Onboard, learning through hands-on work is key to a successful experience. Students are empowered through opportunities to steer, haul on lines, and handle sails aboard Roseway, all under the watchful eye of a professional crew. 2018 brings World Ocean School into its thirteenth year, and the transformative experiences that this vessel, its leadership, and its crew have afforded to its students over the years has been tremendous. Roseway has welcomed thousands of passengers aboard in both Boston and St. Croix. With the help of these public sails, education grants, and generous donors, she has welcomed more than 20,000 students onboard for both daysails and residential programs. Flagship programs include the Summer Ambassador Program, an open enrollment voyage for students from around the globe to come together, learn to sail, and serve communities they visit along the way. Roseway is also the vessel used for New Hampshire-based Proctor Academy’s Ocean Classroom, a nine-week semesterat-sea program. Students disembark having 26
learned lessons in leadership, teamwork, and perseverance, as well as formal studies in maritime history, literature, science, and navigation. Back in New England waters during the summer, World Ocean School strives to develop seagoing opportunities for students in the Boston Public School system. In 2017, fifteen high school students from Boston Day and Evening Academy (BDEA) sailed from Boston to Canada as part of the International Summer Learning Voyage. Students who enroll in BDEA have attended other schools where they have struggled academically, been held back one or more times, or felt lost, unsafe, or unengaged. These students credit this experience with empowering them to think more creatively and critically about their individual futures, while relying on the strong bonds they developed with each other to
support them in their lives back ashore. Last fall, as the summer sailing season drew to a close, hurricane season roared across the Caribbean and ravaged the island communities in its path, including Roseway’s winter home island—St. Croix. While the programs the ship has been running in St. Croix during the winter months were certainly beneficial to the communities she served, this year they became invaluable. Hurricanes Irma and Maria, both category five storms, left towns and cities without power, homes without roofs, and communities without hope. Eight of the island’s public schools were condemned after Maria, and, as a result, the school system was forced to rotate kids through the surviving buildings for half-day schedules. When Roseway arrived at St. Croix in November, she brought a sense of hope and relief to the local community. SEA HISTORY 163, SUMMER 2018