Published bimonthly for The Center for Wooden Boats 1010 Valley Street Seattle, WA 98109
Volume XVII Number 5 December. 1996 ISSN 0734-0680 1992, CWB
LETTER FROM THE FOUNDING DIRECTOR The engine of CWB is education. Because of our hands-on learning programs, which make history come alive, we have become a model for other museums. In the past year I have spoken at maritime museums in the U.S., Canada and England about the impact of our programs and the diversity of people they serve. The media has picked up our message, too; recent feature articles on CWB have been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Friendly Exchange of Farmer's Insurance, Gourmet magazine. Spirit of Southwest Airlines and Sunset magazine. This year we provided our widest offering of educational programs. Sail NOW!, which teaches basic sailing in our various historic boats, had more than 300 adult students. Schooner sailing was experienced by 50 more on the 65' 1907 schooner Martha and the 127' 1924 Zodiac. We provided 14 maritime skills workshops for adults in one- to six-day sessions. Subjects ranged from fancy knots to celestial navigation. One was an adult-and-child workshop where each team built the 9 1/2' sailing skiff Clancy in two weekends. Rowing tours of historic Lake Union were conducted, as well as a tour of Seattle wooden boat building shops. Field trips to CWB by child and adult groups resulted in 1,875 people having a sail in one of our classic vessels. Countless more have experienced Cast Off, free halfhour rides in the steam vessel Puffin or sailing vessels: Salmon Gillnetter, New Flaven Sharpie and Friendship Sloop. The livery of traditional rowing and sailing boats is CWB's most noticeable image. Over 7.300 visitors went forth on Lake Union in our working exhibit fleet.
World of Wonder, a summer day camp, 132 pre-teenagers learned rowing and smallcraft heritage in week-long sessions at CWB. Sailing instruction was also provided for Alternative School # 1, Bush School and Puget Sound Community School. Homeless teenagers from the Orion School and the University District Youth Shelter received sailing instruction from us throughout the year. All Aboard, a summer session for highrisk teenagers, had 16 participants. The students learned and applied math, science and history in the process of charting Lake Union, rowing and sailing heritage boats and building a 26' Umiak. The Umiak is an Aleut freight canoe dating back a thousand years. Through All Aboard the students solved complex problems, learned teamwork, forged friendships and achieved academic skills at a high level of success. We are certain the All Aboard students will proudly remember their experiences here.
Many youths stayed at CWB long enough to master some time-tested maritime skills. Two Boy Scout troops had week-long sailing instruction sessions. Summer in the City, our program for middle schoolers, served 36 youths, who reThis summer we had four high school inceived training in sailing our historic craft and terns.own They knot-work. They also hand-sewed their dittylearned the purpose and programs of CWB and became valued staff and outstandbags and made model boats.
ing ambassadors. These students were recent immigrants to Seattle, coming from Cambodia, Eritrea, Somalia and Vietnam. We were impressed and very pleased with how these youths, so recently from different cultures, enthusiastically grasped and embraced our mission of preserving maritime heritage through direct experience. We and the interns learned from each other. CWB is anxious to attract and serve the whole spectrum of our community. This year we continued to provide weekly sailing experiences for people with AIDS. We also conducted a weekend sailing clinic, Sail Away Challenge, for people with physical disabilities. People who are deaf came weekly as volunteers. We have also recruited people who have developmental disabilities to join our volunteer teams. Volunteers are C W B ' s energy supercharge. This year 15,065 hours were contributed. Jobs included front desk reception, data entry, sailing instruction, boat restoration, livery operation and keeping CWB neat and clean. We put on a lot of events to keep us from