17 Apr 2016

Aboard the Bobbie C

From Spectrum, 12:15 pm on 17 April 2016

Spectrum producer Justin Gregory spent one week aboard a tall ship, sailing from Auckland to the Bay of Islands in the company of 22 American college students.

Captain Elliot Rappaport supervises SEA student Eliza Thomas: "This is a training ship not a passenger vessel. (It’s) predicated on the expectation that (the students will) really join the ship as active participants."

SEA faculty member Dr Jeff Wescott: "Everyone needs to rely on each other but they need to understand that everyone is relying on them."

Chief Scientist Dr Ben Harden: "The students take ownership of what they’re doing and then they become the leaders."

SEA student Makenzie Michel: "I’ve learned that I’m very bad at Butt Wrestling."

1st Assistant Scientist Maia Theophanis instructs student Ella Dean at the helm.

SEA student Tim Dooley: "I could probably do this the rest of my life. It’s pretty awesome."

SEA students Alex Salesin and Sara Covelli. Alex: "I try to explore the things that I’m interested in, gather knowledge in as many different areas so I can help kids as best I can." Sara: "The biggest thing for me has been letting go the idea that I need to be in control of everything."

Jeff Wescott leads a class.

3rd Mate Eric Oransky: (on getting sea sick) "Everyone has a wave out there with their name on it."

SEA student Eileen Bates: "It’s a little frustrating to feel so inept at something. So I’m excited for that feeling to go away!"

SEA student Alina Nakano: "I’ve started really paying attention to how much energy and water I use every day."

1st Mate Will McLean: "It's a beautiful day for sailing."

SEA student Rachel Soudakoff: "Generally being deaf in a hearing world is going to be different. (But) in terms of the wind and the noise on a boat a lot of the time we can communicate more clearly than most people. We’re able to “yell” across the boat when (spoken) commands won’t carry."

SEA student Molly Stark-Ragsdale: "Working as a team has been really great. How everybody fits into the group and how everybody works together. And similarly looking at the boat - how everything is connected."

SEA student Jenna Lilly.

SEA student Johanna Bailey: "I've made my first offering to Neptune."

Justin Gregory, Jeff Wescott and the members of C Watch on the bowsprit of the Robert C. Seamans. Photo by Sarah Fuller.

The women of C Watch working together.

Since the early 1970s, the Sea Education Association (SEA), based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, has been offering SEA Semester: a semester at sea for undergraduate American college students.

The fully-accredited environmental studies programme, which brings a group of students to New Zealand, aims to increase awareness of human impact on the ocean by exposing students directly to it.

Spectrum producer Justin Gregory spent one week aboard the Bobbie C 25:54

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The two-masted brigantine Robert C. Seamans, affectionately known as the Bobbie C, is one of two ships operated by SEA, and the 22 young students on board the 41m training vessel come from colleges across the United States.

They come from a range of academic and social backgrounds, including a budding neuroscientist and two trainee school teachers, as well as several with a strong environmental focus.

Before travelling to New Zealand to begin the voyage, the students complete six weeks of classroom study at SEA’s Woods Hole headquarters, where they cover nautical science, maritime history, anthropology and ocean science.

The programme, called 'SEA Semester: The Global Ocean', brings them to New Zealand and treats the entire country as a practical laboratory for experimentation, observation and learning.

With an emphasis on teamwork, leadership and character development, the programme is five weeks of hard sailing along the eastern coast of New Zealand with stops in the Bay of Islands, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch.

Once onboard the Robert C. Seamans, the students are divided into three watches and operate on six hours on and 12 hours off roster, as both deck crew and inside the two laboratories.

Under the supervision of professional sailors, they receive practical instruction in sailing the ship and are guided through their experiments by the science team in the lab.

In their down time, the students eat, sleep, have class, do homework, clean the ship and get to grips with their new life as sailors and scientists.