Spirit of Bermuda

If your classroom is a tall ship for a week, you’re bound to have a learning experience like no other.

Sailing around the waters of Bermuda, the Bermuda Sloop Foundation operates the Spirit of Bermuda sail training voyage for all public students on the island.

Students prepare to hoist the sails

If the idea of spending five days living and sleeping aboard a 112 foot (34m) ship is enticing, don’t forget that it’s close quarters when you add 20 students, 2 teachers and 6 crew members all sharing the same space, with no escape.

However, the experience is well worth the sacrifice of privacy and the comforts of home. Spread out among the deck and lower living quarters, the space only feels cramped when everyone comes together for meals and other meeting times below deck. Otherwise, the sky is your ceiling and with the wind in your hair, the open ocean makes it feel like the world is yours to conquer.

Throughout the week, the students learn the basics of sailing a large ship like The Spirit. They become the crew members, setting up, hoisting and packing away the sails at the end of the day. The professional crew is there for support and guidance, but the main work of getting the sails raised falls on the students.

While sailing, the captain is in charge of the boat, but the students are responsible for following his commands to guide the ship through the winds, tacking (heading upwind) and gybing (heading downwind) by adjusting the angle and location of the sails. This requires a full team effort, especially when all sails are up.

The deck of the Spirit of Bermuda

The students learn navigational commands and each gets a turn at the helm (steering) to direct the boat through the channels and take advantage of the best winds.

Several times a day, there are specific lessons aimed at teaching about navigation, map reading, sail components and various types of ship designs. As an isolated island in the middle of the Atlantic, knowledge of the water is a key skill for many Bermudians. Industries throughout the island require maritime experience and the Spirit of Bermuda provides the opportunity for many young people to learn how a large part of island life operates on a daily basis.

Aside from the knowledge gained from participating in the sail training, one could argue that a larger value comes from the soft skills learned by living on board with 20 of your closest friends.

Teamwork is required to get the sails up each morning. Respect is critical when sharing compact living quarters. Responsibility comes into play when students are assigned cleaning tasks to keep the ship tidy each morning.

This program is the ideal example of learning by doing. There is no choice but to become immersed in life on the water and learn how to sail by doing it each day.

Not all students leave at the end of the week excited to join the maritime industry. Some get homesick. Many get seasick. But at the end of the week, it’s guaranteed that when each student steps off the boat onto shore again, they will have a new respect for the work that goes into sailing, and probably learned something about themselves along the way.

Find out more at: https://www.bermudasloop.org

Lessons take place each day that focus on sail theory or topics that connect science, history and language