Lower Builds a Skiff

CAPE MAY – Living in such a stunning coastal area, it would only seem fitting that the students at Lower Cape May Regional High School are building a 22-foot St. Ayles skiff.
This hefty project has been in progress since September 2013, although the students didn’t actually begin building the skiff until the middle of November due to limited space. Matt Suter, a special education teacher at Lower, along with his three aides Frank Zilinek, Darren Rutherford, and Kate Gazak, oversee the work that the students do. At least two days of the school week are spent constructing the boat, while the rest is spent planning and preparing.
Although the skiff came with a kit that includes assembly instructions, the biggest problem for the group so far has been filling in the areas that the kit doesn’t quite cover. As this is the first time that the school has ever attempted any project like this, it is an experience filled with many firsts.
According to Suter, “The thing about this boat is that it doesn’t have a curriculum attached to it. I’ve looked for a curriculum and I’ve e-mailed about 50 different programs that have built the boat, and that’s counting destinations in Australia and Europe, and nobody has a curriculum where you would have milestones or weekly check points.”
But Suter is strongly determined and has spent “many late nights” trying to figure out how to get things right.
As for the students, there are no specific ‘check points’ that they have to reach weekly or monthly, but they must continue working efficiently each day. The goal is to finish the skiff by the end of the 2014 school year and possibly get it in the water for Harbor Fest, which will take place June 14 this year on Delaware Avenue, Cape May. Filled with mouth-watering seafood, live music, and vendors, Suter thinks it will be a “great spot to roll it down to the (Corinthian) Yacht Club. They have a great, long, easy ramp there” and it would certainly be an excellent way to showcase the students’ hard work.
Students will spend the entire school year working continuously on their massive task, yet their reward is sure to be fulfilling.
Suter said, “The cool thing about this project is that it’s all year long, they don’t see the results right away. The end result will hopefully be that they can look at this monster project and say ‘yeah, we were the first class to do that.’”
The students themselves are not only building a boat, but creating a legacy that they will leave behind long after they have left the school. There are hopes that the idea of building a skiff will spread to other schools in the future and eventually come together and be able to have regattas and races with other schools in the area.
As far as coming up with a name for the boat, Suter said that “(Superintendent Christopher) Mr. Kobik deserves the naming rights of the boat as he brought it up and he’s really the one that made moves to make it [the building of the boat] possible.”