A Wee Boat, a Grand Scheme

CREST HAVEN – Kevin Maloney launched the idea of an incredible voyage, one that reaches into the past, yet touches the future; one ancient as a Scottish surfboat, then again modern as graphic design.
On June 11, Maloney, president of the Cape May Maritime Museum made a presentation to freeholders, illustrated with a simple wooden boat, a St. Ayle’s skiff, and a brief YouTube video that detailed the background of the boat. In short, the museum funded the first kit that students at Lower Cape May Regional High School will build starting in September.
The creation of that St. Ayle’s skiff in the Erma school’s woodshop will be far-reaching, Maloney said. It will become much more than a humble rowboat boat crafted of wood, although that would be achievement enough. No, this will be the impetus to set youthful minds ablaze whether handcrafting the boat, creating its oars, writing about it, learning the history of local boatbuilding or calculating navigational directions and speeds in a math class.
Maloney told freeholders the museum is attempting to “provide and present this to the community as a benefit.”
While the first two boats will take form within the walls of the Lower Cape May Regional woodshop, Maloney sees a day when he’ll return to freeholders seeking creation of “a countywide youth rowing program.” The boat, and all attendant activities, will have “great benefit to the community,” he added.
The Scottish Fisheries Museum, located in the former St. Ayle’s chapel, had a small carved boat in glass case. Any mariner with salt water flowing through him or her knows a landlocked boat, large or small, is among the world’s most pitiable objects. The museum commissioned renowned boat builder Iain Oughtred to bring the wee boat to life size.
Hence, the St. Ayle’s skiff was born. Since then, the creation has captivated the hearts and minds of many Scottish women, who took quite a fancy to rowing, since the boat needs rowers and a helmsman. But it also became part of a high school boat building program in 2010 advocated by “Wooden Boat” magazine in an article written by Carl Cramer in September of that year, “WoodenBoat‘s Boatbuilding & Rowing Challenge [BARC] is the bold beginning of a grassroots effort which could be emulated around the world. It’s an endeavor to involve communities and, in our specific case, high school programs, in the team-building aspects of boatbuilding and then competitively rowing one specific boat: Iain Oughtred’s 22′, 330 pound St. Ayles Skiff, with a crew of four rowers and one helmsperson (coxswain).”
Maloney told freeholders that the project, for which the museum paid about $3,000 for the first kit, could start “carrying on the tradition of wood boat building in Cape May County.”
“We looked at it and thought it would be worthwhile,” he added. The museum’s board of directors “unanimously approved this and issued a challenge to high schools.” The kit to be built by students was fabricated in Maine. He also cited the Traditional Small Craft Association which will provide expertise to the school.
“We went to Chris Kobik, (Lower Cape May Regional School District’s director of Curriculum and Instruction). He has a maritime background. He went to the woodworking teachers,” said Maloney.
Those teachers told Kobik that some students’ sole reason for going to school “is for woodworking.”
“We hope this will inspire some young people,” said Maloney. He noted the school will provide an instructor and the workshop. The student boat builder apprentices will launch into uncharted waters, building a craft that has no batteries, no engine or even a sail, but that is powered by muscles and oars against the wind and tide.
“The students got word of this and were excited about this project,” Maloney told the board.
He added that district Superintendent Jack Pfizenmayer, “Thought it was such a great deal, he funded a second boat to start a rowing program,” Maloney said.
Then he mentioned other students whose lives would be touched indirectly by the skiff, videographers, history students, and, of course, those in physical education classes.
Maloney said as the board reached into the community and those in the commercial fishing industry. Jeff Reichle, president of Lund’s Fisheries, offered to transport the skiff kits from Maine, where its trucks routinely travel fetching lobsters and delivering other seafood for the Lower Township firm.
If the skiff project captivates young minds as Maloney envisions, he plans to return to the board seeking consideration for a county wide youth rowing program.
Mystic (Conn.) Seaport would be holding a national competition for the skiffs, he said. “We think our students can do pretty well,” said Maloney. “They can compete on a regional and even international level.”
Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton advised Maloney the county would “reach out to the Technical School and have Supt. Nancy Hudanich contact him” regarding any interest there in the program.
“We are very excited to be part of this community-inspired boat building project,” Kobik told the Herald. “We saw the project as an opportunity to develop an interdisciplinary approach in one section of Social Studies next year,” he continued.
“Boats and boat building transcend cultures and time periods,” Kobik said. “We also felt students will benefit greatly through their interactions with local mentoring craftsmen. Students in the school’s TV Media Production, Graphic Design, Journalism, Engineering and Mathematics classes will use the boat project as a focal point. Lower Cape May Regional’s Woodworking and Advanced woodworking classes will also contribute. This project is about making connections in the curriculum, with the community, and with generations,” Kobik said.
When the first two skiffs are built, “We believe that it should stimulate great interest in using them. We have no formal plan to establish a team but we are certainly leaving our options open. In the meantime our school already has sailing, surfing, kayaking and fishing clubs. This project just seems like a natural fit,” Kobik concluded.