April 2011 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 7. Waterfront News APPRENTICESHOP NEWS
The Apprenticeshop Announces New Workshops and Short Programs in Sailing and Boatbuilding
Fifteen new adult courses and expanded sailing opportunities for youth were launched recently by The
Apprenticeshop, a school for traditional boatbuilding and seamanship in Rockland.
The Apprenticeshop (formerly Atlantic Challenge) is well- known for its apprenticeship program, in which students from around the country and around the world learn traditional wooden boatbuilding craftsmanship and seamanship skills. And, Rockland Community Sailing, the organization’s waterfront arm, has been a gateway for local youth to get into sailboats on Rockland Harbor since 1998. “But people kept asking us, I want to learn boatbuilding, but I can’t come for 2 years, I can’t come for 2 months. What can I learn on a weekend, or what could I do in a one-week program?” said Executive Director Eric Stockinger. “So we developed workshops and shorter programs that require less of an investment in time and money. They fit the lifestyle of the community more and they’re great for busy adults and families.”
The new programs include evening maritime craft workshops, where participants can build a pair of oars, craft a half hull model, or learn the basics of hand- sewing and marlinspike work. Adult learn- to-sail classes, where adults 18 and over can spend 2 evenings per week exploring all the facets of sailing on Rockland Harbor, are available this summer. Weekend workshops offer chances to learn sailing and rowing in The Apprenticeshop’s fleet of traditional boats from gaff-rigged ketches to dories and Whitehalls. In the Shop, participants can spend a weekend learning how to loft, plank or fit out the interior of a wooden boat. Week- long intensive skill building workshops are also offered in traditional wood boatbuilding.
The new evening, weekend and week- long classes augment The Apprenticeshop’s already full complement of 3-month and 2-year apprenticeships in wooden boat craftsmanship. Rockland Community Sailing expands to nine full weeks of youth sailing classes this summer, running from the end of June through mid- August. RCS also coordinates a high school level sailing team (students from any area high school can join), and offers after school sailing classes for grades 4-7. The new listing of classes is available on their website at
www.apprenticeshop.org or by calling (207)594-1800.
Join the High School Sailing Team at Rockland Community Sailing Rockland Community Sailing’s High School Sailing Team is hosting a Spring Kickoff Party for students interested in joining the fun and fast growing sport of sailing. The Kickoff will be held Thursday, March 31 at 7 pm in the RCS downstairs classroom at the Apprenticeshop, 643 Main Street, Rockland, located across the street from Dunkin Donuts.
Mid-coast area students grades 7-12 and their parents are invited to attend the event featuring short videos, light refreshments and a brief presentation describing high school sailing activities in Maine and how to get involved with the HSS team.
The team practices in Rockland Harbor on the 14-foot, two-person fiberglass 420 dinghies during an April/May spring season
and a September/October fall season. Sailors practice Tuesdays and Thursdays for six weeks, and usually attend two to four regattas a season. No experience is required to join the team.
Practices are coached from safety motor boats by Patrick DiLalla, former Head Instructor at RCS. More than one hundred students from Rockland, Camden, Thomaston, and Medomak Valley schools have sailed with the team since it began in 2004. The team races against sailors from all over the northeast and travels to regattas along Maine’s coast including Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, and Portland. High School Sailing has existed since the 1930s, but has experienced considerable growth in the last 30 years. The Interscholastic Sailing Association includes 350 teams nationwide and national championships in both two-person and singlehanded boats. There are approximately 85 teams in New England and 15 active teams in Maine.
Rockland Community Sailing (formerly Atlantic Challenge) has been teaching adult and youth sailing lessons for 13 years at the Apprenticeshop, a nonprofit school teaching traditional boatbuilding and seamanship. Since 1972, the organization has offered hands on programs dedicated to inspiring personal growth through craftsmanship, community, and the traditions of the sea. Boatbuilding and sailing courses are offered throughout the year at our Rockland waterfront campus. Youth sailing scholarships are available. Call KC Heyniger at 207-594-1800, or go online today for more information –
www.apprenticeshop.org.
“Crossing the Atlantic on the Plumbelly” is the topic of Second Thursdays at The Apprenticeshop, a lecture and presentation by The Apprenticeshop’s High School Sailing coach Patrick DiLalla, on Thursday April 14, at 7 pm. DiLalla is no stranger to The Apprenticeshop, having served as Head Instructor for its youth programs in 2002-3 and currently volunteering for his second season as coach to its High School Sailing team.
Originally from Euclid, Ohio, Dilalla found his passion for the sea summering as a youngster in Christmas Cove, and sailing with the local club The Christmas Cove Improvement Association. There, he learned his way around day sailors like the Designer’s Choice 10 and started racing International 420s and Lasers. Later he raced on Christmas Cove 21s, the Etchells fleet of the Rockland Yacht Club and crewed on Newport-Bermuda and Marblehead-Halifax races.
Upon graduating from Grinnell College in Iowa, he answered an online advertisement for Head Instructor for the then Atlantic Challenge (now The Apprenticeshop)’s Community Sailing Program. “It was the first time I’d been in charge of a program, and I loved being in the lead. I loved the people I worked with.” He also connected deeply with the Rockland community, where many experienced sailors shared their stories and experiences of offshore sailing. While teaching at the sailing program, he shared housing with apprentices in The Apprenticeshop’s boatbuilding programs. “I wasn’t a big wooden boat guy before, although I am a carpenter by trade.”
After 2 summers teaching sailing and living among wooden boat builders, DiLalla was ready to set sail on a broader journey. His teaching experience inspired him to push
Learn to make oars and much more at the Apprenticeshop in Rockland.
his own limits with sailing. “I saw what kids got out of being challenged, and it reignited in me a dream to sail the world and to travel.” In 2004, he purchased the Plumbelly, a 26’ wooden boat built on the Caribbean isle of Bequia with its own unique story. While DiLalla acquired her with the intention of making his first ocean crossings, Plumbelly had already made trans-Atlantic passages 26 times.
Leaving Rockland Harbor on crisp day in October, DiLalla departed for what would be a 10-day voyage to Bermuda fraught with bad weather, boat damage and lots of bailing. But when he finally arrived, it was to a grand welcome. “Everyone there knew and loved Plumbelly. When I was becalmed just outside the entrance to the harbor, they immediately sent the pilot boat out to tow me in. Then there were 20 people standing at the dock shouting as we tied up: ‘Plumbelly! Hey, Plumbelly!’” That was the beginning of many warm welcomes and an international recognition of the vessel, on both sides of the Atlantic.
At The Apprenticeshop’s monthly lecture series Second Thursdays at The Apprenticeshop, held at the school’s campus at 643 Main Street in Rockland, DiLalla will show pictures and relate his experience of his trans-Atlantic crossing, his exploration of European and African ports, a
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stint as ship’s carpenter and deck hand aboard the 196-foot Dutch clipper ship Stad Amsterdam (to earn money while he traveled) and a volunteering project rebuilding a grade school in Senegal, which he accomplished using funds he raised through U.S. connections.
DiLalla returned to The Apprenticeshop in 2010 to become the volunteer high school sailing coach, which starts spring practice next month. Following in his mother’s and brother’s footsteps, he enjoys teaching and working with kids. “It feels like it’s worth my time, I love to teach and share my passion with the next generation. When KC [Heyniger, The Apprenticeshop’s Waterfront Director] asked me to help out, it seemed like a good idea.”
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