Roseway abandoned at the dock in Maine. For many months, Roseway sat in disrepair waiting for redemption. After a failed auction, Roseway was moved from her berth in Camden, Maine, to an old beat-up pier in Rockland Harbor, where she was left to sink at the dock. Although the old schooner sat in the mud and filled with water, she was not forgotten entirely. While the schooner was languishing at the dock in Rockland, two New England mariners, Dwight Deckelmann and Abby Kidder, had been dreaming of an organization that would engage young people in academics and community building through the challenges of voyaging. Feeling called to action after 9/11, Deckelmann and Kidder founded World Ocean School in 2002 and began their search for a suitable vessel worthy of their mission. They had seen Roseway sailing along midcoast Maine in earlier years and learned she might be available. They both had fond memories of seeing her under sail in a stiff breeze, always a breathtaking sight. As only the ignorance of youth will allow, the two wrote a letter asking the bank to donate Roseway to World
Ocean School. A few days later, the two were in a meeting with the bank president, and he agreed rather easily to sell Roseway, if the two could arrange to move the boat by the end of the month. For a formal $10 bank transaction, Roseway became the heart of World Ocean School. Alongside friends and Roseway admirers, Dwight and Abby set to work. With six sump pumps and extension cords, they were able to get her floating in 24 hours— just in time for the tow out to a borrowed mooring. After a thorough inspection and survey, they gutted the interior spaces and brought in shipwrights to help make a plan for the vessel’s future. Shipwright Dave Short of North Atlantic Shipbuilding and Repair came up with an estimate of $1.5 million for the restoration. Conveniently, just down the coast in Boothbay Harbor, Samples Shipyard had just had a large project cancel and suddenly their 500-ton railway was available. After many meetings, an agreement was finally reached, and Roseway’s future looked bright for the first time in many years. One dark night in October 2002, Roseway was towed to Boothbay with only two crewmembers onboard; on the next high tide, she was hauled. Once she was out of the water, the work began. With the shipyard crew working four ten-hour days a week, and the World Ocean School team working six to seven days a week, things happened fast. All of the topside planking needed replac-
ing, as did a majority of her amid-ship framing, keel bolts, sections of the keelson, deck, deck beams, and galley house. Once the structural work was completed, her interior was refitted to accommodate thirty-six crew: heads, bunks, two cabins, galley, and a new engine and engineering room. Just before sliding down the rails, the yard crew stepped a new foremast. After eighteen months of hard work, Roseway
The 2002 restoration effort included gutting the ship’s interior and replacing much of the frames amidships and planks fore and aft. was ready. The project came in six months early and under-budget at $1.2 million. After sea trials and Coast Guard inspections, her COI was reissued and Roseway set sail for the Great Lakes and her first voyage with World Ocean School.
Returned to a seaworthy condition after an 18-month restoration period, in 2004 Roseway was re-issued her COI by the USCG and got underway for her first voyage under the World Ocean School flag. 24
SEA HISTORY 163, SUMMER 2018