the Turks Islands for salt. The Bermudians were the first recorded settlers in the Turks and Caicos and most of the long term families here still have the original settlers’ surnames. The $6.5 million state of the art Spirit of Bermuda is the 108-foot replica of the first triangular sail Bermuda rigged three masted schooner, circa 1790. The Spirit is scheduled to make Grand Turk on the 17th of May and expects to be in the Islands until the 21st. During this period the Federation hopes to hold a series of lectures on maritime heritage conservation and the value of it in todays’ world. The Bermuda Sloop Foundation has renewed an offer to take two youth from this archipelago to their archipelago aboard the Spirit of Bermuda. The first invitation was not possible to accomplish because of the launching of the vessel being off schedule and off season insurance coverage. This is the chance of a lifetime and I know parents are a little skeptical about sending their child off aboard a sailing vessel on a five or six day cruise but look at the next story to reassure yourselves and allow your child the opportunity that might never happen again. Call Ross at 243 2093 if you are interested or have questions.
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Class A's in Cherbourg. Sail Training International
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Two Atlantic-wide awards for SPIRIT Spirit of Bermuda won a second major award this month when Captain Chris Blake was named Sail Trainer of the Year by Sail Training International (STI). The award, which is one of six annual awards introduced by STI this year,was adjudicated by a panel of international judges. Chief Officer Sarah Robinson was also nominated for the award. Captain Blake’s citation read: "He took this vessel from an unfinished hull in a shed to a ship delivering world class sail training programmes. His subsequent achievements are notable, from an estimated 10,000 sail training sea miles since leaving the shipyard in September 2006, including 8 trips between Bermuda and the USA, to coping with the delicate and difficult intricacies of the social aspects of young people from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds in many countries, including those in the community of Bermuda." The award is the second accolade for Spirit of Bermuda in two weeks. The vessel also received the American Sail Training Foundation’s Sail Training Programme of the Year Award.
Captain Chris Blake OBE Captain Blake joined the Merchant Navy in 1962, initially serving on cargo vessels before moving to the educational cruise ships Uganda and Nevasa before transferring to P&O’s Princess Cruises.In 1975, he was seconded to the Sail Training Association in the UK and began sailing with this organization full time from 1982. He has served as master of the Sir Winston Churchill and Malcolm Miller in Great Britain and the STS Ji Fung in Hong Kong. He was the delivery master of STS Young Endeavour (Britain’s bicentennial gift to Australia) and then served on STS Leeuwin in Western Australia and STS Kaisei in Japan. Between 1993 and 2005 he was master of HM Bark Endeavour, the replica of Captain Cook’s famous ship. Captain Blake has taken part in nine Tall Ships’ Races and in 1986 was awarded the prestigious Cutty Sark Medal for outstanding seamanship and leadership. In 2001 he was awarded the OBE for services to sail training and youth development.
Lance Lee Interview Apprenticeshop/ Atlantic Challenge Offer While in Rockland, Maine I was privileged to secure an interview with the guru of sailing conservation organisations, Lance Lee. What is even more satisfying about the interview is that Lance is now using it to promote a new project that he is spearheading. Lance Lee Lance Lee (USA) and Bernard Cadoret (France) initiated Atlantic Challenge in 1986, when gigs from these two countries competed under the statue of liberty. Since, they have grown to over 12 nations, and over 55 Bantry Bay gigs have been built worldwide. Lance was born in Cape Cod and brought up in the Bahamas. The edited interview is in this weeks Maritime Heritage page of the Free Press. The full interview with mistakes and some unknown words will be shown tonight on How Culture Works at 9PM on Channel 4. He has been around and understand the things sailors and boatbuilders feel and has been able to achieve that combination in the Atlantic Challenge organisation, which is based on the philosophy of Kurt Hahn, who I also follow. The offer has also been made to create a special Apprenticeshop customised one week long course for two or three TCI boatbuilders to come to seafaring Rockland, Maine in the late summer-early fall to learn lofting and mould building to start up a line of traditional TCI sailing-sculling dinghies. The concept is to teach the youth of this country how to do it the same each time. The promo for Apprenticeshop will also be presented on How Culture Works tonight, Wednesday 26 March at 9PM on Channel 4.
How Culture Works and the Salinas of Grand Turk We are extending and following up a previous report on the winners of the Science Fair with a new presentation by the seven students who investigated the toxicity of the Grand Turk Salinas. Chibuchim Otuonye, Christenne Lyons, Andrew Monize, Michael Adams, Khambreal Garland, Ruben Altidor, Rusheena Bryan impressed me enough to immediately take the invitation from Wesley Clerveaux, Director of the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources, to interview the youth to promote a study to be commenced to correct the pollution and look for sustainable uses for the historic salinas. If you did not see the original interviews then you have an extra special treat. The major editing for this How Culture Works was done by Michael Burchill, who being young found what the fifth form science students from H.J. Robinson Secondary School on Grand Turk, enjoyable and fun to work on. If you hadn’t guessed it… This How Culture Works is packed with stuff. 9PM Channel 4 tonight, Wednesday. Centre for Caribbean Maritime Heritage Studies continued… You might as well settle into the reality that I will be preaching about the TCI stepping up to create a centre such as this. It will provide new jobs, careers and business opportunities that can and should benefit the Turks and Caicos Islands, and seriously bring those five-star residences in numbers that will insure a healthier economic base, which translates into a safer place to live. There is no centralized repository for cultural heritage conservation information in the Caribbean though there are these organizations that work in the isolated trudgery of researching only their own history with no pronounced consciousness of a Caribbean evolution of vessel design. The countries in the Caribbean who have active preservation and conservation organizations: Aruba-Bonaire-Curacao
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas, Belize
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Columbia
Corn Islands
Grenada
Guatemala
Mexico
San Andreas-Providencia
St. Lucia
St. Martin
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Venezuela.
If you know of other countries with an active schedule please send in their name or even just their country to my email address. |
