Above: Adventuress plows through the water in a brisk breeze. The ship is used as a platform for environmental education focusing on Puget Sound’s marine environment. Photo by Elizabeth Becker Above, right: Program participants learn to fold sails after a day on the water. Along with learning science and making new friends, the young people learn that many hands make light work.
If that goal can be reached, “We will be covered in perpetuity and Adventuress will sail forever,” Collins says, her eyes brightening at the enormity of that challenge and the boldness of that vision. “That’s the goal. We’re setting up the people in the future to be successful.” Looking back, Collins says reaching out to all of Puget Sound, and to a certain extent, the rest of the nation, to help support Adventuress was an obvious step, but so was keeping the boat in Port Townsend. Unlike almost any port around the sound, Port Townsend has a growing workforce of skilled shipwrights who know wooden boats and Adventuress is helping support expansion of that workforce. The Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding uses Adventuress as a classroom, whether it is rebuilding interior bunks or sewing a new main sail. And now, when Adventuress calls for bids on work, local folks who learned those skills are the winners, not because hometown people are favored but because this is the place on Puget Sound most ready and able to take care of a nearly 100-yearold schooner. It is an important force in the local marine trades industry, in training and wages paid. Adventuress also is building community and changing lives in other ways, Collins is quick to point out. First, Adventuress is a ship on an environmental mission, welcoming people aboard to learn about the complex web of life in Puget Sound. They are dedicated to delivering powerful shipboard youth and adult programs that emphasize environmental stewardship, leadership, community and historical preservation. But in following that path aboard a schooner in close quarters with others and with chores to accomplish, lessons of collaboration also are imparted. It is common for young people to come away from an experience on the boat feeling better about themselves and more secure in their own lives, Collins said. Adventuress is about the science, that’s for sure, but also is about building a welcoming community that is physically and emotionally safe. That last point was driven home for Collins recently on a public sail for families who are battling cancer. It was especially moving for Collins, herself a cancer survivor. For that one afternoon, the focus was on blue water, seabirds, porpoises, plankton and kelp. For one afternoon, hospitals, tests, procedures, radiation, chemotherapy and a prognosis were left in a historical schooner’s wake. “It’s super personal,” Collins says of the many-faceted mission Adventuress is on. “It doesn’t get any more personal than that.” To learn more about Sound Experience and the programs offered aboard the historical schooner Adventuress, visit soundexperience.org or call 360-379-0438.
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Above: The Port of Port Townsend is perfectly suited to take care of Adventuress. Here, the ship is transported on the port’s big travel lift. Restoration of the ship has been a long process, but is now on the final lap. Photo by Elizabeth Becker Below: Young people haul away to raise the sails on the historical schooner. In addition to environmental education, program participants learn the value of working together for a common goal. Photo by Elizabeth Becker
Living on the Peninsula | SUMMER | JUNE 2012