First Year Anniversary - The Ace Building

by Malcolm Kirkland, Executive Director on 23 Nov 2007 The contract to build to STV Spirit of Bermuda was signed here at the ACE building at a large ceremony on March 15th, 2004. We once again humbly thank the ACE Foundation again for this evening and their steadfast and multi-faceted support. Lori Samson and Vernal Caines - thank you. You are core community citizens.

Quick Review

Reminder of our Vision: In the face of a demanding future, resilient and skilled young Bermudians on the path to personal and community leadership.

This should be more of a Confession: Youth of Bermuda, we adults have given you one very demanding future and we have not kept our eye on the ball to ensure you have the community structures to optimise your unique abilities to fulfil yourselves, to compete with the world’s youth and to be citizens of this complicated little island.

How about we make a Promise: We adults promise to start behaving like we are crew not passengers on this little ship Bermuda. This rock is only 100 times as long as the new cruiseship Queen Mary II and only 10 times the population.

Now, every consultant in whatever the field has said that if Bermuda can’t get it right, then what hope is there for the world in the face of a demanding future. Thinking positively, Bermuda can lead the world by example.

The Bermuda Sloop Foundation is a new, large scale, broad-based youth project focusing on the 13-25 age population segment of Bermuda. Objectives are to bring 21st century holistic youth development and education programming to Bermuda using world class ocean sail training.

Renowned US educator, Dr. Roland Barth, a BSF Director, call us Bermuda’s 'Trojan Horse' full of promise for youth.

Just as successful development and education must focus on the whole teen, body, mind and Spirit, in and out of school, we adults must reform not only the education and development system, but also must rescue the many hundreds of teens and young adults who have opted out. We are happy to report that we work with Education & Development, Youth & Sport and Family and Social Services and other programme like the Adult Education School in programme for 13 year olds and 17 year olds. By the way, the Adult Ed School students have 100 students in their GED programme this fall.

The magic of a sail training vessel, proven worldwide, is the immersing of adolescents in a real living and learning community, where mentor leaders model desired behaviour.

Our programming is based on the proven world class inputs of ocean sail training plus
~ a top performing ‘hands-on’ learning model (www.elob.org)
~ a proven teen programme (www.7habits4teens.com)
in order to connect to life ashore.

Academic knowledge on Spirit comes by exciting learning through mini-activities and by quiet conversation and story-telling cued by geographic landmarks and seascapes; technical learning comes by running this self-reliant ship and its many systems.

Young Bermudians also immerse themselves in our environment and gain cultural and historical awareness of what it is to be a Bermudian. Important stuff in the face of globalisation and a degrading popular culture.

Each summer, older student crew aim Spirit’s bow overseas to represent themselves and all of us.

And what about Spirit, the vehicle.

Spirit is an innovative example of a regulated, global class of purpose-built, 'pocket' sail training vessel (measuring 76’ on the water line) with a capacity of 24 Student Crew. Built in the USA to ABS standards, she operates according to United Kingdom regulations while flying the Bermuda flag.

She is based on Bermudian schooners built 1820-1850 for the RN and Civilian use, in the period that transitioned the Emancipation of Slavery in 1834. Her ship type actively served in the Slave patrol on both sides of the Atlantic.

Back to recent history:

Spirit with her 32 crew arrived off the southwest of Bermuda on September 31st, 2006, anchored at Murray’s anchorage that night and proceeded to Hamilton on Saturday, October 1st, to a flotilla of 100 boats.

Our super headline sincetime is probably
Spirit Has Exceeded All Expectations

Let me bring you up to date.

One, if we count the 21 Clearwater Middle School Boys across the harbour at this moment, 360 young Bermudians have now experienced residential voyages on Spirit of between 5 to 17 days:

~ Middle School 5 Day Coastal Voyages (age 13) 250 student crew
~ Extra-curricular Skiller Voyages (age 14 and up) 110 student crew

Of note in the latter category is a Skiller voyage crew from the Adult Education School, an active partner, and a Cedarbridge Academy Girls Crew. We are supporting the development of an accredited Marine Occupations programme to a global standard in which a large number of older crew will participate.

This summer Spirit completed 6,000 miles sailing round trip to Charleston SC and Norfolk VA then up to Newport RI, Boston MA, Portsmouth NH Halifax NS and ME as part of the ASTA Tall Ships Challenge. SPIRIT won the leg to Halifax. Four young Bermudians completed all 6,000 miles- Tristan DaSilva, Tyneisha O’Connor, Marcus Fox Raymond Brangman. During this time, 400,000 people spectated Spirit from afar and 40,000 toured her over the three months.

Do you have teens in your house? This is my segue way into communicating our profound thanks to our professional mariner/mentors- Captain Chris Blake, OBE, First Officer Sarah Robinson, 1st Engineer Colin Kinsella and Catering Officer Curtis Azhar who live with and lead our young people 24 x 7 aboard ship.

Programme Evaluation
How do we know sail training works? Research this year by the University of Edinburgh has confirmed the long-time empirical knowledge that the sail training experience works. It also shows that the most effective programmes are those which are structured to connect to life ashore. It is for young people, not sailors just as Outward Bound is just for mountain climbers. Only a tiny percent go into the marine occupations. It is simply, real self-discovery, not eharmony.com, and team building experience 24 x 7. The young person learns to manage 'the good, the bad and the ugly', as Capt. Blake says. Welcome to life.

How do we know academic learning is achieved? I will leave that to Greg, Tom and Liz.

Assessment of our programme takes place by tracking the adolescent and young adult over time in age appropriate ways.

Financial Highlights

One, I mentioned earlier that ALL OUR EXPECTATIONS have been exceeded. That also applies to the cost to build SPIRIT which ended up at $6,000,000- 40% or $1,900,000 more than projected in 2003.

By the way, the increase to construct SPIRIT was the decision to add long-term value in materials and systems engineering over time (minimum 50 years life). The number of labour hours, 68,000, did not increase nor did the yard rate of labour did not change.

If you add in our endowment goal of $600,000, this explains our July fundraising push to raise $2,600.000.

Technical Chairman Alan Burland has to be commended for his approach of Quality Engineering to her design and construction. Not only is she bullet- proof (August refit was minimal), but she is fast- an important sensation for young people. Her top speed of 17 knots was reached at 2:00 AM during the 4 day run to Norfolk VA; the helmsmen were Tristan DaSilva (17) and Marcus Fox (15).

Two, in her first 12 months of operating, SPIRIT has generated over $307,000 or half our annual operating expense of $600,000. We think this is pretty good for a start-up business. As projected, 60% is from her youth programmes. I project we will breakeven or better in 2009.

Three, $50,000 is our monthly expense. 20% of our monthly operating expense of $50,000 is the loan payment for Spirit’s mortgage. This explains our fundraising drive to pay off the debt.

Fundraising
We have raised $6,900,000 in total to-date.
$5,900,00