The Development of the Caicos Sloops

Federation Log sort of sounds like Star Trek but once past that it is definitely more nautical than the more business oriented update I think.

The Week That Was or Was Not
So, this last week not much was done, which aside from getting over Christmas and anticipating New Year, most of you who had to deal with government or the bank, or any business probably feel was not the most productive week of the year.

We did manage to get our planed 10 planks of Spanish Cedar off to Middle Caicos and the able and anxiously waiting hands of Carlon Forbes to complete the planking of the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa commissioned Sloop being built at the Doris Robinson Primary School. We also got the four sheets of plywood for the decks and the 80-feet of fir for the deck beams and carlins off to Middle Caicos also.

Geoff Mander helped me set up the shed extension at the Environmental Centre and the mast for the Environment II (Carlon Forbes’ Middle Caicos Conch Sloop) was sanded and painted between raindrops.

The rain stopped everything except proposal writing for the proposed TCI-Bahamas Regatta and Mariners’ Week in June. The details are starting to come in now that the last two weeks are over.

We are also planning our marketing strategies for our programmes for the next year with the assistance of Access Marketing’s Nerdin St. Rose. She is even in contact while on vacation off island… Membership is a big one. The more of you involved the better the support for our spreading activities.

Questions about Fools Regatta…
The original Fools Regatta was a multi-hull race that sailed from Sapodilla Bay to Pine Cay, took a drink and raced back to Sapodilla Bay. Should we do the same again and make it a part of the Mariners’ Week celebration? Should we do it to and from West Caicos as a part of Mariners’ Week? Should we continue with the Fools Regatta at all?

Questions about Mariners’ Week…
Does your NGO or school or programme want to be a part of this proposed week long celebration? If so, call Access Marketing at 941 7220 next week and let them know.

Everything, at this stage, is completely open. A couple of suggestions for activities include a cooking competition, a basketball competition, a rake and scrape competition, a contemporary music competition, a motor boat race…

We will be needing activities for the whole week from 6 June-12 June and it will be following a South Caicos Regatta and including a Fools Regatta. It would be good to see as many sailing vessels as possible out there on the blue.

2007 Sailing Calendar Is Here But…
You have already been sent the photos of the 2007 Sailing Calendar and a little explanation of the explanation is warranted. We have not had the time to organize the marketing of the calendar and we wanted it to get out to you, so we thought you could pay directly for the reproduction of the work. The cost, being done in this fashion is a little prohibitive but we will put in the time and ink and get it to you somehow if you want it.

Katya Brightwell did most of the photos and Brian Riggs’ great and exuberant shot of Mervin Cox with kids on Wing Dean’s Miss Behave needed to be made immortal so had to go in. My stuff is the usual worshiper of sailing vessels stuff. The one photograph from H.E. Sadler’s Turks Island Landfall says so much about our mandate to preserve history that it also had to be included. The Lighter laying in the sand just off the beach awaiting those bags of salt and the hats…

So, for $12 you can appreciate sailing here in the Turks and Caicos today…

Provo Sailing Club News
(Pat Staples has graciously included us on his updates and notices. Always the gentleman, Pat is pushing the boys to get in the boats. I understand completely, Pat.)

Hi All,
Happy New Year!

Just wanted to remind everyone that we are having a race day on Sunday.
Please come out to enjoy the phenomenal wind! Bring along any non-members with a bit of experience. Entry for non-members is $25.

Mike Rosati, can we have the use of a boat for the morning?

Sincerely,
Patrick Staples

Things About These Islands
Did you know that Tim Ainsley worked on one of the fastest racing multihulls on earth?

Another Haitian Sloop
Goldray Ewing almost talked me into rescuing another of the many this week Haitian Sloops that found its way to our shores. We already have seven Caicos Sloops in our fleet and one trimaran that needs mucho work, so I had to decline this chance of a lifetime. Also, the boat needed its mast to be relocated back about eight feet, boom cut off and sails…, as well as a lot of other stuff like caulking and a whole bunch of finishing for safety’s sake.

How Culture Works Media Code of Conduct
Tonight on our weekly programme on WIV Channel 4 we will feature a panel of media persons, including an editor, publisher and former journalist student, as well as me. We will be discussing as a call in programme the creation of a Code of Ethics and Conduct for the media here in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

About a month ago, Mr. Barry Lowe, a distinguished journalist who gives seminars on journalism, gave a week long workshop on how to improve our media in the Turks and Caicos. Barry was shocked more than surprised to find that we did not have a code of conduct nor of ethics in our media systems. He voiced actual alarm feeling that especially because most of the media were foreigners it would be very difficult to continue this system or non-system without some sort of basic norm for everybody to go by.

We, in the group, had decided that he was right and that we should get together to create a code that reflected the sensibilities of the community that was being served. A couple of meetings were considered but no schedule seemed to be feasible during the holiday season.

We decided to spotlight the need for a code by featuring it on our show and possibly other interview shows on WIV. The point is to let the public know about our interest in creating a code and by our I mean those who use the media, including those who write media releases. The idea of a Code of Conduct and Ethics is to understand the society that one is serving and to be sensitive to its needs while maintaining freedom of the press or media. To get this information we need to have input by the community at large. So,…

9PM How Culture Works Wednesday 3 January WIV Channel 4

I don't know if we will be able to do all of these things but we have the Sloops to do them with; it will just be the will of the people who call themselves responsible sailors to get involved to accomplish these and other concepts they might have.

12 January
-Start of Sailing Our Sloops Programme Sixth Grader Sails on Chalk Sound

19, 26 January
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

20 January- 2nd Annual Wahoo Tournament
- taking public for familiarization sails

2, 9, 16 23 February
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

10 February
-Middle Caicos Valentine’s Model Sailboat Race

17 or 24 February
-West Caicos Race

2, 9,16, 23, 30 March
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

17 March
-St Patrick Pub Crawl: Sail leg from Tiki Hut to Sharkbite

6, 13, 20, 27 April
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

6-8 April
-CARIFTA Games: demonstration sails

9 April
-Kite Flying Contest: public familiarization sails

4, 11, 18, 25 May
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

5 May
-Cinco de Mayo: Tiki Hut take kids for free rides

25-27 May
South Caicos Regatta

16, 23, 30 June
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails
6-12 June
-Mariners’ Week (see schedule)
-April Fools Regatta (in June)

July
-Vessels available for student maritime heritage summer camps

August
-Vessels available for student maritime heritage summer camps

4 August
-Annual Provo Day Race

August
-Fisherman’s Day Race South Caicos

August
-Middle Caicos Day Race

7, 14 21 September
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

28 September
-Youth Day Sails on Chalk Sound

5,12 19 26 October
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

October
-Tourism Awareness Week: Tourist Race off Grace Bay

October
-North Caicos Extravaganza Race

2, 9, 16, 30 November
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

24 November
-4th Annual Conch Festival Race

7, 14 December
-Chalk Sound SOS Sails

We need members. We need members who will take over the reigns of this organisation and mould it into a profound movement that expands the consciousness of our routines.

The beginning of this year saw a kind of lethargy in progressing the mandate of the Federation, especially regarding the formation of youth sail training and maritime research as a combination. Around the latter middle of the year, due to Baba Harvey’s investment in and launching of his two sloops, DC Evergreen Jr. and DC Valley Stream Jr, there was a spike of interest in taking kids out to teach them about racing. There were Saturday sailings that were not geared toward earning cash. It was a high point. Then the weather changed, some of the boats had problems. Some came ashore and were rescued by sailors who just did it without looking for recompense.

On the other side of the Island of Providenciales, there was a movement toward getting the Provo Sailing Club over to Bluehills and sailing with the Caicos Sloops. Despite valiant efforts by Dave Douglass and Pat Staples, it petered out. But, some of the members did come and watch the Conch Festival sailing.

We accomplished a record number of races this year and did show up and race in the almost doomed South Caicos Regatta. My revelation about how the general public regarded the sailors and our archaic vessels was put into focus by the very bad treatment that we received in South Caicos. It seemed that the sailors were more or less at the bottom of the hierarchy to me, that we did not count except as entertainment features in a programme of events. I felt that the money offered us in cash prizes was supposed to compensate us for being there, and that we were not supposed to expect hospitality from the better class of people who did not have to resort to sailing to earn a living. I wonder if this is how the mariners of times past felt?

But this feeling has endured. In our approach to the private sector for sponsorships of events we are greeted with admiration and the funding is seen to have a point. When we approach the private sector to support the administration that would insure the reasons for the sponsorships we are treated with more skepticism, as though we should be volunteering our time to keep the events ongoing. With government it is slower if it is recognized at all. The Tourist Board and the Department of Environmental And Coastal Resources are the only two government bodies who have supported the preservation of maritime heritage and the sport of traditional sailing races in these islands. We did get one grant almost two years back from the Sports Commission.

We have sailed in half gales to compete against the other this year, with two new gaff rigged Sloops parting the seas on our horizon. We have launched four Sloops. We have sailing lessons ongoing and our primary schools maritime heritage programme has had ninety sixth graders sailing since the Fall term began. We are restoring a Middle Caicos Conch Sloop and have two Caicos Sloops at the last stages of construction. We are trying to write a book on the maritime history of the Turks and Caicos. We are about to publish a book of local prose and poetry. We have weekly updates that show everybody what we are doing, both successfully and unsuccessfully.

We have a weekly tv programme, every Wednesday night at 9PM on Channel 4 called How Culture Works. We are assisting the creation of a model sloop museum on Grand Turk. We will have a Mariners’ Week next year and a regatta between the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.

We have chosen a Board of Governors who are hoped to bring us into a more professional light and have welcomed Access Marketing to handle our events and promotions in a more professional manner. We have a retail outlet thanks to Donna Bartram, who has stayed on the Board and has been a foundation of encouragement from the inception of the Federation.

But, we are still in a nebulous place between a dreamed up concept and a concrete manifestation. Our Chalk Sound Sailing Centre seems mired in recorded telephone messages. The initial funding through NPEAC seems to focus on my personality in place of getting the book written. The model museum floats into assurances that are always looking toward some future reality. The Sea Rangers, my great disappointment, cannot seem to get the interest of the parents- we have the Sloops and the courses, and the interest of the kids, but no adult supervision, except me and Goldray Ewing.

When we ask for subsidy funding to support a schedule of tourist attractive racing we are told it will come but nothing happens. When we ask to bring the administration of the Federation under the Department of Maritime Affairs until the organisation can get on its feet and handle its own budget, we are ignored.

Next year we look forward to more international involvement. The future of the Federation seems to need to involve those who understand how to maintain a professional preservation organisation. Our outreach will be through publicity and events. Our ace is the maritime history of this place and its hitherto unknown influence on the Eastern Seaboard of North America with tentacles in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean Basin.

My personal emphasis has already switched to research but my hands stay occupied in scarfing masts and epoxying decks. As the responsibility for the vessels falls onto the shoulders of more and more responsible members I will have more time to make those connections of history that will be so interesting to those who might have never heard of the Turks and Caicos, or who live here but did not appreciate the extent of what they once called the ‘native’ sloops.

We are tired and excited. We have responses from a few cautious enquiries that are also excited about what the future holds because of the history that was but was not locally recorded. That we were not received with pride at South Caicos is the same reason we have not had the historical renown that should have been given this group of Islands. People are more inclined to record the history and give merit to the deeds performed on land than at sea. England and Norway might be exceptions to that concept but generally, what other nations put their accomplishments at sea atop their accomplishments on land?

To preserve the maritime heritage and history of this maritime nation is our goal. That preservation means the passing on of information and skills from one generation to the next. That passing on of information and skills insures and safeguards the identity of this nation.

Join the Turks and Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation. You can do so by getting in touch with any of our Administration or Board members:

Administration Coordinators
H.E. Ross 243 2093 herossea2004@yahoo.com
Katya Brightwell 242 5168 katya_brightwell@yahoo.co.uk

Have a rewarding New Year,
H.E. Ross
Acting General Manager/
Programmes Manager

Turks and Caicos- Bahamas Connection By Sea
The Caribbean Sea is 1500 miles long and at its furthest almost the same wide. The Lesser Antilles Islands, mainly small and volcanic, form an arcing curve north from the Coast of Venezuela to the Virgin Islands. The Greater Antilles Islands and the Bahamas Archipelago, in which the Turks and Caicos are an Island Nation, leave the arc of the Lesser Antilles to head directly for the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. For the most part the Islands of the Greater Antilles are large, mountainous and sedimentary and the Bahamas the opposite, small, flat and desert. The land mass of what was once referred to as the Spanish Main(land) forms the solid half of the Caribbean Sea. At the Southern end of the Island chain 65 miles separate Tobago from the Main with Cuba at the Northern end, only 124 miles from the Yucatan.

The Atlantic Ocean’s South Equatorial Current arrives at the bottom of the Island chain to proceed into the cul de sac of the Caribbean Basin. This Atlantic river travels in an East to West, then a South to North direction along the Northern coasts of South America and the Eastern coasts of Middle America. The North Equatorial Current, also from the Atlantic Ocean, enters the Caribbean through the Windward and Mona Passages and joins with its sister current to flow up and out of the mouth of the Yucatan Channel as the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream moves up the Eastern North American coasts pushing off across the Atlantic to find Europe, then, while on its run down to Africa, it separates once more into the North and South Equatorial Currents which move on their ways back to the Caribbean Basin.

The winds, reacting to the earth’s rotation, reinforce the westward movement of the currents, setting up the famous trade winds of the Caribbean. These trade winds facilitated travel by sail among the early arrivals to the Islands of the Caribbean. The two names dividing the Lesser Antilles are the Windward and the Leeward Islands which graphically depict the fact that the Westerly blowing trade winds favourably affect the North and South routing of the transporting vessels. The Bahamas Archipelago is affected differently with the trades passing over and around the over 3000 Islands, islets and cays from a North Easterly direction, hindering the routing but creating the need for the development of a new type of sailing vessel to travel South against the winds and currents.

The histories of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos starts in the Bermudian Archipelago, almost 600 miles North and East, in the Atlantic Ocean. The Bermudians settled and raked salt in both the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Bahamas was settled by Captain William Sayles and the Eleutheran Adventurers in 1648. Captain Sayles had been Governor of the Crown Colony of Bermuda three times and was the first Governor of the Bahamas (and Carolina).

The stepping stones of so many islands, islets and cays led the Bermudians to the Salt Islands and refining their sailing rig they were able to capitalize on the initial shipment of this commodity to the Eastern Seaboard of North America, then on to Mexico and Central America, as well as Europe. Salt was white gold and their light, fast and maneuverable vessels, built of Bermuda Cedar, monopolized the endless and ever producing salt pans of the Turks Island and Caicos.

The settlers of the Bahamas focused on agriculture and salt as a side commodity but the tricky shoals and reefs of the Bahamas Chain were an unneeded part of the transshipment of the salt from their salt producing islands. The Salt or Turks Islands led the salt industry in production and in shipment.

Next Week… Bahamian designs and Turks and Caicos designs.

TCI-Bahamas Regatta
Last Friday, after an hour and a half meeting at the Tourist Board office on Providenciales the Mariiners’ Week Committee came up with a general list on how to proceed with this monumental event. Our general direction has been agreed upon now we need to have a conference call meeting with the representatives of the Bahamas’ National Family Islands Regatta Committee Chairman Danny Strachan and Secretary-Treasurer and TCI-Regatta Committee Chairperson Margaret Tatum-Gilbeert (from Grand Turk). The call was to be made next Monday, 18 December from the Tourist Board office. The idea is to start off on the same foot, page and direction. We hope to co-ordinate marketing the event and share the expenses.

The TCI Mariners’ Week Committee consists of Michelle Gardiner Fulford, Chairperson, Ralph Higgs, Brian Lightbourne, Treasurer, Brian Been, Goldray Ewing, Nerdin St. Rose (Access Marketing) and H.E. Ross.

This event has taken on a life of it’s own with thousands of Turks and Caicos Islanders in the Bahamas and many Bahamians coming here, now that we are more affluent. There is nobody against the concept, as a matter of fact even the Cayman Islands and Bermuda wish to participate.

This is a one thing at a time proposition that we want to do not just right but with the level of class it should have had a long time ago. The actual racing is to be included as a part of a proposed Mariners’ Week, which will commemorate the mariners that laid the foundation for what there is today.

Volunteers Are Keeping The Spirit Going
The last couple of weeks has seen unseasonable and very bad weather accost our shores and nowhere has it had worst affect than in the Northside, or Blue Hills. We have worked to save at least seven vessels from damaging themselves on the shore and one that was wrecked. We need permanent moorings along that shore and along the Grace Bay shoreline so that the sailors can have their vessels ready to sail or race by releasing a mooring line, and so the visitors can see something really beautiful by human nature on our turquoise horizon.

Another type of volunteerism comes in the way of actual hands-on work on the Sloops. This last week, Lee Penn helped with the Rangers’ repairs, as did Goldray Ewing, Justin Ross, Smith Andre, little JJ Afleck, Byron Selman and Geoff Mander. We re-scarfed the mainsail, added a topping lift, caulked and started the painting of her between rain drops.

We hope to have her in Chalk Sound’s water by Tuesday morning.

Storms and Anchoring
It is a hard thing to do around here with the only real anchorage holding ground along the North Coast of Providenciales being along Grace Bay and that is mostly protected because of the possibility of reef damage.

Our little fleet of five Sloops got caught after the Conch Festival with bad weather keeping us from re-entering Turtle Cove under sail and we did not want to do the reasonable thing by getting a tow for some absurd reason, the stubbornness of sailors?
So, we had anchors out over a six inch sand covering of hard pan and came ashore and I don’t just mean the sailors.

In the month since the Conch Festival every one of our Sloops has gone on the beach or was caught on their ways to the beach, dragging anchors and having lines cut by reef. Mobile Enforcer had three lines out with two anchors and one mooring and still went aground twice.

We have pulled Ranger up and out by trailer over to The Market Place to repaint and re-scarf the bottom of the mast. We have pulled the other four Sloops up on the beach for their own safety and when our schedules and the weather agree we will take the ones who wish back over to safe Turtle Cove.

The DECR has taken note of the problem and wishes to do something but the community should assist this effort by applying for permanent moorings in safe designated areas for visiting vessels.

Speaking of the Conch Festival
Conch Festival organiser, Mike Sottak, is presenting the winning checks for the Caicos Sloop winners today in a small ceremony. Most of the sailors have forgotten about the prize monies, so this will be a pleasant Christmas offering.

Thank you Conch Festival Committee. We are here to assist your recreational centre plans and we want you to know that we think it is definitely needed in Wheeland-Bluehills.

Volunteers
We have three ambitious volunteers who want to look for work to do on the Sloops and we are trying our best to use their services. Smith Andre is the old hand at 13 years of age but he is frustrated by not being able to match up his schedule, because of school, with our schedules and sadly is only able to work when his Captain Lee Penn does not have hordes of Haitians sailing here and being confined at his Centre. Smith, of Haitian descent, was born here.

Justin Ross got here to late to enter secondary school and has time on his hands and an interest in the Sloops, so has been helping out with doing anything we ask him to do. Nice. But, his knowledge is fledgling and it takes a lot of supervision to keep him busy, which means I have to neglect the other details of keeping ourselves going, like the updates and paying bills. But, Justin has been sailing and getting wet pushing Sloops off the beach and on the beach, so it hasn't’t been totally boring.

A hero has arrived. Byron Selman has volunteered to work. He brings with him carpentry skills, marine technological expertise and a gift for yarning. Hopefully, once he understands what is needed in the outstanding projects he can take whichever he wishes over and with that one or two of our junior volunteers. That frees me up to do those little details, plus the other projects.

I am definitely waiting for my old friend Geoff Mander to get back here from all that sailing around in the Aegean, Adriatic and Med. Who does he think he is anyway???
Geoff, you can take on anything we have here, it all has been dusted and waiting.

That goes for anybody else out there. We need volunteers in a lot of areas. If you know how to decorate our office-store we would appreciate you time. If you know how to do what that decorator says to do, we would really appreciate your time. If you could sit in the office-store, at The Market Place, for a few hours a week or day, we need that immediately. We also need somebody to purchase and control our stock and merchandise.

There is always the boat work. And, we need brains to drain for the formation of our ‘committees’. We have a lot of programmes that need to be implemented from youth and instructor sail training to filling racing crews, researching and lecturing in our maritime heritage educational programme, researching, writing, collecting documentation and editing our in-progress book on the Caicos Sloop. Bookkeeping, basic administration, membership drives, fund raisers… we need you.

The Big One
We are trying to get together with the Tourist Board today to try and get some seed money to put together the details needed to put together a business plan for the upcoming TCI-Bahamas Regatta proposed for June 2007.

We want to get a formal invitation from us to them and a challenge as well from us to them to come here and race.

This regatta provides the basis for an annual intra-Caribbean sailing workboat regatta, the first of its kind in the region. Bermuda just sent another email (Bermuda Sloop Foundation and Bermuda Maritime Museum) to come and borrow a Caicos Sloop to race in the event. Cayman is still pushing their Olympic Committee and Cayman Catboat Club to somehow get over here and beat us. We are about to write to other events, over 25 in the Caribbean Basin, and inform them of our intentions to start off an intra-Caribbean sailing workboat regatta in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Buying and Donating
In a surprise communications from President Goldray Ewing, the Provo Sailing Event Committee, who puts on the Wahoo Sportsfishing Tournament, will be purchasing Wing Dean’s 1 Can of Whoopass, 21-foot Wheelands Sloop and will be donating it for youth sail training to the Federation.

The presentation will be made at the next Wahoo Sportsfishing Tournament on 20 January 2007. 1 Can of Whoopass has been doing that for the last two years racing in almost every event and usually in the top two places. After the presentation we will be temporarily retiring her to Chalk Sound to join the other two Caicos Sloops that we will be putting there this month. That will start up the racing aspect of our sail training programme. When the racing resumes, hopefully in February, we have the feeling that she will be put back in the deep and sit ready to take on all comers, hopefully again, with a eager crew of youngsters.

Sun
Since we have sunshine right now I am going out to try and paint Ranger, until next week.

The 3rd Annual Conch Festival Sloop Race has commanded almost all of our attention and energy for the last week and a half and we still don’t have all the Sloops back where they belong. Getting the Sloops ready and finding a wedding pre-empting the racers loyalties to race, doing the usual things we have to do during the week and trying to work out the preliminary details for a model museum and a gigantic week long event during the Summer gets complicated.

3rd Annual Conch Festival Sloop Race
The 2006 Conch Festival Caicos Sloop Race became its own living organism from the start. The crews of the Sloops were looking forward to the race a few months back but when the date approached it seemed there was some sort of derision amongst them about participating. This could be my imagination but there was not the spirit there for this organised event that there was for the week end impromptu racing that had started up after Baba Harvey launched his two Sloops, each built by a separate boatbuilder on our small Island.

The professional ingredient accompanying a purse that was offered by the Conch Festival Committee seemed to put a damper on the bragging rights racing that was new to the Northside. The closer the date came the more indefinite the crews became about who was actually going to race. Then, the wedding date was announced of one of Bluehills’ great guys and it was the same date as the Conch Festival, at the same time as the original start of the race.

The news that the Tourist Board agreed to assist a TCI-Bahamas Regatta pushed the interest a little higher but not enough to overcome an invitation to the wedding.
This was how we were going into this race that we had promised at least five Caicos Sloops participation. We had, at one point, felt that there might have been eight to twelve Sloops but saw that dwindle not just to eight but to four, then up to five.

JJ Harvey, Goldray Ewing, Justin Ross, Smith Andre, Gold Williams, Lee Penn and myself started working on three of the Sloops the Monday before the race. We had to fix a broken boom on Mobile Enforcer and re-rig the Sloop that had been beached because of bad weather, and launch her. Maroons I had to re-build her rudder fittings and bumpkin. Her new sails were at the dock. We had to bring the Ranger out from our Chalk Sound school programme and into Turtle Cove to rig her and set her up for racing. We exchanged a jib from another of Carlin Forbes’ Middle Caicos Conch Sloops for the worn one we had on her and had to change the leads. We had to re-float Environment I, which had gone down when a line had been untied, build and mount new stainless steel gudgeons and pintals (made by Osprey Marine Services), re-locate a throat halyard block (gaff rig), rig the vessel and test sail her for she had never been sailed.

Of course everybody worked or went to school, except Justin and this was a part of my work as Programmes Manager for the Federation.

It was all accomplished, except for the test sail on Environment I by the early afternoon of the race, which was re-scheduled to start at 12:30.

Ranger was the first to arrive at the 3 Queen Restaurant shore, with Maroons I coming up within minutes. We were late for the start by an hour. We saw Mobile Enforcer down the way being pushed by a gang and she soon joined us. Then, while waiting for Environment I, the two big Sloops from Sailing Paradise raised sails and came down.

At 3:45 we started the race from anchor with a triangular course in light to moderate breezes that switched directions throughout the race. There was a good crowd lining the 3 Queen beach and many more along the pretty palm lined Northside beaches. H, Justin and I sailed the Ranger with a reef and the jib that proved bulbous and not too effective. Mobile Enforcer shot off like a bullet, being followed by DC Valley Stream Jr and DC Evergreen Jr with us taking up a third position and Maroons I starting last. By the turn of the first buoy it was Evergreen taking the lead with Valley Stream and Mobile Enforcer fighting for second.

Maroons I put it into gear and passed us like we were there for the photographs and never stopped her power until she caught up with the rest of the pack at the second mark and contested Valley Stream for third. Mobile Enforcer, with her jaunty gaff rig was showing everybody that because it is an old rig does not mean it is a bad rig by catching Evergreen but not passing her as the Evergreen crew seemed to wake up all of a sudden and just lean a little and ride a lot.

Evergreen had the race from that point on and the battle was for second place. We had a good vantage point from way in the back to judge the happenings. Mobile Enforcer saw something strange happen at the third mark, her new opponent was not just the big Valley Stream but also the little Maroons I who were pacing each other. As they crossed the line to begin the second and last rounding of the course it was Evergreen way out in the lead, Mobile Enforcer leading the rest of the pack with her long gaff keeping her heeled, Valley Stream just barely ahead of Maroons I, oh, and us somewhere back there. I thought I was getting some good action video footage.

Evergreen turned the buoy and it was a while before Mobile Enforcer came around, then Valley Stream passed her with Maroons I right behind but just after Mobile Enforcer who gained on Valley Stream and passed her, seeming to bring Maroons I up with an invisible string. At the second buoy they were in a bunch and I could not tell which of the three were where but as they spread out heading for the last buoy it was Mobile Enforcer trailing Evergreen, Maroons I had passed Valley Stream and we stayed back a little to record the times as they came across the finish line.

We were sailing in two classes because of the size difference, and though we actually have four racing classes, which could not comply today because of the small number of show-ups so:

JJ Parker, after a series of problems in getting to Environment I, made it to the 3 Queen Restaurant shore and set anchor as the sun set. He had had most of the problems ashore but decided he was going to bring that Sloop to the race, even if it was after the race.
We have sportsmen in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The TCI-Bahamas Regatta
I just received the following email from foreward thinking Cayman Catboat sailor Carson Ebanks, MBE, the first Caymanian to compete in the Olympics and the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Community Services, Woman's Affairs, Youth and Sports, regarding a rough sketch of what we want to do with the TCI-Bahamas Regatta in making it a intra-Caribbean sailing workboat regatta. This was being forwarded to the Chairman of the CI Olympic Committee and the Cayman Catboat Club:

FW: Carson: 1st Intra-Caribbean Sailing Workboat Regatta
"Ebanks, Carson K." Carson.Ebanks@gov.ky
marinero76@gmail.com, "Watler, Dalton" Dalton.Watler@gov.ky
"Cayman Islands Olympic Committee" <cioc@candw.ky>, herossea2004@yahoo.com

Dalton + Donald, FYI could be an interesting initiative for us to
participate in as competitors and as a country. Pls let me know your
thoughts. Also on another matter which we have an interest is the
formation of the archery association. I spoke to Nobee on this and he
seemed very interested in going ahead. If we don't act now I believe we
will lose our chance at this historical and ground breaking opportunity
as others will take the initiative. Ross, health is good I do believe.
Have not been sailing as much as I should but my belief is that most
people don't sail as much as they should. Many thanks for the invite
and
I will look forward to making the trip across the pond in June. You
will
need to give me some specific dates.
Yours in sport.
Carson

What do we have in mind for the event?:
Concept:
The basic concept that we roughed out at our 16 November 2006 meeting between Deputy Director Ralph Higgs, Ms Oneika Simons, President Goldray Ewing and myself, was that the TCI Tourist Board and the Turks & Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation, as respective representatives, would work together to accomplish an international traditional workboat regatta that will initially start between the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas Islands and that will take place in the Turks and Caicos in the year 2007, celebrating a newly established Mariners’ Week.

We are undertaking this project knowing that time is of the utmost importance since we do not have a great amount of it to accomplish our goal.

Purpose:
The Turks and Caicos Islands will commemorate the sacrifices of the mariners who have given the foundation to this culture. This commemoration will be realised by the official declaration of a Mariners’ Week to be celebrated during the first week in June each year. The focus of Mariners’ Week will be the racing of Turks Islands’ and Caicos Islands’ Sloops with invited workboats from other Caribbean Basin cultures, starting with the Bahamas Islands.

Proceeds from these international regattas are to be used in the TCMHF design and construction of a Turks and Caicos National Maritime Museum, a historical research and preservation institution.

The Turks and Caicos Islands are promoting the preservation of the maritime history and heritage that defines the people of this archipelago because of the influences of maritime cultures outside this archipelago through the uses of the sailing vessel designs created to come to and to go from the Turks and Caicos Islands. It is important to trade information directly and indirectly concerning the movement of people and materials to and from this Island Nation and because of this it is important to maintain nautical relationships with our close and distant historic partners and neighbours.

These international races set a dramatic backdrop for the invitation of visitors to the Turks and Caicos who will enjoy a hands-on and visible exchange of cultural knowledge. The Turks and Caicos can benefit from this form of cultural tourism through the creation of local infrastructural businesses that extend themselves throughout the year, supporting a schedule of racing as well as diversions for the cultural tourist. This allows the general public to not only take pride in their heritage but to simply be themselves as a cultural tourism product. This would be another aspect of the Beautiful By Nature tourism theme.

Carson got excited; I am excited…

We are organising committees to deal with the myriad of problems turned projects that something like this needs to confront and resolve. We have a finance committee and a marketing committee but we need an events committee, a vessel committee. We need volunteers to assist the administration of such an undertaking. We need sponsors and we need funding.

I know, committees shmatitees but you can’t live without them, so we are looking to get the best, most knowledgeable and committed people to get involved with the creation of a national mariners’ week and an international sailing workboat regatta.

Call me at 243 2093 or email me if you want to get involved in any way.

Name The TCI-Bahamas Contest
You have to be under 18 to enter and have an imagination. All there is to do is write your name, age and date of birth, then give us your choice in a name for the Regatta. Remember, we are commemorating seafarers and boatbuilders as well as striving for an international celebration for them and us. The name should stand the test of time.

Just email your name choice to me and we will be choosing a winner just before Christmas.

Oh, what do you win: an all expenses paid trip to Nassau and a chance to sit in on the negotiations between our sailors and theirs. We will also want the winner to sail aboard one of our Sloops and one of theirs, then come back to the TCI and go on our show, How Culture Works and tell the folks here which one the winner thinks will win. Sort of a dangerous position to put a kid in but it is a lesson in standing up for your decisions. Glad it isn’t me.

James Simmons Model Museum
We are pushing forward with pushing some action to take place regarding the intitial information getting phase of the design of the proposed James Simmons Model Museum in Grand Turk. We need NPEAC to issue a check to get the first trip to Grand Turk underway and for our Model Museum Committee to get meetings together with the model boat builders still around, as well as members of the community to get an idea of what they would like to see the museum be.

Brian Been will be putting together the scouts, schools and the museum as a unit, creating an active model boat building, sailing and racing involvement social and educational activity. Valerie Forbin will assist Brian in the organisation of that endeavour and she has the persistence to do that. Valerie has been keeping the annual model Sloop racing ongoing for the last three years. Carnival Cruise Lines has shown an interest in assisting the project also.

Mr. Justin Ross (only a sailors’ relation) has been helping me and getting yelled at in sailing and boat work. I have to figure out a way to communicate with teenagers before I chase him away. Justin is 17 and from the UK. He used to sail with his grandfather when he was small but just followed orders. Now, he has to learn and he keeps coming back for more, bless his soul.

We now have a full six active members of the Sea Rangers.

Finance Committee Meets
The Board of Governors has asked the assistance of Dr. Gilbert Morris and Mr. Stan Binder in creating a Finance Committee that will systemize the fiscal workings of the Federation. The Committee had its first informal meeting at Top of The Cove Café last Monday afternoon and discussed the many facets of today’s and tomorrow’s Federation, especially with a focus on more international involvement through research, funding efforts and events.

Mr. Binder was not on Island but has agreed to take a part of the Committee. Our Treasurer Becky Carlson, Governor Brian Lightbourne and Dr. Morris went over our present situation and almost immediately went into the future of a new and revitalized Federation. On the top of the list of what we need to do is to set up a more specialized and professional administration.

The 3rd Annual Conch Festival
The Federation is organising the race for the 3rd Annual Conch Festival and is getting into the problems of the first and second Conch Festivals, that of reliable participation. Since we are a community sponsored non-profit organisation it is the right of everybody reading this to know that we do have concerns about reliability. We want the racers to commit themselves to races and when the time comes to start them at that moment.

We want this to happen, not because of it casting a shadow upon our reliability in organising the events, but it shows them their fickleness and subsequent untrustworthiness when approaching potential sponsors for further racing.

We have a big event hopefully coming in June, the TCI-Bahamas Regatta, which could bring a tremendous amount of international publicity focussed upon the Turks and Caicos and we need to encourage a sense of discipline and responsibility amongst the crews of our traditional styled Sloops.

When we began to get commissions for the Sloops the intent was, as it still is, to bring the community aboard the vessels as crews. We want a demand for more Sloops to be built and thereby initiate sailboat building and its infrastructural businesses as part of the archipelago’s economy. We also wished to show that maritime heritage preservation was not just something cute, but could also be self-sustaining.

Last year at the 2nd Annual Conch Festival we were proud to launch our first Sloop, the Mobile Enforcer and part of it appeared in TCI Mall as this:

“Governor Launches Enforcer
Along with about forty other folks HE, Governor Richard Tauwhare, delved back into his family’s maritime history by helping launch the 21’6” North Caicos Conch Sloop design, Mobile Enforcer, which had been commissioned by Cable & Wireless and constructed by Reverend Goldston ‘Gold’ Williams.

The occasion was a merry one timed to begin at the height of the 2nd Annual Conch Festival in front of 3 Queens Restaurant off the beach at the junction of the Wheeland and Bluehills communities. With over 1500 people in attendance the launch provided an apex to the day of eating and music.”
The italics are mine.

Everybody started building Sloops. The Dean family has produced four Sloops and two renovations, Reverend Gold Williams is finishing his third beauty, Mary Jane and Carlin Forbes is also completing one with Charles Harris finishing his slender more Bahamas style Sloop. The Federation has purchased three Sloops for renovation and Headley Forbes is finishing another in Middle Caicos. Albert Higgs, Shirlin Stubbs and Wil Gibson will be starting their’s within the next few months.

There will be at least 17 Caicos Sloops available for the TCI-Bahamas Regatta and most will be under the organising effort of the Federation, so we feel that reliability can be fostered by the time if we bring in more new blood.

We want you to crew our, and that includes you, traditional Sloops. Call and get trained, if need be, or get a spot aboard one of the Sloops. We sail every week and this week’s end will show some of the Sloops racing at the Conch Festival at Bluehills off 3 Queen Restaurant. The Conch Festival begins at 12:30PM and we hope to have some Sloops to give demonstration rides to the kids. The racing will start at 2:30PM.

Now, for the good news:

Grand Turk Model Museum Project
Herbie Ingham has called to tell me that the initial funding for the (proposed name) James Simmons’ Model Museum in Grand Turk has been approved by the NPEAC and will receive the Community Conservation Fund grant that we had written about ‘in principle’ before.

This means that we will have the first actual TCI Governmentally owned museum in Grand Turk. The TCI National Museum is not actually owned by the Government and is a private non-profit organisation with the name national in their name.

This has worked for the benefit of the museum and to its detriment as far as local support is concerned. The TCI National Museum should be supported by the people of the Turks and Caicos just as any worthy community activity should be, but when people think it is Government, they do not see why they need to support it since they already are, so no real community effort at support for a really very well ordered and research oriented facility.

The (proposed name) James Simmons’ Model Museum will not be a large facility but will showcase the models from around the Islands for local and visitors alike. It is a welcome cultural exhibit that does focus on a traditional skill that is on every Island in the Turks and Caicos, model sloop building. The other aspect of the museum is to encourage not only the skills to be preserved in the design and building of the vessels but also in the sailing of them. We hope this little museum, which is hoped to be located on the Main Salina, will encourage somebody to clean out the Salinas and maybe even put them into working order again.

Now, for the good news, ‘in principle’:

After an hour and a half meeting with TCI Tourist Board Deputy Director Ralph Higgs, we feel we are on the road to a 1st Annual TCI-Bahamas Regatta. The actual name has not been given the proposed event as of yet. Mr. Higgs unequivocally endorsed the concept of the race and has pledged Tourist Board support in every way possible, including funding.

We have to submit a formal proposal to the Tourist Board and the ‘in principle’ will be taken off the agreement to assist.

This is a major step toward putting maritime heritage preservation into the serious arena locally. This will allow us to add it to the already serious lists of maritime research and preservation organisations internationally.

With the launching of a TCI-Bahamas Regatta and figures that have already been discussed we will draw the attention of other Caribbean based workboat preservation organisations with a possible result of the TCI hosting international workboat racing. One of the sponsors of the preservation of working sailing vessels is the Royal Family.

Oseta Jolly
We will be taking the sixth-graders from Oseta Jolly Primary School in Bluehills out this Friday if the weather does not dictate otherwise. Baba Harvey and Goldray will be using their Sloops to take the kids on this 1st Phase of the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme.

Sloop Update:

As always, we need crew. If you are interested in sailing a traditionally styled Caicos Sloop, just call me, Ross, at 243 2093

Mobile Enforcer
Cable & Wireless’ Mobile Enforcer had her boom broken when her mooring chain broke in that blast of a light gale swooped down on us two weekends back and it still has not been repaired. Gold Williams has volunteered to fix it but the rain has kept him from it to this date. We need permanent visitor moorings off the Northside.

We were going to use her in the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme as it moves over to Oseta Jolly Primary School this Friday.

Leeward Going True
Carlon Forbes is loosing his patience with us in sending wood fast enough for him to continue work on the 20-foot Middle Caicos Sloop being commissioned by the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa. The transport vessel is here today and leaves today but we don’t have the wood planed yet. I can use a hand with this if anybody knows how to plane and can give the time. Unfortunately the transport vessel comes only every other week.

Mary Jane
Gold Williams can’t stop to talk to anybody (but does) because of his working to finish Mary Jane. The sails for Mary Jane and the jib for Environment I were ordered and the freight paid by Donna Bartram of The Market Place of Providenciales.

Environment I
Though moored next to the DECR Fisheries vessels Environment I sunk as a result of somebody loosening a line and her beaching on a high tide and turning sideways during the low and nobody called to say a thing. She had been down for a week before I was told about it at an event. I have received word that the DECR tried to call me but could not get through.

Sea Ranger Justin Ross (no relation), JJ Parker, Goldray Ewing and I have righted her and are affixing the rudder with new heavy duty stainless steel gudgeons and pintals designed by Mike Robertson of Osprey Marine Services.

Ranger
H and I have not had the time to devout to Ranger to put her into the shape she should be for racing in this upcoming Conch Festival Race but will be out there anyway.

Winds Of Change Club
Work is progressing on the 40-foot Jim Brown trimaran, Winds of Change, that is being donated by Janet and Robert Townley but because of this interesting weather it is progressing rather slowly. The bow is being completed and the chainplates are about to be replaced. The 11-foot sailing Dwyer Dink (I think) is getting railings this week and a re-positioning of the rowing station.

“When most of what we are doing right now is out of the way, in about six months, I will be able to do more personally.” Are the types of words we want our membership to bring to the organisation.

Welcome aboard Projetech!

If you are interested or know somebody just a too little shy to call, call me at 243 2093 and we will see what we can do.

JJ and Garreth are proving keen learners, even accomplishing quite a few knots. Next Saturday they will be handling the Sloop by themselves with me aboard after one lesson.

Learning Is How Culture Works
Last Wednesday night we featured an interesting mix of videoed pre-recording and a one-man show. Up until the last minute I had not received any word from the Department of Education on who was to come on the show and nobody showed, and the show must go on. Our scheduling is a necessary aspect to the organisation of each show, so if you are to go on, please let us know ahead of time if there is a change of plans and we can do something accordingly.

We are introducing three of our new and returning Board Governors with each show to let you know why they are in the Federation and what they hope to accomplish.

Ms. Rachel Taylor, Principal of Enid Capron Primary School, spoke via pre-recording, of the need to instil in teachers the will to teach children more than just what they need to repeat to get past their grades but so they gain an appreciation for the learning process itself. I might put part of her speech on at another time, so impassioned was she about the need for children to love learning.

Mrs. Claudette Clare, Principal and Founder of the New Age Academy, a private school, was no less passionate about putting English As A Second Language into the forefront of the inclusion of students from other areas by the school systems and the public. Her statements focussed on the fact that they are here to stay and cannot be ignored just by the reality of their sheer numbers. She felt that the foreign students should be given extensive lessons on the culture of the Turks and Caicos and thereby would become more respectful of the ways of their adopted country.

Sloops
Leeward Going True
Carlin Forbes has laid the keel and set up his timbers, frames and is now in the planking process of the Middle Caicos Sloop commissioned by Leeward Marina Resort and Spa and being built at the primary school in Middle Caicos. Carlin seems happy with the work he is doing, judging by the telephone calls he updates us with and now we will have some photos taken by Brian Riggs, who visited Carlin last week and took a lot of shots. Hopefully, we will be able to post them in the next Federation Update.

Mary Jane
Gold Williams has caulked and primed the hull of Mary Jane and is awaiting sails which should arrive on 17 November before he starts rigging the Sloop. Unfortunately, most of the sailors here do not understand that gaff riggers are supposed to have somewhat flexible mast movement and rely upon stretch of rigging to act as a shock absorber, and Gold is one of those who thinks stainless is the only rigging for sailing vessels. A point that has to be worked out. There are books on the subject.

Bahamas-Turks and Caicos Race
Ralph Higgs is back on Providenciales but I am not, so we are all still left ‘in principle’ hanging. We will return Wednesday afternoon and I will arrange a meeting as soon as possible with Ralph, and some of our interested group, to try and work out responsibilities, location and some type of schedule for what could be one of the greatest tourist and cultural events in the history of the Turks and Caicos.

Conch Festival
The racers have moved up the time for the Sloop Race at this year’s popular 3rd Annual Conch Festival in Bluehills on 25 November. We are looking at eight to ten Sloops racing in two to three classes for what has been termed ‘big money prizes’. As a sign of respect for Froggy Williams, who will be getting married at the Conch Festival, the racers are doing an unprecedented thing by moving the time of the racing to 11AM in place of 2PM, which is when Froggy would be getting the vows exchanged. Most of the racers are either related or friends of the owner of the Hole In The Wall and want the Festival to be a success so this plan is being adopted. We hope through enough publicity to get this information out to the public in time for the day.

Special Update: It seems the sailors want to sail at their regular appointed time of 2PM and Goldray Ewing is going to a special meeting tonight to see what is what… stay tuned to How Culture Works tonight to find out the results.

The Conch Festival is a fund raiser for the proposed Bluehills-Wheeland Recreation Centre that will be constructed in Wheeland on the beach.

Bahamas-Turks and Caicos Update
The Tourist Board Deputy Director, Mr. Ralph Higgs, has given ‘in principle’ agreement to go for a Bahamas-Turks and Caicos Regatta in 2007. The date and circumstances are to be discussed by a select group of sailing enthusiasts and organisers, but word of this has met with a cautious elation by most who want it to happen but feel that it will fall by the way.

There has never been an official sailing competition between the two neighbour Island groups that divide the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Both of these maritime cultures have been celebrating their own sailing prowess, the Turks and Caicos has had an official regatta since the year after HRH Queen Elizabeth II’s visit in 1967 and the Bahamas is famous for its 53 years of Island developed sloop racing. And, though the ties between the two are through blood relations no Turks Islands’ nor Caicos Islands’ Sloops have ever officially competed against any of the many types of Bahamian rigs.

Both the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos owe their original sailing designs to their Bermudian heritage that goes back over 300 years. Both have used the sail as the mainstay in commercial ventures that have supported the economy for close to that same length of time. This encounter can set the stage for a tremendous promotion for both cultures as competitive sailing tourism destinations.

There are over twenty-five workboat sailing regattas in the Caribbean Basin ranging from Columbian whaleboat yawls to Cayman Catboats. Most of the inter-Island schooners have gone but the smaller designs have somehow managed not only to survive but to begin to flourish as racing vessels. It is possible that the Turks and Caicos could be a centre for inter-Caribbean workboat racing with this new move to bring the Bahamas to our waters as a first step.

Enid Capron Students Are Loving Sailing
The second group of twenty students from Enid Capron Primary School have taken the helm and sheets of the Middle Caicos Conch Sloop, Ranger last Friday. Every Friday from 1PM-3PM at least twenty public school sixth-graders look forward to getting on and in the waters of beautiful Chalk Sound as a part of the Federation’s Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. After this sailing acquaintance first stage in the semester-long programme, local guests are invited to give in-class lectures on what it was like for them when they were the age range of the students in the old Turks and Caicos.

The programme visits all the Islands and though it is approved by the Education Department it is not funded by government. We have to thank the sponsors, such as Beaches Resort and Spa and Lew 1 Shipping, who see the happiness at their history learning in the students’ eyes. Lew Handfield gave a lecture last year and a donation. This year he continues to support the Programme. “This is a really good thing. We need to let the kids know how it was.”

We are hoping to have a second Sloop on Chalk Sound this next Friday.

Sloop Update
I apologise for not having gone to see the new Sloop being built in Wheeland by Pring Dean and brothers but there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day. By all reports they are moving on this one and it might actually be launched around the Conch Festival date of 25 November. This one was completely unexpected but shows heart. The Deans are producing and that is what is important. At some point we are going to have to acknowledge that there is a business here, a boat building business.

Though most of the boat builders are building modified traditional designs there is a wanting to learn other techniques and to put the Turks and Caicos on the chart as a contemporary sailing design and construction centre. That has been the stated goal of the Federation and at least three sailors-builders are already started in that direction.

Gold Williams designed and built the Evergreen with a modern underbody and traditional topsides.

Wil Gibson has gone to a greater extreme in fixing his design model as a modern single-handed ocean racing platform with very little in the water and a deep fin keel. Wil is also looking into water-ballasting the design.

Goldray Ewing has cut his design, that is already in construction, down from 32-foot to 29’11” to comply with our T&C Racing Specifications of a 30-foot limit to the top class. His fast-is-fun concept shows rounded tumblehome and a very flat bottom. Goldray is fitting his Maroons I out with fully battened sails and will do the same with the design he is building.

Back to Gold Williams. Gold has the prettiest design in the shape of Mary Jane, which he has just finished planking and decking. She has a super fast entry and the balance of a stable but none water gripping flat underbody. Mary Jane, commissioned by a very patient The Prestige Group will be gaff rigged and friendly to her crew but not to any competitors. There is already a fight about who will be her skipper between Gold and JJ Parker. Gold just needs to put on the false keel and rig her. The sails have been ordered by Donna Bartram and should arrive on 17 November. She will then be completely rigged and launched, hopefully in time to race in the Conch Festival Sloop Race on the 25th off 3 Queens Restaurant in Blue Hills.

Carlon Forbes is planking in Middle Caicos but we have lost communications with him and want to know if he needs anything. If anybody is travelling that way please let him know to call me on 242 5168. The Leeward Going True, commissioned by Leeward Marina Resort and Spa, is being built as a competitive Middle Caicos Conch Sloop and will be used to do maritime heritage sessions to school kids on Middle Caicos and when we are able to bring students from other Islands to learn more about the maritime aspects of the Middle Caicos culture.

One Year Ago
One year ago we were a little ahead of this year in presenting the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme because we had the confidence to know that a programme as good as this one would be funded. This year we are still searching for funding for the programme that is being ignored by the Ministry of Education but with volunteers and the private sector we are still doing it. Maritime questions, for the first time, were used in the G-Sat exams, so we are satisfied that they know that maritime history is important up there.

Rachel Taylor, principal of Enid Capron, actually had to drive the students to Chalk Sound herself, seeing that this is an important ingredient in the lives and studies of her charges. Teri Davies of Beaches made the special effort to be on hand for the first sailing aspect of the programme to show support to the children and Yasmin Rigby-Blues, who can be seen filming us one year ago, came to interview Katya about the project again.

The students had a perfect day of light breezes with catch you when you least expect it blasts of wind on tranquil Chalk Sound. Most wanted to go back out on the Sloop. All played in the warm water and we, Goldray Ewing, Katya and myself were happy to be offering the programme again after their expressions of glee remained for the whole two and a half hours.

Last year we emphasized knots with the sailing and a visit to the suspected Taino fishing settlements just North of the launch area. This year we just have too many students and not enough volunteers, and the suspected Taino fishing settlements have been bulldozed over. There will be eighty-six students from Enid Capron taking the introductory rides aboard the Rotary funded Caicos Sloop, Ranger, this year… just Enid Capron, compared to less than sixty last year.

If you know how to sail or if you just want to lend support to the students, come by Chalk Sound, just past the Selverado Concrete Works on South Dock Road, between 1PM and 3PM each Friday. We will be continuing this programme for some time thanks to sponsors like Beaches Resort and Spa. The programmes includes all the public schools in the Turks and Caicos Islands and we move around to each offering sails, lectures and intimate talks by members of the community about what it was like to be their age when sail was the main means of transportation (not that long ago).

The Dinghy
The 40-foot Jim Brown design trimaran that is being donated by Janet and Robert Townley to the Federation also has a dinghy which had been in the bush for about eight years and has suffered as a result. Last week, as reported in the last Update, several young people came by our home to do some work on the boats and ended up refinishing the dinghy, kayaking, flying into and swimming in the canal. Well, I just want to report that Imelda Burke says that her kids said it was better than Beaches, a visit to which is the high point of their living here, and that on top of Elinore McKnight’s kids saying it was better than DISNEY! I had to look at the canal again after that…

The Board
As is the custom in the Turks and Caicos, and actually most places, we had a poor showing at our first Board meeting, with most people at least giving apologies. So, we had a discussion amongst the five of us about what should be the priorities of the Federation at this point in time. One point that was immediately addressed is the consideration for those who have a record of not attending meetings, nor by email, not voting on issues. The unanimous conclusion is that a vote should be held on if after three times no response and a letter pointing this out they should be asked to resign.

A good sign of an active group is when they do not want their time wasted by the lesser qualities in the other members of that group. The Federation is in no condition to smile and wave at the world. We are a vital group with an actual reason to be. I am writing this to make on bones about it. There is a lot of time spent by a few people advancing the hopes of a lot of people and we have to consider what we are doing as seriously as anything in the near future of these Islands has to surmount.

Bahamas-Turks and Caicos Regatta
I have to give my apologies to the Tourist Board for not giving them the credit of forethought about the importance of the potential publicity in the rivalry between the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos on the water.

I called Brian Been of the Tourist Board to address the point at our Board meeting, since he is a returning elected Governor, and he was in Freeport talking to people about the event. He also told me that Lindsey Gardiner, his boss, was on it.

I called Ralph Higgs, head of the Tourist Board here in Providenciales, and he already was trying to figure out when and where the event should be held.

I was sort of the hind teat dog in the process…

But, I did get an email from Margaret Tatum, our counterpart in the Bahamas and a native of Grand Turk, to say that the interest jumped when she told a few people about our wanting it to happen in 2007.
Goldray Ewing reports that everywhere he goes, such as standing in line at the bank kind of thing, people are putting down the Bahamian Sloops compared to the Caicos Sloops, except for the Bahamians who are living and visiting here. They act like they know the Bahamian Sloops are better crewed with a 52-year history of active racing over these upstart Turks and Caicos Islanders. There have been no fights yet.

If you want to crew a Caicos Sloop and are shy about asking to do it, overcome it and understand that you, all of you, are welcome at Sailing Paradise by Baba Harvey, the proprietor who has three Sloops in hand. He wants to invite everybody to either try out for crew or just watch the practices off Bluehills each and every Saturday, starting around 2PM.

We need to practice.

Sloop Report:

Conch Festival
The 25th of November should see a bunch of Sloops racing off Bluehills. There is the potential to have 15 Caicos Sloops in the water and competing for the trophies and cash prizes. There will also be conch dishes, conch races, conch blowing ashore at 3 Queens Beach, but for us there will be replicas of Conch Sloops racing.

The tradition of Conch Sloop racing is the same as most workboat racing throughout the world, whenever you see another boat around there is a race!

Last year we held a launching of the Cable & Wireless commissioned Sloop, Mobile Enforcer. This year she will be racing with her gaff rig that some once called a Haitian rig before it beat all class comers in the 40-knot plus Provo Day Regatta. There will be at least one other gaff rigger this year and possibly two if the sails are here and the rigging set on Mary Jane.

Mary Jane
Donna Bartram has ordered the sails for the Prestige Group’s Mary Jane as Gold Williams has finalised the hull and is placing on the deck. The North Caicos Sloop had a long stall in construction that is still unexplained by Gold but is nearing completion. Gold and the potential captain, JJ Parker, want the Sloop completed by the Conch Festival in three and a half weeks on the 25th November. Close.

No Name
Pring, George and Wing Dean are building a 28-foot Sloop as fast as they can, hoping to have her completed by the Conch Festival with the special intent on beating everything out there. Wing might have a say on that one, as would George, but the brothers are abuilding.

Other Sloops…
Shirlin Stubbs has a lot of his material and a definite plan to build the fastest and most exact traditionally built Conch Sloop in this rejuvenation of Conch Sloop construction. He says he has the keel and a lot of the frames, stern and stem posts, and is looking for the time.
The King of Sloop building and sailing, Albert Higgs, is silently doing something and everybody is saying he never let’s on until it is completed, but Gold Williams is trying to spy what this master craftsman is up to. Maybe someday we will know but Albert has been awfully quiet lately.
Albert will probably take the helm of Evergreen in this upcoming Conch Festival.

The new Board consists of:
Goldray Ewing nominated by H. Hinderaker and seconded by Mac Stubbs
H. Hinderaker nominated by Becky Carlson and seconded by Katya Brightwell
JJ Parker nominated by Goldray and seconded by H. Hinderaker
Sherlock Walkin nominated by H. Hinderaker and seconded by Karen Musgrove
Gold Williams nominated by Mac Stubbs and seconded by Goldray Ewing
Becky Carlson nominated by H. Hinderaker and seconded by Katya Brightwell
Brian Been nominated by Katya Brightwell and seconded by Brian Riggs
Governor Tauwhare nominated by JJ Parker and seconded by H. Hinderaket
Brian Lightbourne nominated by H.E. Ross and seconded by Brian Riggs
Jay Stubbs nominated by H. Hinderaker and seconded by Becky Carlson
Mac Stubbs nominated by Gold Williams and seconded by H.E. Ross
Mervin Cox nominated by Albert Grant and seconded by Kevin Harvey
Donna Bartram nominated by Katya Brightwell and seconded by H.E. Ross

Fund Raising Dinner
We are trying to get a fund raising dinner party together to showcase what the Federation has done in the last 1 ½ years with live exhibits and a lot of visual aids and music. Our group have not met yet and we want the dinner in the middle of November. If you like to throw parties, give us a call at 243 2093. Lots to do…

Braggin’ Rights Regatta: Bahamas Sloops vs Turks & Caicos Sloops
Get in touch with anybody you know in Government and tell them we have a great chance at a first regatta between the Bahamas and the Turks & Caicos.
Almost from the start up of the Maritime Heritage Federation the insistence upon a showdown between the sailors of the Bahamas and the sailors of the Turks and Caicos has been voiced with an edge of anxiety, leading to frustration. The frustration part has always accompanied the bragging about how much better the Caicos Sloops are compared to the more famous Bahamian racers because of the reality that there has never been a race to compare the two general types.
Last year, around this time of the year, Margaret Tatem, representing the Family Islands Regatta Association wrote:

Subject: Bahamas Turks and Caicos Sloops
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005
“Let me assure you the interest no I'd say excitement is here from the guys in my club. We have eight to ten C-class boats who would love to come over. I agree with the government's involvement and making it an "ambassadorial / cultural exchange". Here though are the challenges I see us having to overcome:

1. TRANSPORT - Shipping is expensive and it would have to be a charter situation as I know of no regular routes. My guys suggested we ship the boats down and a local committee takes care of them until the owners and crew arrive a day or so before the actual races. We have a boat which could do it, I'm checking the travel time and the cost for such a trip.

2. TIME - Another date I could suggest is Feb. 16 through 19. Notice I indicate a Thursday through Sunday as we usually race over a two day period -Friday & Saturday and use Thursday and Sunday as traveling days. March and April is out of the question as we have two major Regattas during that time.
If T&C boats are going to come to us then March 5th through 12 is the ideal time. We put on a major race on March 9th Through 12th and we could include the T&C boats in this Regatta.

3. COST - Crew costs - travel and accommodations if not sponsored will be picked up by the individuals. We could get the airlines - BahamasAir and Sky King to give us some good rates for the Sailors particularly if we give some advertising you know like the official airline to the event.... We would need Housing - preferably apartment /house with kitchen etc for approximately 50 to 60 persons. Maybe more if wives/girlfriends/kids come along to make it a vacation.
So this is our challenge, what do you say?
Hear from you soon.
Best regards,
Margaret”

I did not have much to say as I received no interest by anybody in Government and only word support from those in the private sector who could start to imagine what a race like this could mean for international promotion of the Turks and Caicos as a cultural tourism destination, and what it would mean locally. Even on the show, How Culture Works, Lindey (from the Bahamas) the cameraman and Peter Jr,(Caicos Islander true and true) the technician, started a friendly squabble about the merits of their counterparts.

2007 is a whole different thing. We have a group that has put on seven races successfully, though late to start) and has a couple to do before the year is out. We have a fleet now of fourteen Sloops that could sail and two more on the way. If the Bahamas-Turks and Caicos race would be assured I am sure that at least three more Sloops would be built. We have the beginning of a relationship with BBC who are still corresponding via email about our progress. We have excellent local media communications. We have crews training by fun racing on Saturdays. We have four classes of vessels and a set of racing rules. Every one of the sailors wants to best the Bahamas with real passion.

And Margaret is back in communication…

Will it happen? We need transportation here. We need accommodation for probably 100 people. We need an infrastructure to organize at least four days of celebration. We need sponsors for the event.
How can we rationalize investing in a Bahamas-Turks and Caicos Regatta? I would call it the Braggin’ Rights Regatta, myself.

This packaged concept should not be hard to sell to BET, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, PBS or BBC which means cultural tourism exposure. We would be riding on the back of 40 years of interest in Family Islands Regattas. We could invite the other twenty islands in the Caribbean who have workboat races to attend and make the Turks and Caicos the focus of future inter-Caribbean sailing races. We could get a lot of people who sail, over 250,000 boats on San Francisco Bay alone, interested in coming to the Turks and Caicos, if not for this event then the next one next year.

If we can do a music and film festival, we can certainly do a sailing festival that would cost a lot less and give more to these Islands from both the viewpoints of Islanders and visitors.

This is an automatic tourism and cultural preservation success and we have the people to organize it in our ranks. We do not have to have specialists from overseas coming here to do the event. It can all be handled right here with the cash remaining here, unless we loose races. And we are not going to loose races, are we?

If you want to get involved, call me at 243 2093 or 242 5168 or 946 4930 during working hours.

Winds of Change
Human Rights Day, Tuesday, saw a celebration at our house that moved through a couple of stages and culminated with big winds blasting through the Turks and Caicos that evening.

First, Ed Williams showed up to work on our book, A Walk On Our Beach, which got the juices flowing, then the Townleys came by to leave off some more of those parts and pieces of a boat that takes forever to figure out that you need, such as an emergency cable cutter, bunches of stainless steel fasteners, stuff that makes a cruising boat a cruising boat.

Then Goldray, Baba Harvey, Wing Dean and an unintroduced buddy came by to help do some work on the big Tri that the Townleys are donating to the Federation. They surmised the work that could be done, cut the bent section of the mast and we carried to a convenient work space for Mike Robertson to figure out.

As they left to go race over off Blue Hills, Eleanor McKnight brought her two children, Jack and Georgia, as well as Imelda Burke’s Ella and Patrick and newly arrived Kally Affleck and her son JJ to help prepare and paint the sailing dinghy that came with the trimaran, and help with the work on the trimaran, too. They found the kayak and fishing poles and a lot of other things around here and reported that the day was better than Disney World for them.

As they were going about their ‘work’, which eventually included painting the dinghy, Donna Bartram brought her newly arrived daughter, Tina Wolfe and her children Braulio and Galvin to get some experience on boats, so they figured out stuff to do also.

Then our downstairs neighbor, Cedric, was pulled out by his 5 year old, Jason and while playing with all these other kids, gained the confidence to push away from the ladder and take his first swimming strokes alone.

I had a great day with all these kids swinging around on ropes into the canal, bringing a plank that had drifted across the canal as a big adventure. The Boathouse became a temporary boat club house and showed great things for the future of the Sea Rangers.

The Big Valhalla is not the Big Lydia
Last week’s update misnamed Valhalla for Lydia and for that I sincerely apologize to Bob Pratt. It is like writing Magnolia but meaning Hercules. So, as a further aspect of the apology I am writing the whole thing over again with the right name:

Bob Pratt is getting his big ketch, Valhalla, into shape to go for a little shake down cruise. The 59-foot, and something inches, steel ketch has undergone some extensive repairs at her berth at South Side Marina but Bob wants her in motion and on the water again so has recruited a few die hard sailors to get her back out there.

Valhalla was built in Stuart, Florida in the late ‘60s and is no a nonsense luxury cruiser.
I’ll buy you a beer this Friday, Bob.

This has been an eventful week.
It started with hopes for a Projetec sponsored Sloop race to West Caicos and ended with a new Board of Governors, which includes the Governor, HE Richard Tauwhare.

We still don’t have a confirmation on the race but Richard, as a private citizen, is still on the Board.

West Caicos Race
David Hartshorn felt that the Projetec group should do something for the traditional Caicos Sloop racers, so he was going to meet with the powers that be with Projectec and put the idea of a race, with subsequent party at the end to them. David stated emphatically that this was not for publicity but to show that the people doing the West Caicos development are of a empathetic connection, or that their project, which leans heavily on history and culture has similar ideals.

They are meeting on the subject today, as well as some form of assistance to the Federation. David, in the midst of having a gigantic workforce involved with realising a 30-year old dream of developing West Caicos, has been supporting the Federation through spirit.

Sloops
Leeward Going True
We shipped off a circular saw on Wednesday and a rented (Contractor’s) portable planer to Carlin Forbes on Friday so he can correct a planning job we botched here on his Spanish Cedar planking for the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa commissioned Sloop being constructed at the Doris Robinson Primary School on Middle Caicos.

Re-elected Board Governor Gold Williams, who is also the premiere boatbuilder working here, will be checking Carlin’s work next week and will give a report on if he has kept it pure or went racey.

Mary Jane
Gold has planked up the Mary Jane and is waiting for decking material and sails. The sails have to be ordered and a credit card is needed to do this, which brings up the fact that there is still no Federation credit card.

Gold’s design for the gaff sailing rig has a considerably shorter gaff yard than the Mobile Enforcer or the Environment I, both gaff rigged, but the foot length is two feet longer.

Gold is fighting (not seriously) with JJ Parker to skipper the Mary Jane, which both claim to be the finest and swiftest Sloop to be built in this last year and a half spurt of Sloop building.

Environment II
The Carlin Forbes Sloop restoration project has been discontinued for over two months but has started up again. We are finishing the mast and have cut the mainsail. The Sloop is hoped to be finished and back in the water for sail training lessons on Chalk Sound this next week.

Ranger
The Rotary funded restoration project has been active on Chalk Sound as the lone sail training vessel for the last month. We have put in a bronze traveller or horse, donated by H. Hinderaker, and given her a paint touch up, but she will have to be pulled out and the bottom repainted soon. They just don’t make bottom paint the way they used to…

Sailing on Saturdays
The Sloops were out last Saturday being led into the blue by the appearance of Mobile Enforcer, skippered by Lee Penn and crewed by 13 year old Smith Andre. The Evergreen, skippered by Wil Gibson and Wing Dean’s Miss Behave were what all eyes were on as their word battles ashore have heated to a boil as to which was the fastest Sloop in the Turks and Caicos.

According to onwatchers, Wil made a couple of tactical errors but when he overcame them Wing had decided that the impromptu race was over. Then, according to these same witnesses, Wing pulled his 30-foot Sloop out of the water and onto the beach for ‘re-rigging’.

We want to see what will come back into the water when he is finished.

The Big Lydia
Bob Pratt is getting his big ketch, Lydia, into shape to go for a little shake down cruise. The 59-foot, and something inches, steel ketch has undergone some extensive repairs at her berth at South Side Marina but Bob wants her in motion and on the water again so has recruited a few die hard sailors to get her back out there.

Lydia was built in Stuart, Florida in the late ‘60s and is no a nonsense luxury cruiser.

James Simmons Model Sloop Race
The TCI Tourist Board is making an effort to make maritime cultural tourism a stated objective in their distribution of destination incentives for the Turks and Caicos Islands and in so doing put a lot of emphasis on keeping the Annual James Simmons Model Sloop Race a real cultural exhibit of Turks Islands’ tradition.

The Tourist Board invited me to the event, I thought to give a speech on the Sloop tradition here, but ended up with me participating in the racing on the central salina. The best part of the day was spending it with master mariner James Simmons who is 92 years old and strong as a sailor.

James let me know which model was the fastest, on the sly, and I chose that one to race and won! Well, actually the other sailors didn’t really know much about sailing, but thank you James anyway.

Provo Sailing Club Meeting
Tonight is the AGM for the Provo Sailing Club, so you members who did not know it you know it now. They will be meeting at the Corner Café around 7PM and there will be those wonderful edibles that Becky makes to stave off hunger.

Chalk Sound Sailing
I had a great time on Friday afternoon taking six children out sailing on Ranger. The McKnights and the Burkes divided into two groups and went out to sail the Middle Caicos Conch Sloop that we have for sailing lessons on Chalk Sound. Both crews were able to talk me into dragging them in the water and diving overboard as we re-approached the anchorage. I would have wanted to if I was that age again. Chalk Sound is a great place to sail.

Governor Governor Of The Federation ?
In a surprise attendance the Governor HE Richard Tauwhare showed up at the Environmental Center last night to become part of the Federation’s AGM proceedings. Governor Tauwhare is our Patron and has shown nothing but support since he took office last year.

The twenty members held the nomination and election of the new Board of Governors and surprising to all Richard (I am not saying HE) was nominated, accepted and elected to the Board of Governors. The Board will meet within the next two weeks to vote on their officers.

The new Board of Governors includes Goldray Ewing (present President of TCMHF), HE Richard Tauwhare,

WoodenBoat Magazine
Judging by the pulling and pawing over the new WoodenBoat Magazine I had at the AGM last night I want everybody to know that we have them for sale at The Boat Store (our office’s retail name) at The Market Place. The Unicorn Bookstore has been assisting the Federation in getting this great classic magazine to you, so come by and purchase one of the last two Issues and the new one too!

Winds Of Change Club
Well, actually this is just saying that if you have a little spare time and want to get into a great endeavour, just call me at 243 2093 and come on down to work on the donated Jim Brown Searunner 40 trimaran we are refurbishing. It is not very hard work and the benefits will be some blue water sailing.

We now have four club membership pledges of $500 each toward the restoration and maintenance of the tri from Donna Bartram, Laura Watson, Goldray Ewing and H. Hinderaker.

Thunder
Jay Stubbs gets the prize for naming this Victor Forbes’ Sloop, even though I only remember one-half of the name but next week we will have both halves. Jay gets a ride on a Sail Provo Catamaran.

Richard placed emphasis on the youth programmes that we have succeeded with and those he recently found out that we were about to start up, such as the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club. “It’s the kids that are important here. This is a real way to let them understand and be proud of where they came from and who they are.”

Memberships in the Federation start at $5.00 per year for juniors under 17 and $25.00 a year for adult individual memberships. You can join at The Market Place office or call 946 4935 most mornings before noon or 243 2093 during the day

How Culture Works Says Federation Can Die
Last Week’s How Culture Works focussed on the need for the community to support the Federation in body and funding and pointed out that the Federation cannot, should not survive without that support.
The show featured Vice Chairman Goldray Ewing and Programmes Manager, H.E. Ross. Ewing stressed correcting the popular misconception that the Maritime Heritage Federation was being subsidised by the Turks and Caicos Government.

He did point out that the Federation does need start up support from Government for its administration but “…we don’t want the Government to support us, except to give us a good kick start. Our point is to start up programmes that will support the Federation so that we might be self-supportive. We think this will take a year of administrative subsidy is all.”

“The public” continued Ross, “needs to know that the Federation can die. It is not here forever just because it seems to be doing so much right now. If the public wants the Federation then the public has to do something about it. We want every person in the Turks and Caicos to join and have a direct voice in creating programmes that they want to see accomplished.”

Wing Dean Sailing With Kids
William “Wing” Dean has won a lot of races in his life and is known as ‘the fierce one’ on the race course. Wing has been a proponent of keeping the racing going and with Goldray Ewing, has been pushing the rest of those with Sloops to keep them on the water and get out there and compete.

Wing launched the largest Caicos Sloop, at 29 feet, in the Islands two months back and has been sailing her ever since. The twist is that now Wing is making sure he has a crew for years to come by training kids whenever his and their schedules allow. You can see the sleek red hulled Miss Behave out on the blue off Newlands, his home, and along the Northside or Bluehills coast on Fridays and Saturdays, weather permitting.

You will usually see four or five Sloops out challenging each other along that shoreline on Saturday afternoons. Crews and sailing knowledge are welcomed. All you have to do is go down to Sailing Paradise and ask around for the skippers and then spell out your particular intention.

Sailing Paradise Educational Charters
Kevin Harvey has started taking tourists out on his two new Caicos Sloops that were built and dedicated to his sailing grandparents, the DC Evergreen Jr and DC Valley Stream Jr. His grandmother built the original Evergreen and Valley Stream for his grandfather and sailed with him aboard.

Kevin’s concept is to take people out on either a straight fun sail or show them the areas that were traditionally fished, conched and/or lobstered under sail. He does this in order to take youth aboard on the weekends and teach them their maritime heritage.

Kevin Harvey’s educational charters are a great way to insure pride in Turks and Caicos history for our young people. You can enjoy a sail and they can enjoy personal history under sail.

Sea Rangers’ Sailing Lessons
Imelda Burke got sick of hearing me mope about getting parents involved in the supervision of the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club and pushed Elinore McKnight at me as one parent who would volunteer to supervise young people at the start up of our basic Traditional Elements of Sail Programme. When she heard that we were just going to start sailing lessons and see who would come she told a group who have shown interest in getting their children on the water.

Elinore contacted the Federation and we arranged a meeting to try to streamline a basic sailing course for a limited number of youth and will start on Friday the 13th of October at Chalk Sound aboard Ranger and possibly Environment II. Environment II needs quite a bit of work at this writing and if the weather quiets a bit we will attempt to get her ready to be able to take two Sloops out on Chalk Sound at the same time. The Carlin Forbes Middle Caicos Conch Sloop is in need of sails, boom and mast.
Both were severely damaged on the way to the South Caicos Regatta though Carlin raced and actually won his category. The mast has been completed but the boom and sails still remain to be built.

Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme
We are still seeking funding for this highly successful public school programme. Funding came last year from the Governor’s office, the Kiwanis of Providenciales, Beaches Resort, Graceway IGA, Air Turks and Caicos and Sky King.

The programme put over 200 sixth grade students on board Caicos Sloops, gave them lectures by well known personalities who had experienced the sailing life at their age group, another lecture with testing on the history of the development of the Turks Islands and Caicos Sloops, and a few schools were able to build gemelemi model sloops before the term ended.

The sixth grade was chosen because of the lack of interest shown by secondary school students in maritime history and heritage before the programme was begun last October. Now the old sixth grade is in secondary school. The principal of Clement Howell Secondary, Lloyd Fearon, was completely surprised when he attempted to introduce the programme’s creator, Katya Brightwell and all the students greeted her like a long lost auntie.

This year’s programme will not have the gemelemi model building because of scheduling difficulties but wants to encourage the youth who desire to build them by joining the Sea Rangers.

A Walk On Our Beach
We are in the graphic art stage of publishing a 125-page anthology of writers living in the Turks and Caicos. The work will feature E. Manuel Williams, David Bowen, Gilbert Morris, H.E. Ross and Sandra Garland. The anthology will contain prose and poetry and is the first in a series to promote writers who reside, live and experience life in these Islands.

Work on Tri
Work has started on the Jim Brown 40, Winds of Change, that is being donated by Janet and Robert Townley to the Federation. The big cruising tri was not an encouraging sight to many when it was first shown as much of the plywood decking showed obvious rot and the stainless chainplates are in need of replacement and were rust streaked. But, after a few local knowledgeable sailors looked the vessel over we came up with an approximate estimate of repair expenditure and figure to have an excellent design in excellent condition in a very small amount of time.

The trimaran that brought the Townleys to the Turks and Caicos from the Great Lakes will be used in seamanship classes as well as taking youth on cruising tours around the archipelago. The voyages are being funded on a shared expense basis and the reconstruction and maintenance of the vessel are being accomplished by $500 Winds of Change Club memberships, which enable the members to be taught ocean seamanship and use the vessel on a shared expense basis.

Call H. Hinderaker at 241 1766, Goldray Ewing at 231 4337 or me, H.E. Ross at 243 2093 if you are interested in joining the Winds of Change Club, and/or if you feel like working on the trimaran.

Two More Sloops On The Way
Carlin Forbes has framed the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa Middle Caicos Sloop and is waiting on a planer to put his planks to shape and scribe onto the skeleton. The rain has made the progress slow since his receipt of the Spanish Cedar about three weeks back. We have to send the planer, which is rented on a daily basis, to Carlin when the wood is dry. Some of the wood is in a storage shed and is almost at the point where it can be planed without chipping and gouging.

Carlin needs about 12 more planks that have been ordered through Doug Carlson’s Southeast Mill Works. Doug is an original member of the Federation.

Gold Williams has started back on the Prestige Group commissioned Mary Jane and also finds that he needs about 12 planks of Spanish Cedar to finish the planking of the Sloop. Gold has designed the gaff rig for the Sloop and hopes to skipper the boat himself.

General Meeting and Elections
This is not least but it is last on the list.
The Maritime Heritage Federation will be having its General Meeting this Tuesday evening at 6:15PM at the Environmental Center on Providenciales. An election of the Board of Governors is the main point of this meeting. There have been several businessmen who have come out to seek election to our Board and they see the need to put a great deal of energy and organisational ability which the Federation needs in order to extend our programmes and projects.

The Federation is inviting the public to attend this important meeting and to see why we want you to become a part of this organisation. If you want the young people of the Turks and Caicos to have organised maritime projects to spend their time on come this Tuesday, 13 October at 6:15PM at the Environmental Center, Providenciales.

Bahamas Turks and Caicos Design?
Does anybody recognise this hull as a Caicos Sloop hull? If so, can you call Ross at 243 2093. We might want to obtain this 36-foot hull if it is what it is reported to be…

BBC Thought Government Backs Sloops
Inga Lovric, the producer of the Turks and Caicos episode of Fast Track, was covering the Travel Awards at Beaches and decided to get some local colour into the feature. She eventually contacted Brian Riggs at DECR, who is also a member of the Maritime Heritage Federation, and he led her to us as a cultural entry. We, with Brian’s assistance, put together a couple of days of Blue Hills based interest stories and BBC filmed them.

When the piece came out about the Federation Inga originally put in that the revival of the traditional sloops was the result of Government funding. She called me to check the fact that she was told that 1% of the airplane arrival tax was given to the Federation to subsidise our programmes. When I told her I wish that were the case; that government has given us only money for one project and four races, she could not believe it. When I told her we have to go out and get the money locally while doing the projects without much voluntary support, she could not believe it.

Inga said that she would try to get her reporting edited but apparently could not because there it was on BBC to the world how great the Government of the Turks and Caicos was to be supporting such a worthwhile cultural programme and working that into a basis for having the Travel Awards.

Personally, I am tired.

Tonight, on How Culture Works, we will have some of the people directly involved with the Federation sailing programmes who had been in the filming on the Sloops to say what they feel about this cultural and sporting ingredient in our lives here in the Turks and Caicos.

Do you feel what we are doing is important? Tune in at 9PM Channel 4 and call in to let us know.

Sailing Lessons Started and Starting
We have started our traditional Caicos Sloop sailing lessons on beautiful Chalk Sound. This series of lessons are to assist in refining how teaching this particular style of vessel should be accomplished to a variety of interested sailors and potential sailors.

Bertha Belle, originally from Middle Caicos, where our teaching Sloop was created, wanted to get back to her roots and understand what the water must have meant to her family.

Jay Sadler, whose grandfather wrote the original Turks Islands Landfall, the only published history on the Turks and Caicos can use this touch with his culture and history in his aspiration for the Duke of Edinburgh Award for the Skills Training section of the Bronze Level.

Stuart and daughter Alexandra thought it to be a good way to learn about some of the history of the Sloops and culture.

Karen Musgrove has been wanting to get out on a Sloop for a long time and finally not only is getting out on one but learning how to take it in her own hands.

Katya Brightwell organised over 300 children experiencing the Caicos Sloop but only went on short hops and felt the need to learn how to sail the balance driven vessels herself.

This Thursday, we will be having a meeting of interested parents at The Market Place to discuss how to put more youth aboard the Chalk Sound Sloop. We are also working on another Middle Caicos Sloop to include in a Chalk Sound programme. We hope to train instructors to continue the lessons as an ongoing alternative to computer games and the tv.

Winds Of Change Moved
The big 40-foot Jim Brown designed trimaran that is being donated by Janet and Robert Townley was brought over to our place on the canal near Turtle Lake in Discovery Bay. We had to push the wide boat from the South Shore Marina, thanks to the loan of a dinghy by Bob Pratt, through the winding canal around the Lake (lagoon actually) and only ran aground once. Aboard was Janet, H. Hinderaker (actually guiding the dinghy), Goldray Ewing and myself. It was an adventure.

We have three committed members of the Winds of Change Club which will put the tri in order and start ocean sail training. Our emphasis will be getting young people out on the blue.

If you are interested in joining, it costs $500 per year, which goes toward the maintenance of the vessel, and for voyages you will share the costs. It’s a good deal and gives a great vacation. Call me, Ross, at 243 2093.

Should Caicos Sloops Be Subsidized?
This will be the general theme of the programme How Culture Works tonight at 9PM on Channel 4. The guests will address the importance of maritime cultural tourism on a local and international scale and what it should mean to everybody here. The question of why the Sloops are not yet assisted by government will definitely be raised.

This will be a call in show this evening, so if you can pull up the interest, please bring some questions to us about what we are and intend to do and anything supportive about why we should, to some extent, be financially assisted by Government.

Corporate Membership
We are actively pursuing operational support from the corporate sector these days. We need volunteers and if need be commissioned assistance to get some budget together in order to continue our maritime educational and sporting programmes.

We have the highly successful schools programme to activate this term and the sail training programmes, a sailing centre to organise and invitations to historians to bring here with some very interesting information about the history of the Turks and Caicos.

We want books to be published that will add value to the reason to live in this archipelago and we want all of you to join to add your voice to other interesting projects that you might want to see happening here.

Remember, the Maritime Heritage Federation is and always has been a community action organisation. We do…

Advisory Group Meeting
A special advisory group met last Monday to push an agenda to put the Federation on a fiscal balance that should create a climate here that gets you enthused about participating in our programmes. The meeting was held at Sailing Paradise and was attended by Goldray Ewing, Sherlock Walkin, Mervin Cox, myself and Clyde Robinson by telephone. Carl Saunders had hoped to come but Cargo Express has a ship come in on Monday and he couldn’t make it. Brian Lightbourne was away on vacation and also sent his apologies.

The subjects covered all focussed on the establishment of a sailing centre that would house the administration and assist in the self-sustaining goals of the Federation. Initial funding and land assistance from Government was reviewed, with the group deciding to talk to those in Government who could assist in the immediate.

It was decided that the other most immediate manner in which to get a professional administration initiated was through a corporate membership drive. Mervin and Sherlock committed themselves and felt confident that most people they knew would support, in real terms, the Federation. I had to say that I did not previously have the time to solicit corporate memberships because of the maintenance obligations of four Sloops, two of which are restorations and two need a completing of the rigging. Obviously volunteers are needed.

Clyde, Goldray and Honourable Gilley Williams (at a previous meeting) all included ideas about how the centre could fund itself once established. A restaurant, boat rentals, lessons, special events, etc.

Sherlock in particular, but most feel that a sailing centre is essential to the development of the Federation aims. H. Hinderaker and Sherlock will be getting together to analyse the needs of the centre.

I will be coming to businesses with a synopsis of what we have done and intend to do for the review of prospective corporate members.

Schedule for BBC Showing of Sloops and Blue Hills
Just a quick note to say thank you for all your help and for organising
our filming while we were in Turks and Caicos. We really enjoyed
meeting you all and we really had a great time on the sloops.

I have cut my package now and it's ready to air on BBC World. You can
see it on BBC World from this Sunday at these times:
Sundays @ 0630 GMT
Mondays @ 1930 GMT
Tuesdays @ 0930 & 1230(Asia Pacific Only) GMT
Wednesdays @ 1530 (south Asia Only) GMT
Thursdays @ 0130 (Not Asia Pacific or South Asia) & 0730 GMT

Hope you get a chance to see it. Good luck with your project.
Best wishes
Inga

Inga Lovric-Kemp
Fast Track Producer
BBC World

Brian Riggs Photography
DECR’s Brian did an exceptional job getting some great shots, on the BBC Shoot, that I have used in the Free Press Maritime Heritage page and will use in the upcoming How Culture Works tonight, as well as on the TCI Mall Community/ Building the Caicos Sloops chronicle.
Thanks Brian.

Sailing Sloops In Two Places
Every Saturday for the last three weekends if you could find a nice seat you could have checked out the sailing action off Bluehills. Since Baba Harvey launched his two traditional styled Caicos Sloops, DC Valley Stream Jr, built by James Dean and DC Evergreen Jr. built by Reverend Gold Williams, and Wing Dean launched his 29-foot Miss Behave, there have been impromptu races happening.

This is one of those things that people said could not happen- no cash prize racing. Everybody just wants to sail and they still always need crew. If you want to sail on these workboat inspired Caicos Sloops, just ask or call me and I will try to put you on.

If you take a seat in any of the fine restaurants or just get out of the car and sit on the beach you will see Sloops sailing at their best. The tourists have found out about it already as seen by the mixture of crowd at Baba’s Sailing Paradise last Saturday. They seem to get going around 3or 4PM and there is nothing like this anywhere.

Also on Saturdays we have our sailing lessons going on with Ranger, the Middle Caicos Conch Sloop that was donated by the Rotary. Soon, we will have two Middle Caicos Conch Sloops on the beautiful waters of Chalk Sound. In the mean time if you want to relax with picnic and watch one of these graceful Sloops gliding by as the lessons progress come by the clearing to the right just after Selverado Concrete Blocks, on the South Dock Road and cheer the students on.
My number is 243 2093, Ross.

Winds of Change Programme
Janet and Robert Townley are donating their beloved trimaran, Winds of Change, to the Federation and we are picking it up tomorrow, Thursday, and bringing her to our place in Discovery Bay. There is considerable deck work to accomplish, chainplates to replace and a mast to fix, so we are offering memberships in the Winds of Change Cruising Club starting at $500.

The Winds of Change Programme concept is to have a ocean cruising vessel available for cruising seamanship training and youth educational and research projects. The eventual aim is to have a vessel that cruises to destinations that is self-funded, allowing members, who have taken the seamanship course, to have a sailing vacation in foreign ports. This allows youth to adventure, under supervision, in waters traditionally sailed by our ol’time traders and fishermen.

If you feel like taking a couple of hours off tomorrow, we can always use a hand in getting the boat from the end of Bob Pratt’s marina the mile to our place via the canal that circles Turtle Lake. Call me or email me if you want to volunteer to take a ride. My number is 243 2093.

Maritime History on How Culture Works
I will be doing a one-man show tonight at 9PM on WIV Channel 4 and the topic will be the origin and development of the Turks Islands and Caicos Sloop concepts. We will trace the vessel from its earliest recorded form to the 20th Century. We will try to show, through line drawings, paintings and photographs the line of development through the needs of specific geographic areas.

As I state in the beginning of the programme: this is not a complete and comprehensive work, it is a stimulant to entice further investigation into an area barely touched and very important.

There should be a lot in this little programme that might make you look at the Turks and Caicos in a different way.

Gold Returning to Mary Jane Construction Project
Reverend Gold Williams has been under pressure from the Federation to finish the construction of the Prestige Group’s commissioned Mary Jane, a traditional Caicos Sloop. His other commitments have forced him to put it on the back burner but he is back now, having actually moved to Providenciales. We moved the partially built vessel to his yard in Bluehills along with planks to continue the work. Gold has planed the planks to their needed thicknesses and had to go back to North Caicos to finish his move to Provo.

He feels that in the next two weeks the planking should be finished and the Sloop ready for decking. The Sloop will be gaff rigged.

Subsidy for Cash Prize Traditional Sloop Racing
There is a movement underway that is not coordinated, nor even communicated amongst the islands in the Caribbean and the Spanish Mainland that has workboat designs racing in annual and very local events. Most of these races are, to greater and lesser extents, subsidized by their governments. They make good tourism attractions and they stimulate interest in preserving their maritime cultures.

An example of interest in this type of entertainment and cultural attraction is when the BBC travel series, Fast Track, found out that there were traditional Caicos Sloop building and racing programmes existent in the Turks and Caicos their attention went straight toward it, putting the Travel Awards on the periphery.

There has not been that interest from Government in assisting these guys who have the Sloops in keeping them in a regular circuit of racing and it is understandable. There is no precedent, which means one has to create a precedent and who has the time in this day of booming development to move into an unknown area. Most of the Ministers are pro-assistance but the timing, because of the upcoming elections, seems to be drawing on their time and schedules.

We have approached the Department of Sports for transportation subsidies to get the Sloops around the Islands for races and exhibits, but have been told that they don’t have time now, because of their focus on CARIFTA. The TCI Tourist Board has assisted in putting on races and awarding prizes but the racers have been a problem with scheduled starts.

We have held meetings to impress the racers that they have an obligation in more areas than just the starts if they accept a race engagement and to this end we have created racing rules and standards for the vessels themselves.

We are about to approach Government for an annual subsidy to insure at least six races around the Turks and Caicos Islands will be guaranteed. This, if used properly and if the racers uphold their end of the bargain, should be a great tourism incentive both locally and internationally.

I am not sure of the latest figure but a couple of years ago the Bahamian Government subsidized their annual and very active racing schedule at over $200,000.

In case you want to go to some of these other workboat regattas: January 1 & 2 Bahamas New Year's Sailing Regatta; March Butterfield Perpetual Cup Cayman Islands Cat Boat Regatta; April St Vincent and the Grenadines: Bequia Easter Regatta; April Antigua & Barbuda: Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta; April Family Island Regatta, Bahamas; April Shipwrights and Friends Regatta Valentine's Day in Tortola, BVI; May Anguila Day; May Anguilla Mix It Up; Late May- Early June Long Island Sailing Regatta, Bahamas; May British Virgin Islands: Foxy's Wooden Boat Regatta; May: Saint Vincent: Fisherman's Day; June: Grenada: Grenada Heineken Workboat Regatta; July to August: St Martin: Tour des Yoles Ronde; November 1: Independence Day; December 25 & 26 Christmas Sailing Regatta. Montagu Bay.

This week has been a bit hectic, first with tango lessons then with encouragements, then with the BBC and getting the sloops to pose for them.

Tango Lessons?
The tango lessons were not on the schedule, it was just while I was attempting to complete a How Culture Works out of studio production, with TCFAF’s Barbara Pankhurst as camerawoman, everybody except I thought it would add something to the show to have me participate in the lessons. And, those who were supposed to come had not arrived, so…

Encouragement
Then, I stop by Tropical Shipping to talk to Carl Simmons about becoming a part of a Financial Advisory Committee for the Federation to find out that not only would he, but he would invite some others to come along with him and make sure the Federation works properly.

The others who we have invited to be nominated to the Board of Governors want a meeting to be held before the General Meeting on 10 October, to have a put together a platform to present to the membership so time is not wasted.

Honourable Delton Jones, TCI Chief Economist, emails us to say he wants to join and contribute to assist the Federation anyway he can.

Mervin Cox wants in and to be active.

Imelda Burke re-pledges to assist with the Sea Ranger Programme.

Our car gets fixed…

BBC and Cultural Tourism
BBC’s Fast Track Travel Programme Producer Inga Lovric contacted Brian Riggs to introduce a cultural tourism aspect to the filming of this year’s 13th Annual World Travel Awards. She wanted to bring a people picture to the normal sun, sea and sand that is usually shown. Brian, a starting member of the Federation, put her in touch with me and between Brian, Katya and I we organised a mini-tour for them.

On Tuesday the three of them, interviewer, cameraman and sound person were put aboard H. Hinderaker’s hard bottom inflatable to shoot an impromptu race off Sailing Paradise in Bluehills. H pulled Cable & Wireless’ Mobile Enforcer out into the blue and we hoisted sail. It was Jeff Lee on the helm, Brian on jib sheets, I handled the main and Pete Staples were our eyes and sail master.

The little gaff rigger joined Goldray Ewing’s Maroons I, Baba Harvey’s DC Valley Stream Jr, Wing Dean’s Miss Behave and Boggy’s no name Sloop. From no wind to nice gusts we were able to circle the camera boat and they and we took a lot of good shots.

Though the local media was invited, none showed, I guess having five sloops show the Turks and Caicos culture to over 250 million viewers was not newsworthy enough.

Everything went off without a hitch, except for the four youth that Katya had gathered who had been through the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme and who were now in Clement Howell Secondary School. They were to be interviewed.

The next day one of the four were interviewed about what the sailing meant to her and the class was filmed having a recap of the history of the Sloop in the Turks and Caicos. We went down to Wheeland to visit George Dean repairing his Wild Thing and he got to say a little about the cultural significance of the Caicos Sloop.

To fulfil the direction of this part of their story we went to Sailing Paradise where they shot fresh conch being knocked, cleaned, cooked and served, all hosted by Honourable Robert Hall, MBE.

What was amazing about all of this was that we were mostly on schedule.

Grand Turk Model Museum
I received an email today from Herb Ingham that NPEAC (Community Conservation Fund) is giving a warm yea to Herb’s and our proposal to establish a museum on the salina in Grand Turk for model sailing vessels. The Model Sloop Museum is to be a comfortable and inviting area for locals and visitors to relax and examine the history of the model sloops still existent in the Turks and Caicos.

Some of the Sloops will be sailing as a part of the exhibit, hopefully, with a schedule of racing accompanying the reason to be for the museum. We are hoping to have a sheltered elevated viewing area for the model sloop races atop the structure that is being proposed, and below a sheltered area with domino tables. Dominos always accompanies a good model sloop race.

Prestige Group and Gilley Lead Corporate Memberships
Prestige Group re-upped their corporate membership a couple of months back, making sure our administration would be encouraged to keep on doing what we do. Honourable Gilley Williams is pledging Gilley’s Enterprizes as a corporate member and promises to assist, both as a private citizen and a Government Minister, in keeping the Federation goals on track.

Starting Sailing Lessons
We will be starting our Middle Caicos Sloop sailing lessons this Saturday on Chalk Sound. The boat is full but hopefully, now that Mobile Enforcer is rigged and will not be a burden on our time, the second Middle Caicos Sloop, Environment II will be put into Chalk Sound to provide more competitive lessons within the next two weeks.

These first lessons are being offered free to sort out a good sail training plan. The crew will assist in putting their touch on how to learn to sail a Caicos Sloop, then the lessons at a small fee will be offered to the public.

The Boat Store
The Boat Store is located in The Market Place, across from 1st Caribbean and we wish we had the lines of people they have over there.

Speaking for the Federation, we want to extend a warm and wet welcome to the Governor Tauwhare and the family on their move to Providenciales. We want to see the Gov out on the Sloops as soon as he can find an extra set of shorts.

Expansion
Sailing Lessons
The Federation is expanding its efforts to include a variety of interests for those nautically inclined. We will be offering basic sailing lessons on traditional Caicos Sloops within the next two weeks. We not only will offer the classes we will be personally approaching organisations and individuals to join the classes.

The fees for the classes will be nominal, enough to pay the instructor and a little of the administration costs involved. We want everybody to sample a sail on a Caicos Sloop and understand that that little piece of history has been very important to the development of the European settlement of the New World. How? This design is the same design that came over from Europe alongside the more famous Bermuda Sloop as the mainstay in local fishing and transportation. These Bermuda-Turks and Caicos fishing and light cargo carrying vessel designs have been retained in the hull shapes and the recently past rigs of the Caicos Sloops.

You will be learning to sail an historic vessel and the venue will be the beautiful Chalk Sound. Sign up for classes by email (herossea2004@yahoo.com), telephone (946 4935/ 243 2093) or drop by the office at The Market Place.

Writers’ Group
We need writers to insure a chronicle of our progress. The present Writers’ Group, consisting of Ed Williams, Sandra Garland, David Bowen, Gilbert Morris and myself meets every Tuesday at noon at The Market Place. If you are interested in developing your writing skills the Group is there to assist with positive criticism, not just whatever you write is good, but how to make whatever you write as good as your efforts can make it. The size of the Group is best at no more then five, then we break off to form another Group. Call 243 2093 if interested.

The particular aforementioned will be publishing an anthology, tentatively named, Walking Our Beaches, with a collection of prose and poetry about feelings on their Turks and Caicos experiences. Interestingly enough most of the writers include the sea and sailing somehow in their writings. This is a maritime culture, one tends to forget that fact with all the SUVs flying around.

One Man One Boat One School
Goldray Ewing is readying his sloop, Maroons I to take on a crew from Maranatha High as is Wing Dean already attracting students from Clement Howell.

You can see Sloops sailing every Saturday off Sailing Paradise in Blue Hills. Some people are talking about putting a purse up from each boat but everybody at the moment everybody is just enjoying the sailing.

Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme
We have found out that true to their promise the Department of Education included maritime heritage questions on the GSAT Examinations much to the dismay of some of the parents whose children were in private schools. The Federation offered to attend private schools and share our information on the maritime heritage if we could or could not attend and give lectures and lessons. Unfortunately, we are limited in numbers since there are so few volunteers wishing to learn what this country’s heritage is and pass that information on.

What is interesting about who we learned of the GSAT questions was one of the Federation members who has a family history that barely touches anything but the sea and that particular person’s children did not pass that aspect of the testing.

This is a maritime culture for those of you who just wish to simplify the changes being made by thinking this is just a movement to bring traditional sailing racing back to the waters, and the Federation’s mandate is education, which includes sail training in all its aspects. But, we are mainly a research institution and as we learn more, more will be out there for students to learn regardless of their ages. Turks and Caicos maritime heritage is here to stay and to grow. This should be looked on as exciting.

Prior to the Federation’s founding there seemed to be only research into the slavery issue as the history of this archipelago. This seemed to be accomplished as jumps from this slave event to that slave event and then here we are. In reality the Bermudian systems of enslavement, especially aboard ships, was probably the most civil form practiced in the New World. Since the Bermudians were the first European settlers here and are still present in the predominant bloodlines, it would seem that research into that maritime culture as related to this maritime culture would be the most important avenue of research that needs to be conducted.

SPIRIT
We are writing a book on the lineage of the Turks Islands and Caicos Islands Sloops as a pictorial essay. The book will be researched by students in the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club, through their respective schools. If private schools wish to participate in this research we are open to include them, but again we are limited in labour and need volunteers to assist.

There is a tremendous amount of information available already from sources such as the William and Mary University, Rochester University, Dr. Mike Jervis, National Museum of Cornwall, Bermuda Sloop Foundation, Bermuda Maritime Museum and here with oral history interviews. The Turks and Caicos National Museum has a large archive and a programme where they lend out video and audio recording devices free of charge to those who will commit themselves to recording family histories. The National Trust is also a valuable source of local knowledge. Both local organisations, and neither are Government entities though they carry the name National, are there for our use as educational tools for the interested to utilise.

Federation Board Meeting
The Board of Governors met last Wednesday, 30 August, at Sailing Paradise. The meeting was presided over by Vice Chairman Goldray Ewing and several proposals were given the go ahead, the most important of which is the Board election of officers to be held on 10 October. The venue has not been set but nominations are being asked for. You have to be a member to vote or to be nominated. Memberships in the Federation start at $5 for youth and $25 for adults for one year.

There will be a fund raising dinner with invitations through the Governor’s Office and again the venue has not be set. The date is also not set but it will be in early November. This should be an enjoyable event with plenty of visuals and a limit on speeches.

Winds of Change Club
One of the other issues at the Board meeting was an explanation of how the Winds of Change Club is supposed to work, so here it is:
The Winds of Change Club is a seamanship training group who are starting with the donated trimaran, Winds of Change. The Townleys, Janet and Robert sought to get their 40-foot Jim Brown design active by donating it to the Federation in a sail training series of programmes. The basic concept is to move the vessel around with crews who share the expenses of cruising and learn the navigational aspects of cruising. One important ingredient is the areas of the cruising. We would like the areas to be those that concerned the influence of the Turks and Caicos mariners.

During the off hurricane season we will have the tri working here taking youth on excursions and teaching seamanship and doing research. This is a win-win situation. We all get to go sailing for a shared cost of a scheduled trip and pay for the maintenance of the vessel through a membership fee to join the Club. Youth get to get the experience of sailing these waters aboard a seaworthy, ocean safe sailing vessel.

We should all thank the Townleys for their contribution. If you are interested in joining, call 243 2093.

Sloops
Leeward Going True
Carlon Forbes has set up the frames on the Leeward Sloop in Middle Caicos at the Doris Robinson Primary School for the eyes of those students. Thanks Leeward Marina Resort and Spa for commissioning Carlon to expose these children to traditions usually reserved for the back yards of the builders. Carlon has voiced a request for more Cedar because of the short lengths that are available to us. We are shipping some this Thursday on the Middle Caicos cargo vessel.

Mary Jane
Gold Williams has put the sail plan down on paper for the Prestige Group commission, Mary Jane. After watching the performance of his other construction, the Cable & Wireless Mobile Enforcer, Gold feels that this present gaff rigged sail design will show up all the other Sloops, no matter what their sail configuration is, in its class. The lines of Mary Jane let the water flow by easily and the vessel will be pretty to look at. She sits in Gold’s back yard and will be needed the order of some more planking material and epoxy.

Mobile Enforcer
We have not been able to coordinate work schedules to accomplish the little work needed on the Mobile Enforcer, commissioned by Cable & Wireless. The will is there but paperwork and the office keep me sitting at the desk. Albert Grant is volunteering to assist now so maybe we will accomplish something this week and have her sailing this weekend. The A Crew is Jeff Lee, Pat Staples, Lee Penn and Albert Grant. That is a very competitive group of people. Pat spends his off hours Kite Boarding these days for that adrenalin rush he so covets.

Last But Not Least…
We have a new sign our The Market Place office/ retail outlet. We need volunteers to answer the phone and make sales though.

Website
If you want to find out how we are going with constructing the new website you can patiently dial up http://www.maritime.caicos.com/cms/ and wonder…

TCI Tourist Board
A special thanks is given to the Turks and Caicos Islands Tourist Board for funding the prizes and purchasing the trophies for the Provo Day Race. The trophies include a perpetual trophy in the form of a Loving Cup for both Classes.

Mobile Enforcer
We moved the Cable & Wireless Mobile Enforcer from Sailing Paradise back to Turtle Cove Marina because of weather worries and work that has to be completed on the Sloop. It was a good sail, once we got away from the anchorage and once we figured out that the jib, which we knew was too small, could hardly function at all when the wind was light. The crew was Moriba Bakera, Sean Chung and our indefatigable 13 year old, Smith Andre, and myself.

The gaff jaw never fixed itself so we just tied it to the mast and I dreamed of parrels or even pieces of pvc with a rope looped through to ease the pressure in pulling up the sail and pulling down the sail and adjusting it. Just four more feet on the jib, thought out reefing and sheeting systems and good hoisting, and Mobile Enforcer could show her stuff in any wind force. She beat anything around her size when the wind was above 30 knots but it is the calmer breezes that tell a boat.

Jeff Lee was going to help take the Sloop back to Turtle Cove Marina but work pressed him too hard and he wasn’t able to make it. Jeff is getting together a crew for the boat and is hoping to include Lee Penn. Jeff is the only person stepping up to get a crew and will undoubtedly get the most practice because of it.

Mobile Enforcer will need two crews actually. A Crew and B Crew. That is to insure a full crew when a race is starting. If you are looking to learn or have experience call Jeff or call me and I will put you in touch with Jeff or another skipper looking for crew. My number is 243 2093 and my name is Ross.

Miss Behave
Wing Dean’s pride and joy is the slender and newest launched Miss Behave. She sits 29-foot from stem to stern, according to Wing’s brother, George, which makes her the longest Sloop on the water. Wing took her out last Saturday on a trial with just the jib up in moderate breezes and she needed some more ballast to keep her slender lines up and competitive. It all comes in time.

Mary Jane
Goldray Ewing, JJ Parker and I put Mary Jane on a flatbed trailer and hauled it over to Gold Williams’ building site next to his home in Bluehills. The 24-foot North Caicos Sloop needs about ten planks to finish the topsides and a deck of marine plywood to finish the whole hull. The mast and rigging are still to be constructed and the sails have been designed by Gold. Mary Jane looks to be buoyant and slick and I think will be another of the Gold masterpieces and a reliable and comfortable contender.

DJ Evergreen Jr
DJ Evergreen Jr broke her mast step in the Provo Day Race on Monday after showing dramatic bursts of speed and power on the informal race the gusty Saturday before. The mast step has not been fixed and we are worried about her movement at mooring in the short chop that has been evident off Northside for the last few weeks since her launch.

Evergreen was designed and constructed by Gold Williams at his home building site. The design incorporates a modern underbody and traditional looks with a set back Marconi or Bermudian mainsail and an overhanging masthead jib.

Master boatwright Albert Higgs was at her helm when the mast step busted and is still smiling at the speed he could feel as her potential.

Albert Higgs is being commissioned to build a Sloop to beat Evergreen by Mervin Cox. Mervin is the silent partner in Wild Thing, the Provo Day Class A winner. Gold says he thinks George, the owner of Wild Thing, should be grateful that Evergreen broke her mast step.

Boggy’s Sloop
Boggy lost his mast as a shroud snapped during the informal Saturday race. A bunch of the guys got together and repaired the spar but it was not completely completed by the Monday race and he had to retire. Boggy’s Bahamian slender styled racing sloop will be seen in the midst of the fray from now on out. Boggy says, I just want to see her out there sailing.

Minx
We went sailing on Minx the other day. It was a familiarization sail for Goldray and Mike Robertson was the host and skipper. The idea that a mast did not have spreaders was a question brow for Goldray and that the three hulls moved the boat so fast without discomfort was a positive revelation. We did not find the need to come back in for almost three hours but could only peg the gps knotmeter at 12 knots because of the lighter breezes we encountered. Minx is every bit her name. Thank you Mike.

Winds of Change Club
We are starting up the Winds of Change Club with a premise that when you join you will take a shared responsibility in a 40-foot Jim Brown trimaran and at some point enjoy a vacation somewhere of our shared choosing. You pay the shared expenses of a part of a cruise, help choose the destinations, help paint the boat.

We are starting out this club with the Janet and Robert Townley trimaran, Winds of Change, that brought them here quite a few years back. The beautifully built vessel fell into disarray and needs new decks and her mast rebuilt as well as new chainplates. That does not come up to a lot of money but it does come up to some. We can all try to raise the money needed to put the boat right, around $12,000 and start cruising her both near and far. It will be up to us. If you are interested call me at 243 2093 or drop by the Boat Store at The Market Place, the office of the Federation.

Goldray’s One Man One Boat One School Concept
Goldray Ewing, Wing Dean, George Dean, JJ Parker are going to choose one school and recruit the most interested youth in that school as crews on their Sloops. This revolutionary step is being taken and will hopefully reverse the downslide in teenage interest in sailing. All members of the Federation these four skippers decided that the way to create an interest in sailing is to get the kids on the Sloops, but just the ones who really want to do it.

As Goldray puts it, “Because of the Federation programme in the primary schools those kids are now in the secondary schools and we know how much they liked sailing in the programme, so we just continue that.” Citing the fact that generally people did not let kids who were strangers to their families aboard their sloops as a reason for the breakdown in the present interest in sailing. If you can’t go out sailing why be interested in sailing?

Now that there are boats enough, the premise goes, and community boats at that, why not get as many young people involved with sailing as possible. They would be a ready crew and would be open to learning.

Remember, on Columbus’ last voyage more then 60% of his crew were under the age of sixteen…and as his son, who chronicled that voyage said, his reasoning was that the young ones did not question authority as much as the older ones, accepted hardship without grumbling, were not constantly looking for gold and loved the adventure.

Speaking of Money
The Federation is not in good shape financially. We just do not have the personnel to go out and look for money for our administrative expenses which just went up with the cost of repairs to our ever faithful vehicle. We need a few volunteers to sit at The Market Place during the day and answer the phone, sell some of our retail products and answer questions about our programmes. It is never boring.

If you have some spare time on your hands or just some time call me at 243 2093 and volunteer. We can work in sailing lessons as a trade and inducement to become an active member of this worthy community association.

Board of Governors Meeting
We will be holding a Board meeting today, Wednesday, at Sailing Paradise looking out at the Sloops anchored and moored. The Board will be selecting nominees for the election of officers at our upcoming General Meeting. We will be choosing a date, time and location for the General Meeting. The Federation is moving into a new phase with an even stronger emphasis on education, research and public accessibility.

Which reminds me…
We have charts, WoodenBoat Magazine, t-shirts from $5.00 to $18.00, polo shirts, student made Caicos Sloop models in various sizes, horrible interior decoration that I take credit for, and lots of conversation about a variety of subject matter.

We have rastafarian, economists, architects, bankers, developers, housewives, journalists, writers, movie producers, bums, sailors, racing sailors, cruising sailors, red cross volunteers drop by all the time at The Boat Store in The Market Place… across from 1st Caribbean, and we have a new sign.

We also need two jibs redesigned and sewn. We have the material, we just need somebody with a sewing machine and can sew a straight line.

Bermuda Again
Retired Economics Professor, Dr. Ed Williams made a statement yesterday that sort of slapped me awake, or at least made me refocus on my personal effort to promote maritime preservation in the Turks and Caicos. He had been reading our booklet that contains both a synopsized influence of the Bermuda Sloop in the Turks and Caicos settlement that contains two tests, which we give out to all the sixth grade public school students in the archipelago. This is a part of Katya Brightwell’s Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme.

“This says that the Turks and Caicos are the reason for the development of the Bermuda Sloop.”
I corrected him and said it was the reason for the refinement of the design.

He said, “But does it mean that the Bermuda Sloop was the first sail design to be along the centreline of the vessel?”

I said, it has a history from the Netherlands to England, then to Jamaica and then it reached it’s zenith in Bermuda. It lasted almost one hundred years as the best type of hull and rig for ocean travel and it was refined by Bermudians first to get to the Turks and Caicos for salt, then to do the coastal trading along the Central and Northern parts of the Western Hemisphere.

He said, “That means that cities like Norfolk, Baltimore, New York, Boston, and here it says Halifax were settled because of the Bermuda Sloop and to some degree the salt from the Turks and Caicos?”
I said that I agree.

“Then that means we don’t know what we’ve got here. This is a turning point in history!”

I agreed, all history in the New World was changed because of the Bermuda Sloop and the fore and aft sailing rig.

I had been saying it for such a long time that I had essentially mislaid the importance of the Bermuda Sloop and the importance of Turks and Caicos salt. One person caught on finally and I reaffirmed my dedication to the research of the historic links between the Turks and Caicos and the Eastern Seaboard, as well as much of the Caribbean Basin connected by this design. It isn’t that the boat just arrived here, it is that the slave crews (who earned percentages) were from Bermuda and a portion of them would rake salt and eventually settle these little islands. They would also keep crewing their big sloops and bring the design of smaller vessels to do the subsistence fishing and inter-island trading that is still alive in the designs we see racing here today. The first recorded Bermudians settling here was in 1678. That’s a lot of history for this design of virtually unknown vessel and a great historical and cultural selling point for maritime research in these Islands.

Spirit- The Turks Islands and Caicos Sloops
I have submitted a proposal to Government to fund the research and documentation of a large table-top photo essay on the working sailing designs and cultures of the Turks and Caicos Islands. This was encouraged by Honourable Gilley Williams and Honourable Jeffrey Hall. Edgar Howell, Deputy Director of Education also has given a lot of encouragement to complete this work. To complete the work we are extending our stay in the Turks and Caicos, which also affords us the income, to a degree, to assist with the ongoing work of the Federation for another year. Hopefully, the proposal will be accepted and funded as a Government book.

Crews
Former Chairman of the Board of Governors for the Federation, Jeff Lee, is the first actual volunteer to skipper one of the new Sloops we have had commissioned. Jeff, a very competitive person, wants to form a crew and challenge all comers in the Cable & Wireless gaff rigger, Mobile Enforcer. Mobile Enforcer took first in her first time out in the Provo Day Race sponsored by the TCI Tourist Board two weeks ago.

There have been a lot of people saying they want to crew but they all seem to want a personal invitation from somebody and a pick up and delivery to and from the boats. That ain’t happening. We want crews who have some initiative and drive, otherwise, what is the point. I understand that lethargy in rerouting schedules is an island thing but it really isn’t. If you want to go sailing in exchange for a commitment to a historic vessel, or if you want your child to go sailing for the same exchange, just call Ross at 243 2093. Personally, I am tired of maintaining four boats at the same time.

There is work to do on Mobile Enforcer so we are taking the sloop back to Turtle Cove to get it done. I hope Jeff and his crew enjoy themselves fully and Cable & Wireless are rewarded for their patience in seeing this commission through.

Commitment By Sailors
The Vice-Chairman of the Board, Goldray Ewing, has sent out a call to the owners of the Bluehills-Wheeland Sloops to pick a school and get youth interested in crewing their boats. Talking to those who turned up at the launching of William “Wing” Dean’s Miss Behave, Goldray put forth this very simple plan. You choose a school, go to the school and introduce the concept to the principal, have the principal announce it to the students and see who come forward. He said that this follows on the footsteps of the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme but goes to the private schools also.

Primarily, Goldray is focussing on racing the Sloops and teaching the students strategy and seamanship in a personal way. The Primary Schools Programme saw almost 300 students go out on the Sloop familiarisation rides in which several of the sailors volunteered to take them out in Northside waters and in Chalk Sound. His concept was agreed to by James, George and Wing Dean and JJ Parker. Baba Harvey already has three sloops at Sailing Paradise committed to a youth programme under the newly forming Sea Rangers.

Miss Behave On The Sea
The largest Caicos Sloop that has been built in the last 25 years touched water last Monday to the cheers of about fifty helpers in Wheeland off the Dean Beach. William ‘Wing’ Dean and his brother Pring spent a lot of energy and money building a 29-foot racing machine with overlapping jib and a set back mainmast to contend for the fastest Sloop around. The measurement has to be made official by a tape held in the hands of Goldray Ewing and the skipper but George Dean says the boat is 29-foot exactly.

Miss Behave slipped easily into the sea from a beach incline with the crowd having to hold her back so WIV could tape it and Lucy could break the bottle to christen the boat. Miss Behave wanted to get to work and beat up some of the other Sloops that are sitting at anchor and mooring in front of Sailing Paradise. Wing is going to have a hard time keeping reign on this design of his.

15 Sloops in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Counting on my fingers there are 15 Caicos Sloops in this archipelago that can go sailing now. With the launching of Wing’s Miss Behave and the recent launching of DC Evergreen Jr. and DCValley Stream Jr. by Kevin Parker we have a lot of boats out there now. Sitting in front of Sailing Paradise are Man O’War, Mobile Enforcer, Wild Thing, Evergreen and the Stream, and Maroons I. To the West are Eagle III and Miss Behave. To the East is Boggy’s Sloop. Over at Turtle Cove sits Environment I. In Chalk Sound Ranger waits. At the Environmental Center awaiting repairs is Environment II. In Middle Caicos are three others.

Carlon Forbes is building the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa Sloop and Gold Williams is finishing the Mary Jane, commissioned by the Prestige Group. Both should be completed by the Conch Fesitval which could give us 17 sloops that could potentially race in that late November event. Imagine that!

Sea Rangers Meet
Tomorrow at The Market Place we will be having a meeting of those most concerned about putting the Sea Rangers together and getting it going. This youth sailing club is being formed as a result of the input given by over 400 children effected by the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. Unfortunately, around 100 students did not get to have the familarization sails because of a lack of Sloops in the Turks Islands. We hope to send one of the Providenciales Sloops to Grand Turk soon to remedy that.

The problem with forming the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club has been time on our side and lack of interest by parents and adults in the supervisory side of the organising. We are going to focus, at this meeting, on a sail training programme and assisting in the research of the table top book we are about to publish. The Sea Rangers not only go sailing on Sloops but create maritime preservation projects that make the sailing relevant to their daily lives and hopefully to their studies.

The meeting will be 12 noon Thursday, 24 August, at our Market Place office. Call 243 2093 if you want to attend.

Middle Caicos Day
We haven’t heard anything more about the Middle Caicos event since Robert Hall called about a month back to see if any of the Providenciales Sloops wanted to participate in the racing. Unfortunately, nobody from here seems interested enough to make the trip. The race date was the 26th of August at Bambarra Beach. There will be model sloop races as well. You should call the Middle Caicos District Commissioner to find out more information.

This is the release from TCI Mall: Middle Caicos Day (24-27 Aug)
Join us in Middle Caicos at the Airport for our welcome party, followed by a float parade from the airport through Conch Bar. Later that night for the Miss Middle Caicos Day Beauty Pageant. Lots of live , local entertainment. Saturday an all day beach party in Bambarra. Enjoy activities such as the big and small sail boat race, Straw Weaving Competition, Domino Tournament and more. Later sit by the bon fire and enjoy freshly roasted green corn, and other local foods.

Anthology of Turks and Caicos Writers
Our little writers’ group has decided to publish an anthology of prose and poetry, and we don’t mean rap. Dr. Gilbert Morris will be doing the publishing and so far, he, Dr. E. Manuel Williams, Sandra Garland, David Bowen, Rachel Harvey and myself are to be included. If you are interested in publishing some works and don’t mind constructive criticism call me at 243 2093 or attend our noon meeting today or usually others usually at noon on Tuesdays. The theme is about being here or leaving and coming back. Simple.

We are hoping this will be the beginning of writers publicly expressing themselves aside from the media. We definitely need funding assistance.

The Boat Store
Located at The Market Place our office is also a retail outlet that features youth designed and built sloop models, charts, magazines, t-shirts and caps, and conversation with local sailors. We also feature coffee and are open from around 10AM to 2PM and sometimes later if there isn’t a boat to work on.

Sloops
Environment II has been neglected during the many events that have happened in the last couple of weeks. Her new mast needs to be re-rigged. New sails are in order and the old ones need to be re-sewn. With the new sails will come a new sail design and we have to re-build her boom for that configuration. Her hull is more noble the smooth and is in need of a lot of sanding. We also want to arrange her hold so there is a place to sit for visitors and still retain the fisherman’ look’.

Gold Williams says that Carlon has started framing up the Leeward Sloop and that he (Gold) will be looking in on Carlon to see about the method of construction used and see if he needs anything to make this a continuous work to completion.

Gold will also be finishing Mary Jane. We are going to take the half finished sloop to Gold’s house next week so that he might be able to devout more time to the job, being already set up at his home with tools and materials.

We had hoped to get Mobile Enforcer down to Grand Turk via the South Caicos Fisherman’s Day celebration but did not have enough hands to complete the work needed on her. Then, we decided that the way to go was to finish Environment I and take her instead. The DECR sloop running a Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club venue through the Sloop and in the Governor’s care makes a lot more sense. Meanwhile, Mobile Enforcer can be giving sailing lessons to the Cable & Wireless employees here in Providenciales, as well as cultural tours and educational expeditions to the Sea Rangers here.

Environmental Center
We put the shed at the Environmental Centre in some sort of order but the grounds and outside work area needs a helping hand. That is a project that is envisioned with the addition of a permanent tent that will protect us from the sun. We have the tent, we need the supporting structure.

Good Nominations For New Board
The Federation needs to have an annual meeting and election of officers. That should take place within the next month. We have some really energetic names to put up for nomination who wish to assist in making this organisation a more professional institute.

Sea Rangers
The Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club is still needing birth. If you want your child to get on the water and understand the relevance to his or her living here please give me a call at 243 2093 or 946 4935 in the mornings.

Let’s Go Sailing!
The Big One is that Janet and Robert Townley are offering to donate their Jim Brown 40 (foot) Trimarran to the Federation for seamanship training and educational expeditions. The tri needs new decks and rigging, and the mast needs to be repaired but the rest is in good condition. We will be starting a Winds of Change Sailing Club to put those interested in blue water sailing involved. Call me at 243 2093 if you are interested.

The Boat Store
You will find that we have changed location from one bungalow to the other at the front of The Market Place on Leeward Highway. We are working on putting our retail outlet into something other then just an office and present our merchandise with some order. I am not good at this. We need help with design and labour in putting the stuff so that you might want to purchase something. We have coffee, magazines, t-shirts, caps, charts, model boats in various sizes and we hope to increase the variety of stock on hand. We even have a new sign. Drop by and see what we have that you might want.

Cable & Wireless and Wild Thing Storm Through Provo Day Race
It is an old adage that fate dictates and man obeys. That was proven again when Tropical Storm Chris was given a Hurricane Watch status and we all began to run for cover. The confusion did not subside completely when the storm became a depression but one outcome was a Caicos Sloop race that postponed itself until a real gale blew and then put seven sloops to sea.

The Provo Days Regatta is a tradition on the Island of Providenciales and has been going on, sometimes irregularly and on different dates for donkey’s years. Provo Days was a celebration of the sailors who were the underpins of the economy in the Caicos Islands. It was starting to wane when the Music and Cultural Festival was created and was absorbed as the Provo Day Race. With the Tourist Board organising the events within the Festival, as well as the festival itself, there is now a central focus for coordination and information.

This year’s Provo Day Race was scheduled and promoted for Saturday, the 5th of August, with awards being given the following evening at a special ceremony. Chris sort of intervened and the race organisers, the Maritime Heritage Federation, kept going with the schedule until the winds reached 30 knots the evening before the event. Calls were made and most thought we should postpone the race until the seas subsided and the winds abated, hoping for Monday the 7th, which was the official holiday date chosen for Emancipation Day.

A few decided to go over to Bluehills and launch to get to Sailing Paradise anyway. Two came out of Turtle Cove Marina, a veteran racer designed and built by Albert Higgs, Man O’War and the first sailing of the Cable & Wireless commissioned, Mobile Enforcer. The oldest sloop around and one of the newest. The Enforcer had the old gaff rig and the old Man O’War had the new Marconi (triangular) rig. Mobile Enforcer was designed with the archaic rig to keep the memory of the old sailing rigs and to promote the idea of the gaff rig as formidable in today’s competitions.

Under full sail Enforcer raced out of the marina rocking to overpowered sails and a very strong wind. The tiny jib kept a balance in this amount of wind but the mainsail proved too much and the extension of the gaff jaw broke. The crew under the captaincy of Lee Penn, formerly sailing out of South Caicos. They pulled down the sail and reviewed the problem, then solved it with a piece of rope. They also put a reef in the mainsail, upped the sails and tore off once more accompanied by Captain JJ Parker and crew on Man O’War. Six sloops showed up when Captain Goldray Ewing and Boogy came tearing up to the anchorage that already sheltered Sailing Paradise owner Kevin ‘Baba’ Parker’s two newly launched sloops.

Since a lot of people showed up despite the wind and occasional rain an unofficial race began. The course was up to Wheeland and back almost to Turtle Cove twice. DC Evergreen, designed and built by Gold Williams moved steadily and strongly through the short chop of sea with a professional air. DE Valley Stream, designed and built by James Dean moved with a steady willingness, both showed a whole different racer in the concepts of Turks and Caicos Islands.

Boogy broke his mast and turned turtle. Man O’War and Mobile Enforcer battled all the way to the finish line. Goldray sailed aboard Evergreen, so Maroon I sat at anchor.

Everybody looked forward to the more settled weather expected for the following Monday and the competition of the Dean boys of Wheeland. There could be nine sloops racing.

View From The Cockpit
The Caicos Sloop is not ballasted. This statement means a lot when you are sailing with your decks awash beating to windward with short chop and an increasing wind. The boat is gaff rigged, which means there is a long stick holding up the sail up high in the air and the gaff is weight where generally one does not want weight, especially when the wind is blowing hard.

The day started out blustery but everybody thought it would be lighter then Saturday. There was no weather forecast that claimed anything extraordinary in the wind. The clouds spoke another story and we all knew there was something coming up.

The race was to start at 1PM and five of the Sloops were anchored already in front of Sailing Paradise. Maybe we would start on time this time. The only transport boat was anchored at the tide line but Baba Harvey, the owner of the boat and Sailing Paradise, was busy getting tents up and the place ready for an expectant sloop race crowd.

Around 1PM some of the crews started appearing.

Around 2PM there was actual talk about getting out on the sloops. Sand bags were being transported and arranged aboard. Lots of talk about who had the best sloop and why it would be the winner. There was talk of the increasing wind speed, which around 2:30PM, was estimated at a little under 25 knots.

Around 3PM crews were getting upset that the race had not started yet and we had put most of our sloop, the Cable & Wireless Mobile Enforcer, in order, tying in an extra set of reef points and arranging the sail sheet leads more efficiently.

Baba came out and started the race. We hadn’t heard the start and was still arranging the mooring lines for a quick slip. He yelled over, we looked behind us and the sloops were off on the horizon. I cut the mooring line and we started off in the opposite direction for some reason that I still don’t know, but quickly turned around and blossomed our large amount of mainsail out on a starboard tack, meaning having the wind come over the right side of the boat. We kept the bow light and took off on a dead run. She was yawing a bit but did not touch the seaway that was increasing in size. Just aft the bow was a smothering of foam and our stern sat low in the water but all of comfortable aboard and we were catching reducing the lead the sloops had on us very fast. We were all smiling.

Behind us were an increasing field of white caps and we knew that when you ran with the wind you do not always have a good sense of the wind speed. We decided to double reef when we rounded the buoy for the charge against the wind.

Evergreen was coming back, we all expected her to be coming back alone, so fast is she but they were shouting that the mast had broken at the step and they were retiring from the race. That was disappointing since she just looked so good sailing.

We had made up a lot of sea, as the others were searching for the buoy which had sunk and turned around to tack back against the wind to the second buoy more then a mile and a half away. We went to where they tacked and turned around ourselves, pulling down the second reef and leaving the first one tied in. The spray over the deck became solid water and the wind started tearing at our eyes as we felt for the first time a half gale of thirty- thirty five knots with pulsing gusts of forty.

We shifted bags of sand up and onto the windward deck and leaned out to keep the sloop on as even a keel as possible. The seas sloped aboard but only now and then ran along the leeward edge of deck. The other sloops were hard pressed and over-canvassed and we charged by two of them quite a distance away. There were thoughts of going in and sitting this out but nobody said it more then once and we carried on. Then the rain came.

Usually at sea when the rain comes the wind decreases and I was looking forward to a lull that did not happen as the rain was pushed sideways and horizontal. It stung our eyes and definitely surprised all of us. The horizon became a blur and solid water was coming over the bow as the seatops became charging horses.

Off to our starboard we could make out Wing’s 1 Can of Whoopass making a line across our bows and coming on fast. We carried on and as the squall subsided the wind dropped considerably but we kept the reef points in until we started to slow down. The wind moved down to thirty knots and we shook out the reefing and moved off to gain the buoy in a three sloop bunch. We followed Wing Dean’s 1 Can and George Dean’s Wild Thing, last year’s winner.

There was no real contest after the squall passed with George moving way ahead and coming back alone with Wing and our sloop coming up behind him. DC Valley Stream Jr and Maroon I came up behind us. The final battle was between Wing and Mobile Enforcer tacking to the finish. Wing just made it ahead of us and we took 1st in our class the first official time out.

The results of Monday’s day before the 1st phase of the full moon Provo Day Race were:

Junior Park Warden Programme

The Duel Launch
Last Saturday 29 July, Kevin ‘Baba’ Parker realized the first part of his dream to make a sailing paradise out of the land in front of his father’s house, in dedication to his grandparents, Cecilia and David Smith. The grandparents raised Baba and taught him to dream. His dreams became their dreams and those centered themselves on Sloops.

Cecilia was a boat builder and David was a trading skipper and they loved each other until death, which was just a few months apart. Baba built the colourful structures in Bluehills called Sailing Paradise as a cultural center. It houses knickknacks, a good fresh seafood restaurant and an outdoor breeze swept balcony for dining. He still wants to add on a boat workshop but as is it is perfect for the continuation of his dream to put Sloops out anchored in front and offer cultural tours to tourists. The tours would pay for more intense cultural expeditions for young people.

Baba commissioned his uncle, Master Boatbuilder James Dean and Master Boatbuilder Reverend Samuel ‘Gold’ Williams to build two comfortable but fast Sloops for those purposes. We lobbied for his to get the use of the DECR Sloop, Environment I and proudly he launched the two boats on Saturday amidst music and a lot of celebrating.

The spirit is catching and we have had a number of Belongers asking to volunteer for projects that we have on the shelf. Baba is a member of the Federation and has always supported the cultural educational aspect more then the racing.

Congratulations Baba on realising a dream, your grandparents would be proud of the designs you are giving us.

Events All Over the Place
Provo Day Race
Last week was Baba’s duel launching. This week is the Music and Cultural Festival and for us the Provo Day Race (if the weather doesn’t do more then threaten). The best seats will be on Baba’s balcony, above the mosquito line, where the race will start and finish.

It is scheduled for 11AM in order to have enough time for a good course and to have the annual parade begin at 2PM, just behind Sailing Paradise at Clement Howell High School. There should be upwards of nine Caicos Sloops competing.

WE STILL NEED CREWS FOR THREE OTHER SLOOPS…
Fisheman’s Day
The weekend after the Provo Day Race will be Fisherman’s Day in South Caicos, a family event sponsored by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources, DECR.

Everything is free and there are prizes for fishing categories as well as game and skills categories. There is even a domino competition. There will be games for the kids and adults, food, refreshments and a pretty festive air with ripsaw music always in the background.

This is the third year the event is being put on and as an incentive to create this truly cultural event as a part of the annual schedule of events the fishermen will be given the fuel to go out and compete. The timing is twelve days after the start of lobster season and it was thought that the lobstermen would need a day of rest and celebration after doing it for eleven straight days.

South Caicos, 12 August- The Fisherman’s Day Celebration. Sky King will be offering special fares and an augmented schedule to get you to the one day party.

Middle Caicos Extravaganza
We have a bit of a respite until the Middle Caicos Extravaganza takes it up again on 25-27 August on Middle Caicos. A fishing community, the settlements of Middle Caicos will feature sailing races with both the models and the Conch Sloops. This is an event that has lasted for donkey’s years and for a real down home reality event, more then just a cultural creation, you owe it to yourself and family to attend.

How Culture Works Looks At Federation
We will be putting on a show tonight that goes into what the Federation is and what we have done, as well as what we plan to do in the near future. This will be a call-in show, so if you are curious and don’t feel like attending the bathing suit contest for the Music and Cultural Festival, the show begins at 9PM WIV Channel 4.

Haulings Out

We hauled Ranger out of Turtle Cove and put her in Chalk Sound to take out 21 youth and supervisors who were a part of the Sports Centre Summer Camp activities. The schedule got changed and we had to speed up the sailings but the kids all seemed to want to return… all except one very heavy kid who could not move on the Sloop and kept saying that motorboats were better. That makes two kids out of over 400 that have been on the Sloops who do not want to return.

Sea Rangers
There was a meeting at the Environmental Center for six persons who are actively interested in putting the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club together and getting the kids who are waiting for it to start into the Sloops. Justin Missick, Karen Misick, Kelano Forbes, Angela Forbes (Dir of Youth), Kevin Bethel and myself. Our topics ranged over how to get adults interested and active, a set group of activities to begin our programme and media coverage and promotion.

3 Kids and Marketing
The three students of our Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme are still at it under the sponsorship of the Kiwanis of Providenciales. They are making small, car hanging ornament sized sloops and are figuring out ways of marketing them. They now have little folding information price tags and they set out after anybody walking to sell their products. The sloops are based on the Caicos Sloops with cut off transoms and gaff rigs. The sails actually raise and lower. They have already started their next project, macramé rugs, table mats and coasters.

Double Launching Still On Schedule
The double launching of Kevin Harvey’s two Sloops is scheduled for 29 July and not on the 28th as I reported earlier. There will be a big celebration this time as Kevin is going all out to make this one of the most memorable launchings ever. And, there will be two sloops going in at the same time. James Dean was contracted to do one and Gold Williams the other. Kevin just got the sails today as a matter of fact.

The festivities should start around 11AM and last all night. We are trying to get as many sloops there as possible, and all other vessels are welcomed by Kevin to Sailing Paradise in Bluehills, where the launch will take place. There will be games and prizes and rides on the sloops.

A Big Provo Day
There was a meeting of the TCI Tourist Board for those involved with preparing for the Music and Cultural Festival this 31 July through 6 August. The Federation was asked to coordinate the Provo Day Race on 5 August and we hope with Kevin’s entries there will be at least ten Sloops out there sailing. Sailing Paradise will be the best spot to watch the racing but we need crews. If you want to race a traditional Caicos Sloop, just call me at 243 2093. WE NEED CREWS…

Representatives from the various aspects of the Music and Cultural Festival will be on How Culture Works tonight, Wednesday 26 July, at 9PM on WIV Channel 4.

Middle Caicos Sloops and Model Making
The Spanish Cedar has arrived in Middle Caicos for Carlon Forbes. The Cedar is for the planking but unfortunately something was lost in the translation because 10 pieces were left behind, including the transom planking. The cargo vessel runs every two weeks so we have to wait another week to get that to him. Carlon has started the gemelemi model classes for the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme though as a volunteer. The building materials for the gemelemi models are being sponsored by Kiwanis of Providenciales.

Middle Caicos Day
Robert Hall called to invite the Sloops to the Middle Caicos Day celebrations this 24-27th of August. He especially wanted as many as is possible of the Sloops to race on Saturday 26 August. Paraphrasing, Robert said it is important to continue this movement around the islands of the Sloops to insure an enduring respect for the culture.

Book Spirit- The Turks Islands and Caicos Sloops
We are working on a pictorial essay on the title above and are actively seeking funding for the completion of the manuscript. We have hundreds of digital photographs but need a lot of information, including references for interviews. Spirit should be a great addition to our Turks and Caicos libraries and we are intending it for a non-academic readership. It will include a glossary of those terms I am trying to pronounce still.

Anybody wanting to help out just call 243 2093. We want everybody represented in this book who should be. Oh, we will include a section on the importance of multi-hulls.

Junior Park Warden Programme Kicks In
The Federation will be providing the sloops and personnel to take about 17 students out on Chalk Sound to study iguanas on the 2nd and 3rd of August. The students will learn to navigate, anchor and shore a specific cay on Chalk Sound, then they will record how many and what types of iguanas are present by video, photography and illustration.
This type of programme is in keeping with the Sail Training Programme of the Federation, the Sea Rangers and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Programme.

Leaving but not leaving…

Federation Not Funded By Government
A popular misconception is that the Turks and Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation is funded by the TCI Government. The misconception is a result of the many programmes that the Federation has undertaken and as a result has been in the public eye. Unfortunately thinking that the Government is in the background can work against the idea of a community group in that the public will think that the organisation will always be there and does not have to have their immediate participation.

H.E. Ross, Programmes Manager and Acting General Manager says, “Though some of our programmes are funded by government grants such as the building of Environment I and the restoration of Environment II and specific programme assistance by the TCI Tourist Board, the rest of our programmes, and our administration expenses are carried by getting out there and asking for sponsorships and donations from individuals and the private sector.”

The Federation has been asking the Government for a one year salary subsidy for the position of General Manager so that it might be filled by a local person. “We need a General Manager” continues Ross, “and a guarantee of a good one year’s salary leaves that person open to developing systems to make sure the Federation will be here for the future.”

The Maritime Heritage Federation is struggling to keep an administration budget and needs volunteers. At present several members of their Board of Governors are volunteering to keep programmes running.
Representatives from the Department of Culture, the Tourist Board, Protocol Office and the National Trust sit on the Federation Board of Governors and H.E. the Governor Richard Tauwhare is the Patron. We do have a great interest by several in the business sector to assist our Board and actually accept invitations to run for the Board at our next General Meeting.

2 Traditional Sloop Launchings Scheduled for 28 July
Kevin Harvey has announced the launching of his newly built traditional Bluehills-Wheeland Sloops for the 28th of this month and is inviting the public to make this a special and ol’ time launching. Kevin will use the sloop in a programme promoted by the Federation which will take visitors on cultural sailing charters that show them the ways that fishermen used to go after conch, lobster and fish under sail.
The big 27 and 28-footers are the designs of master boat builders James Dean and Reverend Samuel ‘Gold’ Williams and will define the charter styles for future sloops. Of Gold’s design the reverend says, “She will be a comfortable boat with a lot of speed. He wanted to not have to worry about the people aboard and to just give them a good and safe ride and this will do that.”

The design has a lot more beam then most of the sloops built in the last year and this will provide the stability wanted by Harvey. But, visitors are not the only ones to benefit by Kevin Harvey’s investments. “ I want to take children out on the weekends to get them acquainted with what we used to be and do. The Federation inspired me to do it now. We think along the same lines.”

James Dean’s design is a progression from his Environment I looking for more stability built into the deadrise and underwater placement of the lateral turn of bilge.

Harvey, whose underlying inspiration comes from his deceased grandparents Cecilia and David Smith, has built the Sailing Paradise complex in Bluehills and commissioned Cecilia’s brother, James Dean to build another traditional sloop in dedication to them.

James other design the DECR’s Environment I will also be chartered to Kevin for the tours and the student expeditions and all three sloops will be moored off Sailing Paradise. Kevin wants some of the old timers to become involved with skippering and caring for the vessels with the assistance of the Sea

Ranger Youth Sailing Club
By the middle of August there will have been six new sloops launched in the last year making this a viable number for a cultural tourism ingredient for our tourist destination. When Carlon Forbes finishes the sloop for Leeward Marina Resort and Spa scheduled for early September there will be fourteen sloops sailing these waters.

Provo Day and Fisherman’s Day
The National Music and Cultural Festival’s Provo Day Race is coming up soon, 5 August, with traditional sloop racing off Sailing Paradise in Bluehills. The annual event based on the traditional Provo Days Regatta will see a lot of sloops out racing this year. Last year was a bit of a disappointment with two sloops having problems and being unable to compete at the last moment. The TCI Tourist Board is funding the racing this year and the Federation is coordinating the event.

Says Goldray Ewing, Vice President of the Federation, “This year we will be out in force. There might be eight sloops racing. It will be quite a show.”

The racers have recently defined classes because of the number of new sloops being built but the new class standards will probably not be applicable for the Provo Day Race.
Following Provo Day the very next weekend is the fourth annual Fisherman’s Day on South Caicos. This celebration of the economic benefit the fishing industry has played in the Turks and Caicos is being hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources.

Providenciales DECR Manager Wesley Clarveaux sees the event as “…our way of showing respect to the fishermen and the women who held up this economy for so long. Everything is free. We even provide the fuel for the fishing tournament, and, there will be domino tournaments for those who do not want to get on the water.”

John Ewing of the DECR recently said on WIV Channel 4-How Culture Works (9PM Wednesdays) “Fisherman’s Day is a family and cultural event that is building. We hope it will be an example of the type of cultural events we need in the Turks and Caicos. The Ministry of Natural Resources is making everything free for the fishermen to say thank you for being there all those years and through all those adversities.”

The Federation is hoping to get a sloop to South Caicos to give rides to youth.

Sky King will have special flights and fares to South Caicos in celebration of the event.

Junior Park Warden Programme
The Federation will participate in this year’s Junior Park Warden Programme with a special educational prototypical project of Chalk Sound Iguana study under sail. The idea is part of our Sail Training Programmes in which the students will learn to navigate to a Chalk Sound Cay, disembark and make a study of the Iguanas on that particular cay.
The Junior Park Warden Programme is a 3-week educational project of the DECR and focuses on environmental awareness and study with invited guests instructors. The Federation will provide two sloops the second week in August for the Chalk Sound Iguana Expedition. This will be a qualification for the Adventurous Journey section of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Programme recently started up by the Department of Youth.

Sloops and Model Sloops for the Summer
The Federation is assisting summer programmes by introductory sails aboard traditional sloops on safe Chalk Sound during the Summer months. The Sports Centre has taken the offer up and will have a group this week onboard the sloops. If your group wants to get youth aboard sloops just call 946 4935 or 243 2093 for appointments.

Three of the Enid Capron students in the recent Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme wanted more, so they are building miniature Caicos Sloop models for retail sales with assistance from the Federation’s new retail outlet in our new office at The Market Place. The students, Schenley Pierre, Smith Andre and Vinston Michel get a percentage that increases the more they involve themselves with the marketing. The small sloops sale at $10-$15 with the extra profit going back into materials for further models. They accomplish their work mainly at the Environmental Center in the Bight on Providenciales.

Worthy Deeds
Skipper and former Chief Minister Norman Saunders, with crew H. Hinderaker (who are both on the Federation Board of Governors) and Rolf Anonsen have donated their winnings, aboard Ranger, from the South Caicos Regatta, to purchase tools for the Federation.

Captain Marvin’s Watersports has donated many many feet of Dacron line to keep our sloops in running rigging over the past year. Captain Marvin, who will be a volunteer in the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club says, “… I like what the Federation is doing and since we change line on a regular basis, you will never have to worry about having it.”

Mrs. Julie Holder painted a beautiful painting of traditional sloops at sea, then not only donated it to the Federation but promoted the sale of the painting, named Wave Riders, to assist in the administration funding for the Federation. Julie has been an ardent supporter of the Federation for the last year. Mrs Judy Jones purchased the painting within a day of the offering. We hope Julie is inspired by this to step up her painting.

Carlon Forbes of Middle Caicos is showing Middle Caicos students how to build gemelemi model sloops as part of the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. Carlon took out the six graders from the Doris Robinson Primary School on his sloop, now Environment II and gave a lecture on what it was like to be their ages and work the sloops fishing. Carlon is building the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa sloop at Doris Robinson.

Mike Robertson of Osprey Marine Services has completed more stainless steel chainplates for our sloops with a standard of quality that has the boatbuilders smiling and issuing hard to get compliments. Mike does the work at a fraction of the cost as a donation to the Federation programmes.

Jim Brown of ERA at The Market Place put his models in the Federation office to encourage our model making students to strive toward beauty and to show by example that models sell. Jim has supported the Federation in many ways and we are glad his office is close to our office.

It has been a turning from this project to that project to that other project and the time has come to rein in on this stallion we have been riding, maybe even let him eat a little something.

As I was saying in the last update, the Federation needs to encourage those interested enough to keep reading these updates to take part in what there is offered at present and to invent something that you might like to do that is relevant to what we are mandated to do. So, what do we have that you might be interested in?

Oh, before I get into what we need I want you to know that former Chief Minister Norman Saunders, H. Hinderaker (who are both on the Federation Board of Governors) and Rolf Anonsen have donated their winnings, aboard Ranger, from the South Caicos Regatta to purchase some tools for the Federation. It was more then just getting sick of our borrowing tools all the time, they felt it was a good investment in the future of a clubhouse that would have a workshop. Positive futuristic thinking is the way…

Website
We need a website desperately. These updates can be reaching a lot more of those who are perspective interested if we were in cyberspace again. I and we appreciate the monitoring that Laura at Dreamscape is doing for us and wish we had the money to invest in her creating a website for us but if somebody who loves to do that type of thing and is creative and has the time, we would love to have a little chat.

Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club
The Famous Fools Regatta 2006 was put on by us in order to involve more people in the start up of this very important youth club. I failed at putting this across in the manner that it should have been put across and will be putting a lot more effort into getting adults more then interested in creating a youth group that covers so many areas that point toward wisdom. The idea is simple: put young people on traditional sloops and create projects that make sailing relevant to their lives. Some of the projects would be maritime historical research, investigative expeditions, scientific study, environmental promotion…

The ages that were thought to be the best were divided into two groups: 7-11, 12-17. We have the sloops, the youth are eager but we lack adult supervision??? Call me at 243 2093 and let’s get some meetings organised so we can find out if you can put together a schedule that will include getting young people on the water with a continuing zeal.

Vessel Maintenance, Crewing and Sailing
Notice I put maintenance first. I am finding myself doing a lot of boat maintenance and construction these days with just a couple of people trying to get away to assist. We have four sloops sitting at Turtle Cove Marina (thank you Boots and Carole and Crazy George) that need looking after. Even after the Sea Rangers are up and running there will be that need to help them with the maintenance. That was a part of the reason for commissioning the construction of these community sloops.

In exchange for some, whatever your time allows, maintenance and lessons on how to sail the internally ballasted vessels, you can sail them… you can even form a crew and race them. Now, what more could you ask for then to have access to a traditional sloop in these pristine waters for just a little work, a little painting, rigging design, woodwork? You’ve got the email address…

Sail Training
We will be starting with the DECR’s Junior Park Warden Programme this next week with a customised sail training programme, called the Chalk Sound Iguana Expedition. This programme is designed to be a precursor to the Sea Ranger concept and will fit in with our involvement with the Duke of Edinburgh Award Programme.

The students will learn how to navigate one of two Middle Caicos Conch Sloops on the shallow but beautiful waters of Chalk Sound. They will sail to a designated cay in the Sound and land. They will document the types and number of iguanas on that cay and return with that information to put into a presentation form that will be made available for our schools and will be presented on our website (when somebody creates it again).

This two-day project will show how as archaic some might choose to look upon the Conch Sloop design, it can take people and equipment to a shallow location in order to complete a project with a minimal risk of damage to either the people or the equipment. The two Sloops draw 12”-14” and can hold the four person crew that includes a skipper.

The Duke of Edinburgh Award programme that we have designed goes through several areas of study including teaching how fishermen traditionally knew how to find conch, crayfish and fish, their methods of gathering and how to find the most comfortable spot to relax. We also are hoping to have the involvement of the scientific part of our robust community in identifying the academic reasons for all of the above.

The Federation wants young people to find reasons to go sailing, including recreation and racing, so they will understand a relationship between action and study and enjoyment.

Clubhouse
This is a simple one. We need a clubhouse. We need people to assist in communicating that need to government, who is receptive by the way, and to follow through with what is needed.

Historical Research and Heritage Documentation
Starting to sound like a university here, but I came here originally to write a book on the Caicos Sloop and am getting back to that agenda. The Turks and Caicos is rich in unwritten sea lore while having a stockpile of knowledge and documents pertaining to both history and heritage. There is a dictionary of nautical terms alone that can be put on paper. Bow split, mutton, fonofat, just the difference in the terms vessel and boat show a local meaning that, as most nautical terms do, identify something in the most succinct and practical ways… once you know what they are talking about.

I have spread my particular interest into the designs of the whole Turks and Caicos in place of just the Caicos Sloop and that keeps spreading into other geographic areas, so I would gladly point out what I have found to others who might be interested in doing a book, pamphlet, graffiti notation or whatever. I found my studies of the Turks Islands and Caicos Sloops taking me to Halifax in the Northeast and Bodega Bay in the Northwest. We definitely need some better brains then mine to tackle what could be a great retirement project or a great occupation. Since it has not been done, at least from the purely maritime aspect, I have found it self-motivating and inspiring.

Piracy, Cristobol Colon, Taino migration, the Haitian visits, the salt trail throughout the Western Hemisphere, the types of slavery here, vessel visitation records, oral traditions and history, archiving of photographs, illustrations and documents. It just goes on… known and suspected wrecks, the wrecking industry, smuggling, sea battles…

Organisation of Sailing Regattas
In order for the vessels calling this place home to have a regular schedule of racing there needs to be some type of organising body that has rules covering racing the various types of vessels we have here. There has been in the past racing for the Hobie Waves, racing for the bigger multihulls, racing for the smaller contemporary designs and racing for the Turks Islands and Caicos Sloops. Why, exactly, these like minded groups do not get together and set down some form of confederation for racing is strange to understand. It would make available infrastructural equipment and services to all the activities. There would probably be more racing accomplished. There could even be cross over between the crews of these sailing types.

The other day a, what I thought to be a, sailor, told me that the Fools Regatta was a white reaction to not being allowed to sail with the black traditional sailors and felt that we, the Federation, had now reversed the original intention by making it a black regatta? Strange, first because everybody was invited to the event as a community event and second, because I saw a lot of intermixing amongst the racial groups, and have been walking around thinking positively about how the creators of the Fools Regatta focussed on promoting the idea of pure sailing. This means to me that we are just all sailors and don’t have to lean on that ugly land driven concept of class or racial separation. I am a sailor and maybe a little naïve, but I hope I am right on this one.

Fisherman’s Day
It might be a little misspelled but the international celebration of fishermen is being celebrated this 12th of August in South Caicos, the fishing capital of the Turks and Caicos. The DECR will be hosting the event and are aiming at creating a community feeling amongst all those anglers who are driven to be proud of catching the biggest and the mostest.

There are going to be traditional games, some adult and some children, contests and definitely a cash prize competition. The best thing about the celebration is that it is aimed at the small boat fisherman and looks for edible fish as the object because there are also seafood cooking competitions after the fish are landed.

This is different. The DECR are also known as the Fisheries and enforce the fishing regulations in the Turks and Caicos and this is their way of showing the respect for the fisherman that they feel. There will be music but it won’t be a South Caicos Regatta. If you are looking for a more relaxed way of meeting people you might not normally meet with the level field of fishing for food consumption this might be the one for you and the family.

Gemelemi Sloop Models
We are offering a great way to earn a little cash to young people during the summer months by making gemelemi sloop models in various sizes. We are making them for tourist souvenirs and for racing, from four inches to four feet in length, with stands and with outriggers. The builder gets 50% and the Federation gets 50%. If the builder wants to learn distribution, marketing and sales they get a little more of a percentage.

This is an extension from the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. Henry Smith, age 11, made four models ranging from 4”- 1 ½’ in four hours, painted them the next day and rigged them the following day. He was just learning. This week I think, if the weather holds back, he will double that number. The Federation profit goes into this programme and ones like this one.

Hope this leaves you all smiling.

The Famous Fools Regatta 2006 is gratefully almost completely over. We are still attempting to gather the promised sponsorship funding from some of those who are supporting us, our fault with minimum labour resources. The race results came in slow and only for the traditional sloops, which on its own became a problem. I almost quit again. Katya almost quit before again and then after again. But, we are still here working and trying to get the Sea Rangers in tow. We still just need adults to assist in the start up and overall organisation.

Sloops
So, now, the mast on Environment II was inspected and found to have a bad rotten area at the deck and is being stripped of its hardware and a new mast is being built.

Environment I had a problem with the peak and throat halyard double block and the position of the throat block is being lowered and separated. A new block is being put at the head of the mast for the peak halyard run. After putting in a reefing system Environment I will be trial sailed and hopefully ready to get into the blue.

Going Through, the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa commissioned sloop has a keel and the frames will be set in place. Carlon Forbes wants to wait for the Summer session of Doris Robinson Primary School to open to have an audience for the construction process. Going Through or Going True, will be built at the school so the students can follow its progress.

Goldray Ewing and I took the mast out of the Cable & Wireless Sloop, Mobile Enforcer, for Gold Williams to finish rigging. Goldray took the mast to Gold’s home to make sure he completed that aspect of the construction with no distractions.

Yesterday, we went to finally award the trophies and cash prizes to the participants of the Famous Fools Regatta 2006. There was a confrontation about the size definition of the classes. Wing Dean felt that his sloop, 1 Can of Whoopass was unfairly counted into the larger class of sloops which gave him a Third Place. The demarcation was 22’and above or under 22’. Wing, who gave his measurement at 22’ felt he should have been with the smaller class and a resultant First Place.

Because of the ambiguity in the demarcation measurement the racers decided in his favour and he took the First Place in the B Class.

A meeting was held to straighten out the measurement rule last night and the official classes now measure:
Class A- 30’-27’; Class B- 26’6”- 23’6”; Class C- 23’- 20’; Class D- 19’6”- 16’
Any vessels over or under these measurements will not be eligible to sail with in the class races but will be able to sail in open class races.

Vice Chairman Goldray Ewing was elected to measure the Sloops with the owners. The owner will then sign off the measurement and the sloop will be publicly placed into a Class. The measurement is from the outer stem head to the outer edge of the stern.

It was felt that when there were fewer sloops the rules could be a little more lax but now with the 14 sloops that could be competing this year the rules need more definition. The Federation racing group will be meeting again next Tuesday at 7PM at The Market Place. If you are interested in attending just show up.

This is a chance to assist those trying to organise rules for racing these vessels. There are a lot of you out there who know about rules and measuring who can get into this very positive moment in opening traditional sloop racing. The Bahamas has a rule that only Bahamas born can race their sloops. Let’s not have something like that take the joy and experience from many of the youth and us older ones in something as simple as going for a sail.

Please get involved.

Other topics for discussion in next week’s meeting include, racing rules, an agreed race schedule, creating a lobby to propose race subsidies from Government, organising the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club.

Support
The Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association has donated $1000 to the Federation with the note that it likes what we are trying to do. Thank you, Caesar and the membership.

Judy Jones has purchased a really wonderful painting committed by Julie Holder depicting three sloops at sea, called, Wave Riders. The motion in the painting and the composition, as well as colourings put you there and, to me, get me into the work aspect in which the characters are involved.

Julie did the work to donate to the Federation as a fund raiser. I hope she has started on the next ones because we need this type of artistic representation to ease us into other areas less stressful then the normal everyday on an island…

Margaret Sadler, daughter of the late H.E. Sadler, who wrote Turks Island Landfall, and was a history talking buddy of mine way back, joined up her son, Jay, and herself with the hopes of becoming an active member. She made us a donation and the donation of one of H.E.’s great books.

TCMHF Famous Fools Regatta 2006 Racing Results

PPC-DECR Caicos Sloop Race Gilley’s Perpetual Challenge Cup
Class A (over 22’) Class B (under 22’)
1st Place Eagle III- James Dean 1 Can of Whoopass- Wing Dean
2nd Place Wild Thing- George Dean Man O’War- JJ Parker
3rd Place Maroons I- Goldray Ewing
4th Place Environment II- Carlon Forbes
5th Place Ranger- H.E. Ross

Open Race
1st Place Minx-Kathi & Mike Robertson
2nd Place No name- A. Grant (unofficial entry)
3rd Place Radish- H.Hinderaker

Last Saturday saw the running of the 16th Annual Famous Fools Regatta at the newly named Regatta Beach, just in front of the Children's’ Park in the Bight on Providenciales. This event has always seen a mixture of people attending and this year probably saw the most numbers.

“I have to go to a lot of these functions and I think this has had more people then any of them.” said Evan Spence, owner of Spence’s Security & Investigation Services, who were hired for the event. “I would estimate about maybe a little more then 2500 people came. What was good was that there was no trouble, everybody wanted to have a good time.”

The Famous Fools Regatta 2006 was the last in a series of three sailing events that involved the Turks & Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation that were simply called, 3 Races. The Federation is promoting the preservation of the traditional Sloops indigenous to this area and the skills developed by their uses.
The South Caicos Regatta, which included the Provident Limited Challenge Rock Race, started the 3 Races, with the Caicos Banks Reach To Leeward getting the sloops back to Providenciales in time for the Famous Fools Regatta. The idea is to continue the traditional sloop racing throughout the year with the Art & Culture Festival- Provo Days Race the next one on the agenda and eventually in November the Conch Festival.

The Federation was handed the Fools Regatta last year by Dave Douglass of the Provo Sailing Club to coordinate. They tried to revamp the event and bring more cultural activities into it but did not find enough interest by many in accomplishing that end, so settled for getting five traditional sloops to race for a cash purse.

This year, Ms Katya Brightwell, Education Officer for the Federation, took on the task again of detailing the organisation of the regatta with an end of putting community groups as actively becoming involved and making it a truly cultural event.

“It should be something that everybody takes part in. You have all the ingredients: beach, a 16 year tradition, sailing racing, a cultural setting and the best part is the bringing back of the sloops to race in number. I wish more of the big multihulls were in it, as it was all started by them.”

The overall sponsors of the Famous Fools Regatta 2006 were PPC, Gilley’s Enterprises, the DECR and the TCI Tourist Board. TCI Bank, Sky King, Leeward Marina Resort and Spa, Leeward Limited and the T&C Hotel and Tourism Association sponsored traditional Sloops.

The Famous Fools Regatta 2006 almost turned into solely a traditional Sloop race with only a few smaller fiberglass sloops accepting the invitation to come and the beach cats, the backbone of the racing in the last few years, not having an organiser stepping up to get them to the beach. Luckily, Pat Staples, Dave Douglass and Camille Slattery got hopping and a lot of colour was added with around ten Hobie Waves competing.

The crowd this year were spread along the beach and well tented. The Governor, HE Richard Tauwhare helped bring one of the eight traditional Sloops to Regatta Beach. The Honourable Galmo (Gilley) Williams crewed and raced with his childhood friend Goldray Ewing’s TCI Banks sponsored Maroons I. Two more Ministers, Honourables Jeffrey Hall and McAllister Hanchell, with their families, were in the crowd having a good time.

The music was mainly provided by TechnoSounds and what is hoped to be a continuing part of the event, a rip saw band. Children's’ games were provided by David Bowen of the Department of Culture. Fire Chief Chris Gannon and his Volunteer Fire Services again held a successful Great Raft Race. The Red Cross, National Trust, TCSPCA Johnston International volunteered time, equipment and expertise in setting up the stage, dumpster and logistical concepts. Beaches had the happiest face painting anybody could have. Andre Niederhauser of Coral Gardens provided rooms for the visiting traditional Middle Caicos sloop sailors, headed by Carlon Forbes.

Food came by way of Mackey’s Restaurant of The Market Place, the new Horse Eyed Jacks Restaurant in Blue Hills and Island Scoop Ice Cream.

Blue Loos donated guess what. Blue Mountain Water cut their prices for water and ice. IGA stood out as the last minute Savior to keeping the cooler cold with their electricity, while co-sponsoring the face painting and donating sodas and juices. Discount Liquor provided most of the refreshment and a lot of advice.

Volunteers were the heroes and moral fibre that kept the event in motion and the attendees with smiles on their faces until its end at 7PM.

Katya Brightwell has accomplished what she set out to do with the Fools Regatta in turning it into a community, educational and cultural event that is unparalleled in the Turks and Caicos. She did it with the assistance of those who want the same thing and with advice that was shared by all.
The underlying reality of the 16th Annual Famous Fools Regatta 2006 is that it evolved into a community project that the community wanted. As a check out clerk at IGA said just today about the success of the event, “We just don’t have anything like that here, you know, a beach party that the whole island can go to.”

The Famous Fools Regatta will display the best in wholesome, enjoyable entertainment that will make you continue smiling if you are single and/or with children.

The April Fools Regatta was started by multihulls as something to do. The original rules were to sail from Sapodilla Bay to Pine Cay, run ashore and drink a special concoction that might not get you back to the boat, and sail back to Sapodilla Bay first, or firs ht. The prize was a case of Mount Gay Rum.

Usually, the rum was shared.

It changed through the years, moving for better access to the multihulls that had become mainly businesses. The date moved to June because of weather and commercial scheduling. Causes came into the fore, which translated into a fund raising event that balanced shorebound festivities with sailing races. Monohulls and traditional sloops came into it as well as the beach cats. Dave Douglass was instrumental in keeping it alive after its move to Grace Bay and he, feeling the strains of attempting to continue the event asked the Federation to take over last year.

We did not know much about running events, let alone the different social straining the Fools Regatta brought along. After several dead ends in gaining support we attempted to change the whole concept breaking with its historical background into a cultural festival. We could not get that going due to our newness and unproven track record and our own unknowing of the social stigma the Fools Regatta had locally as the “white” regatta.

Because of Dave’s insistence in getting the traditional sloops into the racing a lot of that stigma had some chunks broken away and our preservationist mandate came into the event probably at the right moment. We did not succeed in making the event a whole community event last year but we did pull the numbers in despite having to postpone the Fools Regatta twice. That seemed to build up a curiosity about what it would be and brought the crowds.

Amongst the population there was the concept that this was the only event that catered to a mixing of the population, though it was still considered a ‘white’ sailing event. The crowds at last years event was about as mixed as one could get. I think because of our own mixture and leaning toward a whole history preservation a lot of those who might not have come from both general groups found no reason not to come and last year can be counted as a success.

The big, very expensive music festivities have taken the forefront of our event perceptions here in the Turks and Caicos. I am not exactly sure why this phenomena is occurring. There is a lot of money passed and most of it seems to go away from the country as it seems to be paying a lot of foreign talent to create a T&C gala. I hope the powers that be see our meager contributed budget can put together an event that is fun and educational with a deep emphasis on combining the two.

This year we are bringing back The Great Raft Race and have put it into the hands of the Volunteer Fire Service, who originated it and has been most successful organising it. We have urged and supported David Bowen in getting a Rip Saw band onstage to let all of us remember what came before the Junkanoo with its Brazilian and Bahamian expensive costume adaptions. We will have a bunch of traditional Caicos Sloops racing and giving free rides to the community. David will also have children’s games. Beaches will have face painting. The recorded music will be accomplished by TechnoSounds. We will have blow by blow descriptions of the racing. The National Trust is exhibiting rope making and letting you actually make the rope.

Unfortunately, the multihulls will not be out in numbers. We are trying to address the Hotel & Tourism Association to get some of the Grace Bay hotels beach cats down the road to the Regatta Beach (Children’s Park beach) but it is a late notice. Hopefully, there will be beach cats. Mike Rosati, whose name I always misspell, might not be on the island and he always had organised the beach cat seminars, sailing and races. The big multihulls did not get an invitation, mainly my faulty thinking that we were joining their festivity, which is run through the Provo Sailing Club. The driving force in the PSC are either not on the island or are too busy at this point in time and did not organise anything. The Federation has ordered trophies and is sitting on a case of Mount Gay though.

The multihulls are not only dramatic to see but were the founders of this event. We hope there will be even an impromptu race between them, like in the old days.

Katya Brightwell, who did not want to do the Famous Fools Regatta again but was promised assistance by our Board of Governors and accepted organising the event, has done another phenomenal job at getting community groups to showcase their projects. Her concept is to make the Famous Fools Regatta a community fayre. That next year’s event become a cooperative social event of community groups.

Raffle A Big One This Year
We limit the number of raffle prizes so that we can announce a winner every half hour. The tickets can be purchased at the IGA door in the afternoons all this week, or if you see Katya driving around. The prize is a very reasonable $2.50 each or 5 for $10.00.
YOU CAN WIN……..
1. Parrot Cay – Luxury Day for Two
2. Sky King – Round trip to Santiago, D.R
3. The Palms Spa - $450 worth of Spa products
4. Gwendolyn Fishing Charters - Half day fishing for one person (on a shared trip)
5. Dive Provo – Resort Course or 2 tank dive
6. Serenity Spa – Coconut Rub & Milk Wrap
7. The Orchid Bar & Grill – $100 gift certificate
8. Baci Ristorante - $100 gift certificate
9. Greensleeves - $100 Gift Voucher
10. Bayview Motors – free full service maintenance
11. Gwendolyn Fishing Charters - 5lbs of fresh fish
12. Corner Café - Lunch for 4
All proceeds go to continuing the educational programmes of the Turks & Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation.
THE KIDS SAY THANK YOU!

Sponsors and Support
Everybody has come out in support of the Famous Fools Regatta from the t-shirt logo sales and raffle prizes to the race prize monies. PPC, DECR, TCI Tourist Board, TCI Hotel & Tourism Association, Beaches, Johnston Construction, Sky King, TCI Bank, Leeward Marina Resort and Spa, Leeward Limited, IGA, Blue Loo, Spence’s Security, the list goes on. I am not listing the many individuals who have given their time and are about to give their time to this event, there are too many. Suffice it to say that the whole community wants the Famous Fools Regatta to continue and to them it is FAMOUS.

TCI Hotel and Tourism Association President Andre Niederhauser responded instantly to a request to house four of the sailors from Middle Caicos at Coral Gardens free for their Famous Fools Regatta traditional sloop participation. The message has been passed on to Middle Caicos to the surprise of those guys, especially after the crappy treatment we all received at the South Caicos Regatta with no housing provided and especially no showers provided after that long sail there and looking forward to the long sail back.

Carlon Forbes passes his thanks to Andre and we are making that public with this little update.

The latest update also show the Honourable Jeffrey Hall calling to give the guys a place to stay and when told where they were going to stay we both sort of said why aren’t we coming from Middle?

Governor Sailing
H.E. Governor Richard Tauwhare will be attending the Regatta for the first part of the event and will be sailing aboard one of the sloops. If we actually start on time he will be racing also. Governor Tauwhare has to go back to Grand Turk for his daughter’s birthday party, so is pressing his schedule to make our event. Governor Tauwhare is not only the Patron of the Federation but is also an avid sailor from a long line of sailors.

Goldray Ewing says that Honourable Galmo "Gilley" Williams will be crewing his sloop for the Regatta.And, Gilley does not like to loose.

Rigging The Caicos Sloops
11 year old Henry Smith completed the standing rigging replacement on the two masts at the Environmental Center last Saturday. Henry, a sixth grader, was in Katya Brightwell’s Maritime Heritage Programme at Enid Capron doing the model sloop design and construction and wanted to continue learning. So, he volunteered to give up his Saturdays to come to The Market Place to make small gemelemi sloops for our retail outlet, The Boat Store. The Famous Fools Regatta took our attention and so he volunteered to help us re-rig the standing rigging for the masts. As he worked Henry was given more and more responsibility and asked all the right questions, essentially measuring the WIV donated cable, cutting it, double checking the measurements, attaching the PPC donated crimps and crimped them with the PPC loaned crimping tool and fixing them in the hounds, all in the hot sun.

The picture shows Goldray Ewing saying, “Now, you are teaching me something.”

Smith, as he prefers to be called, will be racing on either the DECR’s E-1 or Cable & Wireless’ Mobile Enforcer, the two sloops he rigged. We are hoping to get the masts in today at Turtle Cove, next to Tiki Hut. You are all invited to help or peanut gallery us. We will try to try out the sloops today also.

It was voted that we require a youth aboard each sloop entered in the Famous Fools Regatta traditional sloop races.

Today, Wing and George Dean, as well as the regulars, Goldray, JJ Parker and H. Hinderaker are working on getting the last phases of the rigging together for the Regatta. They had to take time off from getting their sloops ready to come and help get the two new ones going. James Dean will try to launch his Eagle III today for the Regatta to swell up the planking. The picture shows what is called around here an Eagle sitting atop James’ Eagle III, a good omen?

Mike Robertson, of Osprey Marine, not only made our chainplates for the two new sloops but has now donated two carbon fibre wind surfer masts to be used as lightweight gaffs on the two sloops. We already have a wooden one on E-1 but the light weight and strength of carbon fibre will probably see its way aboard eventually.

T-Shirts and Tank Tops
Just a sample of the new t-shirts. The two designs were introduced by Dave Douglas way back and we have continued with the concept of one sort of conservative and one sort of fun. This years conservative design commemorates Minx as the perennial winner of the multihull competition. It was meant to be larger but got voted to its present size.

How Culture Works Fools Regatta
We want a bunch of you who are assisting the Fools Regatta to come on the programme this Wednesday evening to tell the public why you feel good about this particular event. The programme airs at 9PM and you can come into the WIV studio between that hour and 10PM to say a few words about the direction of this event.

How Culture Works is a community activist programme that showcases community projects and programmes and those who support them. Next week the TCSPCA will be pointing toward the Annual Dog Show the following Saturday and will be discoursing on what they have learned on their recent trip South about Caribbean animal concerns.

Trish Selver, who was on How Culture Works describing the new Providenciales Dialysis Centre, has recently told me that the main filtering pump has broken down and all the patients have to resume their sometimes three times weekly trips back down to Grand Turk for treatments. She is waiting impatiently for the machine to be fixed. Because of the decrease in stress relating to the traveling that went on before the Providenciales Dialysis Centre was opened a couple of weeks back some of the patients were reducing their blood pressure. The broken pump was the back up pump, which was being used as the primary because the primary had problems, so the facility had to close down.

The latest news is that Trish is relieved. Due to some late night work by PPC, the replacement pump is back on line and the patients, including husband Curtis, are breathing easier.

After the South Caicos Regatta.
The better race was the long haul back from South to Providenciales on the Caicos Banks Reach to Leeward. We are still talking about that one and smiles are on our faces about it. The South Caicos Regatta was not a good experience from the point of view of hospitality or even welcome given to us for the sacrifice of going that distance. It seemed the person most in charge was just disappointed that there were ‘only’ five sloops arriving… This, I guess is the reason we were never welcomed, and the Captains’ Dinner was served in Styrofoam without a welcoming committee on hand, outside of Lee and Henry. They did their best to straighten things out but without the interest of those who did not come to welcome us, it was an uphill grind. The lack of shower and rooms were the worst of it though.

The lot of us have been talking about what the next steps are to prepare for the biggest number of sloops for the Famous Fools Regatta 2006, the 16th running of this affair. Last year there were a bunch of boats out there and though the crowds seemed to be in two sections there was a lot of intermingling and frolicking. We want this year to be better and more refined.

Katya Brightwell has been doing the detail drudgery again. Last year after a tremendous amount of work and sacrifice she could not even attend due to travel arrangements and our two postponements. The postponements were due to a funeral and a storm but built up an interest that had not seen a rival as far as attendance goes in a long time.

This year we have sloops. The following is a list of what there is around at this moment that I am sure of, excluding a big sloop on the beach in North Caicos.

Providenciales:
Not Completed Building:
Mary Jane- Gold Williams, builder; Prestige Group
Sailing Paradise- Gold Williams, builder; Kevin Harvey, owner
Sailing Paradise- James Dean, builder; Kevin Harvey, owner
Almost Ready:
Environment I- James Dean, builder; DECR, owner
Mobile Enforcer- Gold Williams, builder; Cable & Wireless, owner
Shy Anne- Wing Dean, builder; Wing Dean, owner
Ready:
1 Can of Whoopass- Wing Dean, builder; Wing Dean, owner
Man O’War- Albert Higgs, builder; Chris Stubbs, owner
Wild Thing- Dean Brothers, builders; George Dean, owner
Eagle III- James Dean, builder; James Dean, owner
Unnamed- Brother Parker, builder; Buggy Harris, owner

Middle Caicos:
Not Completed Building:
Going Through- Carlon Forbes, builder; Leeward Marina Resort & Spa, owner
Ready:
Environment II- Carlon Forbes, builder; DECR, owner
Morning Star- Headley Forbes, builder; Headley Forbes, owner
White Horse- Marcus & Headley Forbes, builder; Marcus Forbes, owner
Unnamed- Dennis Been, builder; Dennis Been, owner

We can have 13 sloops and maybe 14 at this year’s Famous Fools Regatta if everybody does what they are saying they will do and finish their work and gets their sloops there.

Wing has mounted his mast on the deck of Shy Anne and wants to get her in the water as soon as he gets his sails.

Kevin wants to get his sails here and feels James Dean can finish her by the race.
We have taken the masts out of Mobile Enforcer and Environment I, taken them to DECR and will be re-rigging, bedding the hounds, epoxying the gaff jaws and painting E-1’s spars. Now that was an experience. Goldray Ewing, H. Hinderaker and I took Mobile Enforcer over to a small cove beach at the Third Turtle property, careened her, weighed her down with rocks inside and concrete blocks under the keel to keep her in place and heaved the too heavy and too tight fitting mast out. Then we carried it back to DECR to shave down and re-rig.

E-1 was another thing entirely. She had been rigged with sails and spars and except for her leak, was ready to take South. The Cypress has swollen now and she doesn’t leak but the rigging needed work, so we careened her at her little beach berth at Turtle Cove Marina, where the four sloops sit thanks to Boots Luddington. Goldray, H, JJ Parker, Kelano Forbes and I took off the boom, gaff and sails, untied the tensioning lanyards and pulled the mast up onto the parking lot. The mast is hollow and weighed one-third the other mast so it was not difficult. Both masts and spars sit at DECR waiting work which will be attended to this morning and tomorrow. Hopefully, if it doesn’t rain, the masts will be back in the sloops and we can pay attention to the other boats to ready them for a practice race this weekend.

Crew List
Anybody who wants to get on the crew lists for the sloops can get in touch with me at 243 2093 or email me at herossea2004@yahoo.com.

By looking at the number of sloops above you can see that crewing can be a good and unique experience on these unballasted vessels. You don’t have to have it in your head that the crews are solely for racing, you can sail the sloops for pleasure or participate in the heritage expeditions that we have planned, or figure out your own special need to go out in one. These are truly community sloops and belong in principle to the community.

The Famous Fools Regatta
This year we will have The Great Raft Race in the hands of those who know how to do it, the Volunteer Fire Service, who brought it to the T&C in the first place. This event is always one of the favourite entertainment pieces in the Fools Regattas since its inception not more then five years back. There are already eight rafts completed or in various stages of completion with Johnston coming on as of yesterday. Call Chris Gannon at the Fire Station at 941 8090.

We will also have the beach cats back with short lessons in how to sail a Hobie Wave and a race or two under the push of Mike Risotti and Pat Staples.

We hope to have as many multi-hulls as possible racing for the coveted case of Mount Gay Rum this year but it seems they are looking around to see who else is going to commit first. The Fools Regatta started on April Fools Day,15 years back, as a multi-hull race with the only rule being who crossed the finish line first won. Let’s hope they don’t let this great tradition go by the board. Two boats make a race…

One thing that Pat Staples brought up the other day was an interchange of the sloop skippers and sailors with the Hobie Wave skippers and sailors and an impromptu race with each on the other boats. We can do whatever we want, so impromptu is good…

On land, we are focussing on three things: education, culture and community. Any group that wishes to put on an educational exhibit of some sort can have a booth without charge. You will have to share costs for the tent though. David Bowen is organising a Rake and Scrape Band competition and we are trying to get some sixth-graders from Enid Capron to make Mass’n costumes to show the tradition of the fool in Turks and Caicos heritage. The Mass’n or Masque or Masquerade costume is a Christmas tradition that is still going on in South Caicos but is the predecessor to the Junkanoo costume and music festivity which originated in the Turks and Caicos and was made famous in the Bahamas.
David will also have kids games and Ethelyn Williams will be putting together a sisal rope making exhibit to show one aspect of diversity in the economy of these islands that kept them in international competition.

There is going to be a bar…. There will be local food from four vendors and there will be TechnoSounds giving it their variety of tunes. There will also be a blow by blow description of the racing.
All in one day from 11AM to 6PMsh at the newly named, Regatta Beach, which you all know as the Children’s Park. You can follow the many streaming flags and balloons bobbing around. The event will not be in the dirty area near the kids swings but actually on the clean beach. The racing will be near enough for all to see and they are hot to go.

If you want to volunteer, call Katya at her new number of 242 5168.

Forgive me for not filing the last Update but time flew by and left me thinking of it six or seven hours past the deadline. It has been a very busy two weeks with the preparation and going to the South Caicos Regatta as well as our continuing organising of the Famous Fools Regatta 2006. A lot of good people have done a lot of good things in the two weeks between Updates.

I am warning you now that this is a long one…

Good Things
Money can be a good thing and we have been receiving good support from good organisations and their individuals in charge of those things. Our administration needs that boost as the tank is always running low. We are privately funded through programmes, sponsorships and donations. As you can tell from this and the previous Updates we are an active body of people with most volunteering their time to preserve and promote the maritime history and heritage of this place but the sort of salaried administration is usually overlooked in funding support, and without the administration there is no Federation.

Carnival Cruise Lines came out of the blue and complimented our efforts publicly and gave a nice big check for $5,000.

Again, out of the blue, the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association sent an email stating their respect for what the Federation is trying to do by donating $1,000 to the event, which we are taking to mean the 3 Races and wish to thank them for their patronage.

Government, through its Departments, is assisting us through proposed projects and different programmes and wants the Federation to continue its preservation and educational efforts.

Sky King stepped forward to sponsor Ranger, our Rotary purchased Middle Caicos Sloop in the 3 Races, which entails the South Caicos events, the Caicos Banks Reach To Leeward (Marina Dock).
Leeward Marina Resort and Spa, with Leeward Limited sponsored the Caicos Banks Reach To Leeward (a blow by blow update on that race follows).

TCI Bank sponsored Goldray Ewing’s Albert Higg’s built North Caicos Sloop in the 3 Races. This fast Sloop, usually named Maroons I, won the Cable & Wireless Trophy Race at South in a tacking and strategy battle with Fine Line Stubbs’ Man O’War, and (with an unsolved at this moment dispute) might have come in 2nd in the (Black) Rock to South Caicos Provident Limited Challenge Trophy (distance) Race. The official winner of the Provident Limited Challenge Trophy is Carlon Forbes onboard Environment II, a Middle Caicos Conch Sloop that was purchased and is being restored through the Community Conservation Fund and the Federation.

Barbara Young stayed up late making logos to put on the sails at a last minute hoped to be fulfilled order that I had to give. Thank you Barbara…

Speaking of late nights, sleep is a good thing and these guys and ladies who put the work behind getting five sloops to South Caicos did not get a bunch for the two days preceding the racing.

Launching and rigging of the sloops is a category that was jumped into at the last minute by a mainly host of volunteers and I did not have a camera. At one point I counted twelve bodies moving in groups to put together the rigging at our little Turtle Cove Marina dock and sort of beach. Crazy George came down to help and we scratched the gel-coat on his motor boat as regretted repayment when somebody did not tie off one sloop in the early light of morning as we left for South.

Unfortunately despite the efforts into the night Mobile Enforcer had rigging problems that could not be solved by 5 AM the next morning and waning energies. Environment I, commissioned by the DECR also developed a too serious leak that could not be located and remedied in the morning and had to be left behind with her new sails furled roughly on her new boom, under her new gaff on her new mast with her new rigging.

We wanted safe sloops not just sloops to go through the trouble of pulling to South just to show, so they were ruled unfit for sea. I made the call and I am responsible for the call. I am sorry to Cable & Wireless not to have shown Drex’s fine sloop in his home town but just a little bit longer and she will shine with more sloops on Providenciales at the Famous Fools Regatta.

JJ Parker, whose father used to take him on their sloops back when he was young, wanted this thing to happen so bad that after returning from Miami he launched himself into working on the sloops, arriving at the morning hour for push off without any sleep for twenty-four hours. JJ had no way of knowing that because of bung-ups at South he would have no sleep for another day and only late the following night would he rest for a few hours on a bench.

We were all exhausted after a seven-hour pull to The Rock, which is located about twenty miles from South Caicos and started the Provident Limited Challenge Trophy Race. Actually, I didn’t think we were going to race since we started from Provo so late and the other two boats from Middle were no where to be seen (they had already left). The DECR towed three sloops to The Rock and Captain Blue (whose actual name I don’t know) did a great job, with Henry Wilson, the South Caicos Committee Race Chairman, while being the Director of Maritime Affairs and a Federation Governor, at his side. If I have to be pulled around on a boat for seven hours I hope it will always be with Blue at the helm of the towboat.

Apology
I am also apologizing to Director Wesley Clerveaux of the DECR for being angry with him over our misunderstanding about our not being towed. I was under a lot of pressure at the last minute when expected tows became nonexistent tows. The DECR saved the day and we did get sloops to South only because of Wesley’s department. The DECR has always supported the Federation from its inception. We held our first official meeting at the Environmental Center and have had a great relationship with our goals of preservation overlapping.

The Provident Limited Challenge Cup
This race started the South Caicos Regatta back 39 years ago as a middle point start for the Caicos sailors who seasonally went to South Caicos for fishing and trading. The first race was sponsored by Fritz Ludington who was the principal player with the newly establishing development company called Provident Limited. Luddington saw this as a good thing for the people and an enjoyable way of preserving heritage.

This year Provident stepped up to the plate and donated quite a sum to ensure this traditional race would be restarted. Because of a lot of communications difficulties with the South Caicos Regatta Committee most of the racers did not know how much was being offered in prize monies until three days before the beginning of the race. The first prize was announced at $5000, which took our collective breath away. Unfortunately for those who would have assisted on the preparation for such a serious amount of money did not have time to re-schedule affairs to get their sloops in shape for the long sail South.

Last minute work on the Federation commissioned sloops, Mobile Enforcer and Environment I, did not satisfy our safety requirements and they were not ready for sea at the 5 AM deadline for the start of the tow from Providenciales to the Rock, a distance of a little less then 30 miles. Work shifted to the three sloops that could make the sojourn but that even was hampered by rerouted work schedules by those who wanted to crew.

The sloops left under the tow a DECR officer who I know as Blue. Henry Wilson, the Committee Race Chairman was aboard the tow vessel also. There were two crew aboard the TCI Bank sponsored sloop, two aboard the Bite Me Sport Fishing (Turtle Cove Marina) sponsored sloop and I skippered the Sky King sponsored sloop.

Out of Middle Caicos, Carlon Forbes sailed the DECR sponsored sloop and Dennis Been brought his little 16-footer. The Middle Caicos sloops overnighted at The Rock, which we had planned on doing but could not. They left at 9AM the next morning to begin the race into South Caicos without the committee boat starting the race, thinking that something had gone wrong. Carlon arrived at 5PM and Dennis followed me in at 9PM.

We arrived at the Rock and started off immediately around 2:15. The TCI Bank sloop and the Bite Me sloop took off, leaving me to unravel the tow line and raise my sails. The TCI Bank sloop was skippered by Wing Dean and Winston Rigby crewed. Bite Me was skipper-owner driven by Chris ‘Fine Line’ Stubbs and crewed by JJ Parker. I sailed single-handed.

The breeze, as in the tow down, and the swell were right on our nose for the finish line in front of the South Caicos main dock and we had a nice little 20 miles to sail with the little of the island visible from the start. We all beat back and forth for almost seven hours through the fault of a strong offshore current to gain the finish.

From our group TCI Bank came in first, Bite Me came next and I dragged home just before Dennis Been of Middle Caicos.

The Cable & Wireless Felix Morely Trophy
Felix Morely was by far the most winningest competitor in South Caicos Regatta history. He seemed to be blessed with the intuitive practicality that makes a sailor. He was not just a racer though, he was the real deal.

We were all disappointed that the Cable & Wireless commissioned Mobile Enforcer could not show her stuff at South Caicos in this particular race after working so long and hard to get her ready. We know that Cable & Wireless was especially disappointed since Drexwell Seymour, the Executive Manager, is from South. But we all felt it was better not to bring her when she had not been tried yet and still had rigging problems to solve.

That first night none of us slept well because of a mistake in our sleeping arrangements. Lee Penn put up everybody in his house, which was in construction. I stayed on the boat as a security measure. The next morning we had trouble getting out of the docking area because of the tide fall but were eventually towed out to anchor in front of the town dock and starting line.

It was a beautiful day with a 10 knot Southeasterly breeze that held little gusts of 14 knots. The sky put clouds only on the horizon and the crowd was excited. The clear water of South Caicos Harbour sparkled and the panorama of cays all around was dramatic.

The two times around the more or less four mile course started from anchor with a signal from Henry Wilson. A false start ensued then a real one followed and the sails were raised as the anchors were pulled up. Norman Saunders skippered the Sky King sloop (I just delivered the boat) with a crew of H. Hinderaker and Rolf Anonsen. The rest of the crewmembers remained the same with the exception of Goldray Ewing, the owner of the TCI Bank sloop, who flew down from Providenciales.

Carlon Forbes shot off and continued to increase his lead over the more modern sloops on the broad reach. He rounded the buoy before most were even half way up this leg. He was zooming with a boom that extended eight feet over his transom, meaning a lot of sail off the wind.

Environment II was purchased from Carlon as a restoration project that would, with Carlon as skipper, provide a heritage educational tool that would take youth to experience the how and why that fishermen used these remarkably fast little sloops. The purchase and restoration funding was provided by the Community Conservation through a Federation programme. Carlon was now leading the pack with good clean air on a shoulder o’mutton rigged workboat.

Dennis’ little sloop was next off the mark and kept up bravely when Bite Me challenged on this reaching leg, rounding the first mark together without mishap or penalty calling.

Fine Line was next on the Bite Me sponsored sloop having had a little trouble getting the sails up the way he wanted them but let out his Marconi and billowed his big genoa. He and JJ were serious about this race and their sloop was steadily plying forward.

Sky King was coming along next with the crew attempting to get used to a sloop that only one of them had ever sailed before. They tossed sand bags overboard to lessen the weight and started learning the intimacies of the working sloop.

The sloops are internally ballasted with weight stowed in specific areas of the hull for balance. The Sky King sloop held 14 bags of sand for the single-handed sail from Provo with only one person aboard. With three crew that amount of weight was surplus with a light to moderate wind.

The TCI Bank sloop had a problem at the start and went over to a small beach for some undisclosed reason, then turned back and joined the race. It looked like a faulty jib halyard or something in the rigging since they were all looking up. When they rejoined they did it in a rush gaining on everybody and eventually winning. They came from behind to win the race almost two hours later which ended a beating match with Bite Me until the finish mark was crossed.

TCI Bank, Bite Me, Environment II, Sky King, and Dennis’ sloop was the order of the winning.

The Caicos Banks Reach To Leeward

Traditionally, the fishermen and traders would race back North after conducting their business at South Caicos. They were impromptu affairs with somebody sighting somebody or arranging a race the night before.

Our Caicos Banks Reach To Leeward is the first organised one of its kind, pitting anybody against anybody willing with no rules on size or sail configuration. There were only three of us after a lot of initial interest by a great variety of vessels. Leeward Marina Resort and Spa and Leeward Limited were game enough to put up the prize money for the down wind, shallow water event.

The rule was to start at 9AM or whichever time after that hour and set foot at the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa dock first.

I started us out with a 9:45AM cast off just as Goldray, who was also sailing his TCI Bank sloop singlehanded was entering the small quay to refresh his supplies. The Bite Me sloop, Man O’War, followed me out and was crewed by Fine Line and JJ.

The light morning breeze was carrying nicely along after having filled sand bags with the help of H and Rolf to set the weight for a one-person ride. The brownish tinge of a bank lay ahead and I turned more to where the others were sailing just as a South Caicos boat came out to warn me. I regained the other two sloops and Fine Line pulled out ahead with Goldray taking a more Northerly course. I followed Fine Line through patches of coral and mounds of round stones.

The shallowness of the area fixed a picture of what times must have been like in the past and the importance of the South Caicos Lighters in the islands’ transportation needs. The South Caicos Lighters were larger then the Salt Cay Lighters or sailing barges. The design, that I have studied in pictures, shows a flat bottom with a fine entry and an almost cut off stern. The vessels relied on their wide beams for stability, and they used lots of sail up there in their loose footed gaff and dipping rigs.

Back on the race course I stayed just behind Fine Line and we chatted about how things could have been better for the sailors at the South Caicos Regatta. No place to stay for the two nights was not as bad as no place to shower and that seemed to cement feelings amongst those from Providenciales that they were not too enthused about returning to South for another regatta unless the Federation handled the organisation of the sailors part of the event.

At 1:45PM Goldray pulled up along side us showing the phenomenal speed assist of a new spinnaker made out of blue tarp. He had to adjust the tiller every three or four minutes and his sloop, the TCI Bank sponsored sloop sailed herself. Unfortunately, she sailed Goldray into shallows and he got stuck. We waited around for an hour in a lightning squall while a passing motor vessel assisted in pulling over into deep water, but that put him way behind us.

We reached Black Rock Channel a little after this and I thought we were home free… That’s what you get when you presume anything at sea. After threading our ways through the channel, which is well marked and safe, we reached the other side which had no markings and I was a half a mile ahead of Fine Line, who knew the way back to Providenciales. I kept a compass course of 305 degrees and though no land appeared at the end of the needle I stayed to it.

Around 7:45PM H and Tim came out to check on us in H’s new hard bottom inflatable. After checking my course I changed it to 295 degrees and was assured I only had about two hours left to reach land. The bottom around this area was very shallow with periodic shoals that touched the surface at low tide, which is where we were moving at the time.

I spotted Providenciales as a small whitish rectangle that had to be a building around 8PM as the light shut down and lights from the shoreline began to come on.

As darkness fell the question of anchoring loomed in place of running onto something unseen in the water. I persevered and eventually when near enough to land to lower my mainsail and run under jib alone. I was guessing where Leeward Going Through passage was with no blinking light that I was told would signal the place. Behind me to port I heard JJ and Fine Line saying something to somebody. I could barely make them out still sailing with their main up.

I passed the entrance just as they pulled abreast and went by. In the darkness I noticed that they were anchoring in the shallows near Leeward Marina Resort and Spa so I sailed on with them and the boys from the DECR boat who towed Goldray into port.

I found the dock in the dark and heard Katya and Lindsey and AJ call out to me, coasted over and with the help of a couple of guys on the dock tied up and went home to sleep.

We decided to split the winning purse three equal ways for the effort in attempting the course.

What is a Turks and Caicos Sloop?
A sloop is a sailing boat that has one mast, the stick that sits up in the boat, and at least two sails attached to that mast. Sometimes a sloop can have two, three, four or even five sails, but it always only has one mast. If you look at the drawing of the Bermuda Sloop you will see that it had a lot of sails but only one mast.

The Bermuda Sloop is actually where our little history begins. Back in 1678 some people from the islands called Bermuda sailed almost eight hundred miles from Bermuda to the Turks and Caicos to settle here and rake salt. They sailed here on Bermuda Sloops.

The Bermuda Sloop was strange for that time because it had sails that were placed in a front and back position on the boat, called fore and aft instead of across the boat like the old pirate movie ships.

This way of putting the sails allowed the boat to sail toward the direction the wind was coming better than that old design. It changed history and it changed history to get to the Turks and Caicos Islands to get salt.

In the Turks and Caicos Islands the Bermudans brought people to settle and live here to make sure that the salt was ready for their Sloops to come and get it.

Carnival Cruise Lines Donates $5000
On Saturday 12 May at the official Opening of the Carnival Cruise Center Chairman Mac Stubbs representing the Turks and Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation was handed a check for $5000 from Captain Gerry Ellis, Director of Port Development and Mr. Giora Israel, the Vice Chairman of Carvnival Cruise Lines. Captain Ellis lauded the Federation’s accomplishments and pledged support for our future.

The event was attended by Governor and Mrs Tauwhare, our Patron, Chief Minister and Mrs Mike Misick, the Legislative Council and about 150 people from all the islands.

We definitely say thank you to Gerry and Carnival.

Maritime Heritage Page Gets Bigger With New Publisher
Dr. Gilbert Morris is the new Publishing Editor with the Free Press now and changes are really coming about as a result of this move. Dr. Morris, an economist and economics instructor, is immediately increasing the size of the newspaper to a broadsheet format, making it a weekly, bringing in informative and creative international writing.

Our Maritime Heritage page will retain its size after the first issue but will become a half page in the new format. We are looking for the surrounding new format and level of information to be one of the best things to hit the Turks and Caicos in the communications arena in a very long time.

Sloop Update
Mary Jane
Gold Williams came by last Saturday and turned over Mary Jane but has not been seen since.
Environment I
The mast, boom and gaff for Environment I have been completed and are about to be painted. The chainplates, made by Mike Robertson of Osprey Marine, were installed and are awaiting rigging. The hull needs one more coat of epoxy and will be put back in the water for swelling and eventual practice.
Mobile Enforcer
The mast has been overhauled and the boom and gaff are awaiting creation. Mobile Enforcer will be rigged this week and will await a crew.
Ranger
Ranger needs some rigging adjustments and a cap rail which, I hope will be accomplished by next week
Environment II
Carlon Forbes will be giving Environment II a new coat of paint to change her colours to that of the DECR, her owner, of white, blue and green.
Going Through
Leeward Marina Resort & Spa has been very patient with us and we have been very patient with Carlon, who has agreed to build the Middle Caicos Conch Sloop but has only cut and formed the frames.

Racing
Carlon Forbes will be taking Environment II to the South Caicos Regatta along with Headley and Marcus Forbes on their respective Sloops. Dennis Been, Senior has also pledged to Bill Clare that he will be in South Caicos.

We have just found out that the South Caicos Regatta will have the following Sloop events:
Friday 26 May Provident Limited Challenge Trophy from (Black) Rock to South Caicos
Saturday 27 May Felix Morley Trophy
Cable & Wireless Trophy
George Lockhart Speed Sculling Race
Thomas Stubbs Trophy Conch Hooking Competition
There will also be a Best Overall Sloop Competition
On Monday 29th May we will start back to Providenciales in the Caicos Banks Reach To Leeward Race. This has never been officially attempted before and we are all excited.

Crew List
If you want to learn to sail and/or race a Caicos Sloop this is your opportunity. We are inviting the public to sign up on our Crew List for our community Sloops. Don’t be shy about it, just call us at 243 2093 or 946 4935 and add your name, number and/or email address and we will get back in touch with you and you will be sailing. It is free…

Duke of Edinburgh
The Federation will be assisting in the creation of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Adventure Journey Section for the Turks and Caicos Islands. We have submitted one maritime heritage expedition that has been accepted by the Department of Youth Affairs.

Yesterday afternoon, 16 May, there was a meeting of those youth interested in applying to the programme at the IGA Sports Centre. 28 young people made their ways to the meeting and received a general lecture and an application form. If you are under 24 and over 14 you are eligible to pariticipate in this prestigious award programme. I have a feeling there will be a lot of marine associated projects hatched amongst the young people.

Famous Fools Regatta
The T&C Fire Service is looking for your rafts to participate in the Great Raft Race. You will see this poster around the island with information on how to get in touch and find out what you need to… or call 941 8090/ 231 4532.

We are looking for somebody to organise the sand castle competition, if you know anybody who can also teach youngsters how to do it, please give a call to 243 2093 or 946 4935

Party Land will blow up 400 balloons for the Famous Fools Regatta festive air. Thanks for all that air.

The Boat Store
It has been brought to my attention by Lorna Slade that I wrote in the last update that we did not have WoodenBoat Magazine for sale for $6.99 for members and $7.99 for non-members, well, I am correcting that by stating that not only do we have WoodenBoat for $6.99 for members and $7.99 for non-members but we also have some really fancy charts by Bob Gascoinne and Jane Minty as well as their usual excellent charts of the Turks and Caicos and Providenciales.

Our new location will open 1 June and will be located right next door to the old location at The Market Place

Good News Bad News that is Good News but…
Famous Fools Regatta
The Good News is that we are moving along with Famous Fools Regatta in the organizational details and infrastructural base. We are also collecting funding for the general bills that will be encumbered, so you should be able to enjoy a different and we hope, the great celebration of a sailing beach party that started out as a multihull race between friends.

We do need some people who would like to assist planning how to turn Children’s Park and the adjoining newly named Regatta Beach into something that makes us all happy to go there. We need people who enjoy colour and flags and all that stuff to make a beach party into a fayre (fair for Americans). Katya is doing a great job again with her detail oriented mind but she could stand a few hints in the festive atmosphere area. Remember, the Federation might be the general host but like with everything we do, we are all a part of this, so let’s have one big party on the beach…

Oh, we have no more space on the t-shirts. There are two designs this year again.

South Caicos Regatta
I have always been a little bit confused by our role in the South Caicos Regatta and so have the racers up here in Providenciales. They want us to make sure there will be cash prizes by putting that amount into our bank account and issuing the individual checks to the SC Regatta Race Committee. I don’t mind doing it to set their minds at ease but this SDRC is made up of trustable people and that puts us sort of in the middle of sectionalism again. I guess that is our role anyway.

If the Wheeland-Bluehill sailors do not show up at South, for whatever reason, we should have at least five Sloops coming from Providenciales. We need crews for the sloops. We will need at least eight people. Those who have said that they would like to crew get in touch with me please, we have to practice. We have two new sloops, Mobile Enforcer and Environment I, our Ranger from Chalk Sound, and with Goldray Ewing and JJ Parker bringing their sloops that makes five. We could have two others from Wheeland… The Middle Caicos racers will be bringing our other Environment II and there will be Headley and Marcus Forbes with their other two sloops.

There will be a crew meeting this week. I will write and let you know when and where.

Provo Day
We are submitting a proposal to the TCI Tourist Board, who are supporting a lot of intra-island events, that contains the budget of this year’s Provo Day Traditional Sailing Race off Bluehills. We are late in submitting the budget but the usual organizational coordination is our excuse. Donna, you will have the projected budget tomorrow.

Building the Caicos Sloops
Gold Williams is letting us down for some odd reason on getting Mary Jane finished. I think he has just taken on too much work, but Mary Jane has sat in the same condition for over five weeks without much being done. I had heard, since he doesn’t answer his phone these days, that he was waiting for somebody to change the blades on our planer but we would say, if he were to answer the phone, go and rent a planer if this one is not good enough, just finish the boat. If you see him you can pass that along…

JJ Parker has moved his ward, Fine Line Stubb’s sloop, onto The Market Place site for renovation. We are about to start working on it now, if anybody wishes to volunteer, she is a very fast sloop and actually is for sale at $5000.

Carlon Forbes is again supposed to be coming to Providenciales today or tomorrow to choose his planking material from our stock of Spanish Cedar and collect his fasteners and the tools he will need to design and construct Leeward Marina Resort and Spa’s Middle Caicos Conch Sloop.

We have finished a very light mast for Environment I and are considering building one for Mobile Enforcer that is lighter then the one we have. The booms and gaffs are being worked on now. If you want to assist the building of spars come by the Environmental Center any day after 2:30PM, in the back where our workshed (built by DECR) and the Sloop is.

Funding
We have submitted a lot of proposals for this year’s governmental budget through the various Departments affecting the Federation’s work. Our biggest weak point is administration, which relies upon contributions, percentages of projects and retail sales. We are hoping that the Ministry of the Environment will help us out with a proposal to fund our administration for one year, which frees us up from the search for living expenses while doing everything in our power to get self-sufficient.

Mac Stubbs, Goldray Ewing and myself are looking into the areas of income producing properties to assist the administration operational expenses through the concept of obtaining government land and constructing something that earns an income upon them. That, with a loan from TCInvest.

Through this we seem to have been placed on a track that leads us to the construction of maritime oriented recreational areas that emphasize youth. A lot of good will is coming our way from government to move in this direction. What do you think?

Our great behind the scenes Donna Bartram is decorating our new location at The Market Place just next door to our present bungalow. The new location will primarily feature the retail aspect of our mandate with a small office for information and gathering memberships. We will move the main office to our home until we can put it in another location.

Enid Capron Models
Volunteer Karen Musgrove found herself in the midst of mayhem this last Friday at our weekly Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme gemelemi model sloop building session as the kids were so happy to be doing their sloops again they almost completely forgot about discipline. It was nice to see them again and work with them but I had to be more heavy handed then usual to get them not to get paint everywhere. Next week will be the last session at Enid Capron and will see nine models completed thanks to the sponsorship of Beaches Resort. We will display the sloops at Beaches and other areas. The students will begin racing them during the Summer.

Our Annual Report
The first Annual Report (2006) has not been ratified nor discussed by our Board of Governors as of yet. I, who wrote it, have found two mistakes: the omission of the list of the first interim Board of Governors and in the sum of the budget for 2005. I am waiting for the Governors to suggest any changes and to have a meeting to vote on acceptance. We did a lot, thanks to our corporate membership, general membership, Boards of Governors and all of the sponsors for all of the stuff. It should count as a proud year.

Bermuda BAD NEWS
I received an email from the Bermuda Sloop Foundation early last week that informed us that the inaugural voyage from Maine to Bermuda has been cancelled due to a construction delay and the launching moving into the hurricane season. They are not allowed to carry more then a delivery crew during that period. They did say that next year, during the Summer, the invitation will be resent for two youth to sail along the coast of the US from the Chesepeake to Maine. Big disappointment for us and the kids…

WoodenBoat Show
We have received no response from either Carl at Tropical Shipping nor the Tourist Board about the upcoming WoodenBoat Show appearance by the T&C. This prestigious event usually has around 250 classic sailing vessels on show with up to 250,000 attendees in this not so niche market. We wanted to take a Sloop to it and promote the importance of the Turks and Caicos Bermudan era to the settlement of the entire East coast of North America. That is a big point that we felt would be not only received well but would start researchers toward the Turks and Caicos to establish that very large bit of information about the development of the coasting schooner, pilot boats, the America as a part of the history of the Bermuda Sloop (which was developed to sail to windward to the Turks and Caicos Islands).

Duke of Edinburgh Award
The Department of Youth requested that the Federation assist in the set up of the Kurt Hahn established Duke of Edinburgh Award for the Turks and Caicos Islands. We have been asked to create the marine expeditions and have accepted since we already have progammes based on the Kurt Hahn philosophy of experiential education. A proposal has been submitted to the Department of Youth and we did conduct the instruction for the instructors on a weekend seminar that saw the Director for the American Region, Mr. David Clarke, overseeing.

Carnival Cruise Lines Grant
We received this email from Carnival out of the blue the other day:
I have been enjoying the email correspondence and watching the progress
of the foundation with interest. I think you are doing a great job.
I would like to present the Maritime Heritage Foundation with a
donation of $5000 during the opening ceremony of the Grand Turk Cruise Centre on
May 12th at 1pm. I would be very pleased if you could be there to receive this check as a mark of appreciation of what you are doing for the community of the Turks and Caicos islands.
With best regards,
Gerry.
----------------------------------------------------
Gerry Ellis MNI MRIN
Director, Port Development Projects
Strategic Planning Dept
Carnival Corporation

That definitely made St Elmo’s Fire out of a somber day.

Tourist Board Off Maritime Heritage Page
The TCI Tourist Board, a corporate member and sitting on the Board of Governors has decided not to support the Maritime Heritage Page that we have in the Free Press. That offers a chance to another business to put their support where it is needed. The Maritime Heritage page has not missed one issue since April 2005 and has proved popular enough to be asked to branch out into the Sun newspaper with a different slant. It is $250 per issue of the Free Press if you or your business is interested. The Free Press will be re-starting with another editor, another look and another schedule in about a week.

That’s it for the first of these reports…
If you have something to add or want to contribute to the next little newsletter please call me or email.
H.E. Ross
243 2093/ 946 4935

Hopefully, we will have an interesting chronicle of the new organisation’s road to this point. Thankfully, Laura and the TCI Mall has been keeping track of us through eyebrowing us into keeping this weekly update for over a year now and all that information is already presented.

Duke of Edinburgh
TCMHF was chosen by the Department of Youth Affairs to give the expedition training for the Duke of Edinburgh Award instructors’ training over the last weekend and we had a good time doing it. David Clarke, the American Region Director, came to Grand Turk to give a seminar on the programme. Angela Forbes, the dynamic new Director of the Department of Youth Affairs will be registering participants as soon as the instruction books and record books arrive and that news will be sent out through the media.

The Duke of Edinburgh Award Programme was the brainchild of philosopher Kurt Hahn and his student, the then Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh back in 1956. Originally formed as a boys’s character building series of adventure and social non-competitive tests it soon stretched and included girls. The age parameters of the Programme, also called the International Award for Young People, are 14 through 24 years. There have been over 6 million young people involved with the Awards since its inception. It is in 112 countries

The four main categories or sections of awards are :
• The Service Section developing a sense of community responsibility
• The Adventurous Journey Section developing a spirit of adventure, discovery and environmental awareness
• The Skills Section developes cultural, vocational and practical skills
• The Physical Recreation Section encourages improved performance and fitness

Each category has its own achievement level standards that are represented as Bronze, Silver and Gold medals that are awarded by the President of the Duke of Edinburgh Programme. That used to be the Duke himself but he ruled himself out by a 75 year old retirement age limit. Today, HRH Prince Edward runs the overall programme.

There is also a fifth Section called the Residential Project restricted to the Gold level only which takes youth and puts them into other then home residential projects to broaden their awareness.

We are presently putting together a sail training programme for the Adventurous Journey Section and will give you the low down on that enjoyable Summer event as soon as it has been modified and accepted.

Youth and How Culture Works
We will be having several members of the weekend seminar on the show to discuss the role of young people in todays’ society. We will also discuss the Duke of Edinburgh Award Programme. 9PM Channel 4 Wednesday evening How Culture Works

Sloop Updates
Environment I has a new mast and is being rigged by Mike Robertson of Osprey Marine Serivces. The mast is awaiting its boom and gaff. The sails should arrive at any minute this week.

Keith Miller of Caribbean Cruisin’ is volunteering some of his crew and himself to sand down and paint our sculling dinghy. The dinghy will be used to teach sculling at the upcoming Famous Fools Regatta on 17 June off Children’s Park at Regatta Beach.

Fine Line Stubbs’ Sloop is at the Market Place being restored to race at South Caicos for the South Caicos Regatta traditional racing. JJ Parker will helm the fast vessel.

The mast for Mobile Enforcer is being finalized and should be installed this week in preparation for the South Caicos Regatta.

The rigging will be cut and spliced by WIV Cable this Friday at Ena Capron Primary School for Environment I and Mobile Enforcer as a demonstration and skills training lesson for the sixth-grade students. If you want to see how this is done come on down to 5 Cays and take a look. We always need volunteers for our Friday afternoon (1-2:30) Gemelemi Model Sloop classes… Call Katya at 243 2093.

The Crew List
We are just about finished rigging Mobile Enforcer and Environment I, and we are about to do some work on Ranger and Fine Line’s Sloop. We will probably be in the position to send six Sloops to South Caicos but we need crews. We have the boats now but we need a good crew list to draw from.

After South Caicos will come the all out, no rules Caicos Banks Reach to Leeward, which is being sponsored by both Leeward Limited and Leeward Marina Resort and Spa. After that we will have the Famous Fools Regatta and for all three events we need crew to race and to sail. After the racing the Sloops will be available for those who learned to crew them to just for a nice little recreational sail. What a deal ! Call 946 4935 or 243 2093 and put your name on The Crew List. We will be needing to practice before the events, so don’t hesitate, enjoy a traditional Caicos Sloop.

This is the fourth week that Gold has not worked on the Mary Jane without explanation except that he would like to see the planer blades sharpened and he is working on another Sloop for Kevin Harvey.

We are building the first of three masts with a box configuration that gets planed down to eigths, then sixteenths, then rounded. The box of light cedar planks are cut to different sizes, then clamped together and electrical tie bounded in place using WEST Epoxy with cotton fibre filler. There are spacer baffles placed in the box configuration for strength and shape which are also bonded with epoxy. The first mast is 23’ 6” and is formed as a gaff main mast for Environment I. Using the example of the first mast we are going to construct the second and third at the same time for both Mobile Enforcer and Mary Jane.

Mike Robertson of Osprey Marine is doing the final measuring for chain plate angles for Environment I and will go with 1/8th” x 1 ¼” stainless steel. The chainplates will be mounted next week.

Jeff Frank of Sailrite says the two sets of sails for Mobile Enforcer and Environment I will be here next week. We should be epoxying the interior of Environment I this week and have her back in the water by the beginning of next week, so the DECR crew will start practicing on her. We need crew, so if you are interested in crewing a good, stable and brand new Caicos Sloop just give us a call.

Carlon Forbes will not be here this week to choose his cedar for the construction of Leeward Marina Resort and Spa’s Caicos Sloop. He promises to be here Tuesday of next week and get going on the construction the minute he gets the material and tools to Middle Caicos. I will be going to Middle to see his start up at the Doris Robinson Primary School.

WIV Channel 4 Famous Fools and the South Caicos Regatta
TCMHF is putting on the Famous Fools Regatta at what we are calling Regatta Beach, the Grace Bay area between Beaches and the sailboard beach , focussing on the Children’s Park. The Famous Fools Regatta will be on the 17th June this year and has generated a lot of interest.

The South Caicos Regatta will be held on the 27th May starting with the race from the Rock which will be sponsored by Provident Limited as it was 39 years ago at the first South Caicos Regatta. This is the longest ongoing sailing race in the Turks and Caicos and fell to no sloops racing for the last two years. This year we plan on changing that with at least 8 sloops participating. If you want to crew, we need you.

Tonight on WIV Channel 4 we will be having a bunch of racers telling what they feel the future of traditional Sloop racing will be and how to make it better. It should be a good programme on How Culture Works, 9PM.

Volunteers
Jacqueline Conway has stepped up to the bat to assist in the organisation of the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club. The problem has not been enlisting youth but in enlisting adults to assist in organising the youth.

The concept is to form a group of young people who are interested in more then just learning how to sail. We would like them to understand the many areas in the sailing world, especially relevant to the Turks and Caicos Islands and its history. Because of the Bermudan influence here there is a rich history that not only needs to be uncovered but will assist in the cultural tourism product for the Turks and Caicos. This is a very important aspect of the history of these Islands that seems to keep being overlooked so it is fitting that the young people do the research and that is a prime motivating aspect for the formation of the Sea Rangers, making sailing relevant and an ongoing part of the TCI experience.

Clubhouse
We have approached Honourable Gilley Williams about including TCMHF in the master plan for the development of the national park that encompasses the Children’s Park and have been told that we are included. Architect Simon Wood is scheduling a meeting with TCMHF about the design concepts.
We are also approaching the Planning Department about a Clubhouse on Chalk Sound for an eventual race venue of 16-foot Salt Cay Lighters we are planning on designing and constructing. If you are interested in getting involved with either concept, call us a 946 4935.

The Easter holidays sort of submerged a lot of the work that was going to be accomplished this last week. We were not planning on a lot of businesses closing their doors on Thursday at noon…

Anyway, we started one of two sets of masts for the two Sloops we have in the water, or had in the water. As a last step we pulled Environment I back out of the water for rigging and to encase the interior in epoxy and paint.

The Leeward Marina Resort and Spa commissioned Sloop has started construction in Middle Caicos with Carlon Forbes going out into the bush and cutting the timbers (frames) for the 21-footer. Carlon could not find anybody to assist, unfortunately, because of an increase in development construction employment at the moment. But, he says, it’s all right, that he was doing all right with it.

Carlon will be coming to Providenciales next week to choose his Spanish Cedar that we are storing at the Environmental Center.

Mast, booms and gaffs s are being made from long grain Spanish Cedar because of availability, lightness and the straight grain inherent to the wood. It is just a fraction heavier then traditional Spruce, which would have to be special ordered for the needed straight grain. We are also building the masts as a hollow extended box and rounding the edges for the gaff jaws. Again, this is for lightness and strength.

Since the Sloops will be gaff rigged, except for the Middle Caicos Sloop, which will have a Shoulder O’Mutton rig, we want as much weight reduction as possible higher up. One of the reasons that a lot of the older sloops went the triangular Marconi, or Bermudian is because of the weight of the spars aloft and the sail material.

Mike Robertson of Osprey Marine will be measuring Environment I for chainplates tomorrow morning around 9AM if anybody is interested in how this is done.

We still need volunteers to assist with the spar building. You can be an adult or you can be a young person.

Bermuda Schooner
Director of Youth Affairs, Angela Forbes has two more youth from South Caicos entered in our crew selection process for crewing the 85-foot Bermuda Schooner replica, Spirit of Bermuda. It is still a puzzle to me why so few are trying to get their kids aboard. It is free. One week of Outward Bound amongst the Maine archipelago and five or six days crossing the Atlantic to Bermuda?? I tried to enlist myself but caught myself in my own lie.

The only requirements are to be interested and around 16 years old. Angela has energetically put out the word and now has eight entries. We will select the two to go by aninterview, written essay and a nice little sail aboard the Rotary donated, Ranger on Chalk Sound.

Crew Wanted
We need crew members for the racing coming up on the traditional Sloops. We have the Rock to South Caicos Race. We have the South Caicos to Provo free for all. We have the Famous Fools Regatta. We have the Provo Day Regatta. We have Middle Caicos Day Regatta. We have the Conch Festival….
We need crew. We have boats now. You only have to donate a little time to learn how to sail these particular types of boats and to get into some sort of team spirit. Get on the crew list by giving us a call at 243 2093 or 946 4935.

Famous Fools Regatta
Katya is back and is looking for volunteers to assist in making this 16th year of the Famous Fools Regatta the greatest one ever. She has a list of stuff to do but did not get it to me to enter in this already late update. Call her and find out what she has planned for you at 243 2093 or 946 4935. The mobile is the easier contact.

Photos:
James Dean planking a new Sloop for Kevin ‘Baba’ Harvey; Gold framing a wide Sloop for Baba also, George getting ‘Wild Thing’ ready for the regattas coming up; Wing working on the new big, ‘Shy Anne’ and offering his beloved, ‘1 Can of Whoopass’, for sale.

J. Dean new 'Buba' boat	'Shy Anne'	'Shy Anne' interior
	'I Can Bow'

Moving Office
This week we will be moving next door to the bungalow to your right as you drive into The Market Place. It has more space and we will be offering nautically related retail items such as models, clothing, charts, souvenirs, paintings, photographs, cards, books and magazines

Famous Fools Regatta 2006
This year marks the 16th anniversary of this never the same sailing and beach event. Though this regatta bears practically no resemblance to the original no rules multihull race from Sapodilla Bay, it has, like all of us, evolved its own character.

As the Turks and Caicos grew, the population saw a need to use every opportunity to assist community projects and this event turned into a community needs fund raiser with land events balancing the spectator crowd with giving to worthy causes.

This is the second year that the Maritime Heritage Federation is hosting the event, called by some , a really complex headache, and we relish the new concept that is growing naturally from our goals. We are turning the Fools Regatta into the Famous Fools Regatta and creating a cultural faire.

Culture has become a big word around here but we have to remember that culture does not necessarily mean boring… The Famous Fools Regatta will keep on keeping on with its now ‘cultural’ emphasis on being the biggest ongoing beach party in the Turks and Caicos.

Imagine what we have here: sailing races on the horizon, dj and live music, food from all over the place, tents on the beach, the sea with lots of free boat rides, children running and splashing, seeing people you haven’t seen in a long time or just in a work situation, photographers capturing these moments as though they only happen once a year. I can go on but you or somebody nearby can tell you their impressions of last year’s event with almost 2500 people (all told) mixing as only in the Conch Festival they mix with good cheer.

Combining with the efforts of the Department of Culture we are going to put on a lot of demonstrations of traditional stuff, like a ripsaw band contest that you will be the judge, the greased pole game, a conch gathering competition, the Gilley’s Challenge Race of children in traditional sloops.

This year will be different and it will be the same with the bottom line being fun.

Now, if you want to make sure there is a lot of fun on the beach, just call 243 2093 or 946 4935 to volunteer. We have a lot of categories that will not take much time but will benefit all. The venue is not set yet but the Famous Fools Regatta will be on the 17th of June.

Social Entrepreneurship
The Federation hosted a roundtable meeting at the Environmental Center last night with two themes: formation of a Turks and Caicos United Fund, and Self Sufficiency for Turks and Caicos NGOs.

The meeting was attended by fifteen activists who continued the informal discussions for almost three hours. Luckily, Cable & Wireless, through the Corner Café, provided delicious and filling snacks for those attending.

The meeting mainly centered on forming a united fund type of organization that would greatly benefit the ngos, the private sector and government.

As Chuck Hesse, who started up the first official ngo in the Turks and Caicos (P.R.I.D.E) pointed out, -we have to think of the future now. As this community grows where will the funding come from to do what is necessary to keep the services that will be needed. Chuck also felt that to create such an entity we need to identify the needs of the community groups and those of the funders.

It was decided that a small committee be formed to outline a strategy to bring all the community groups to one table. It was also decided that we need to bring a United Fund representative to the Turks and Caicos to assist the formation of such a group.
The for profit non profit part of the discussion stayed fixed on the need of ngos to found private sector businesses, that were in keeping with their mandates, for their own support.

The constant theme of the meeting was that this was a transitional period in the history of the Turks and Caicos and though the philanthropic will is there amongst businesses, the needs of the community are going beyond their scope of assistance.

Federation to Organize South Caicos Regatta Traditional Races
A late start is giving the Maritime Heritage Federation a task that will hopefully galvanize its membership in presenting this year’s South Caicos Regatta in a form that will bring tears to the ol’ folk and smiles to the newer ones.

The South Caicos Regatta Committee has given permission for the Federation to take over the organization of the four traditional vessel competitions in this year’s South Caicos Regatta. This comes as a result of the lack of sailing in the last two Regattas and the will of this committee to change all that and get back to something that was special.

The South Caicos Regatta is the longest ongoing public event in the history of the Turks and Caicos, having its creation as a result of the royal visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinbourgh’s visit back in 1966. This will be the 40th year since their visit and there has been a Regatta every year after their coming to the Turks and Caicos. It was also originated as a way of celebrating the maritime heritage of these islands. The funding generated from the event originally went to the Turks and Caicos Rescue Squadron. It is the hope of the Federation that a Rescue Squadron be reactivated with the generated funding from this event. The Rescue Squadron slowly dissolved in the 1970s, as did the sailing part of the Regatta. It is hoped that both will be rejuvenated in 2006.

There will be at least four competitions this year, including the famous Provident Challenge Cup Race from the Rock to South Caicos. The competitions will be named after the best of the former champions of the South Caicos Regatta.

Famous Fools Regatta Need Crews
The 16th year of the Fools Regatta has made it Famous now and the title has changed to prove that. The Famous Fools Regatta will be starting up committees that will make sure that all the community groups in the Turks and Caicos Islands know that this event is going to be a place for them to showcase their projects and have a good time doing it.

The multi-hull race that started the event has seen every type of sailing vessel imaginable added to its ranks and with the formation of the Federation the focus has shifted to bring more attention toward traditional Caicos Sloops. With the addition of community Sloops the crews of the competitors aboard the traditional sloops will now be not only Belongers and their possible expat guests but everybody on the islands will be eligible to sign up for crewing positions. These community Sloops are to be utilized by the whole community through structured educational heritage classes and membership in the Federation.

The South Caicos Regatta and the Famous Fools Regatta will start off the racing aspect of this Federation direction in the use of the Caicos Sloops. If you are interested in either race, call 243 2093 or 946 4935. I am not in the office a lot due to my assistant being on vacation, so the mobile is the easier way of reaching me.

Department of Youth Canvassing Youth For Bermuda Schooner
Angela Forbes, a former teacher and now Director of Youth Affairs, is dynamic. After finding out that we have been looking for two youth, aged 16 or 17, to join the 1790 replica of a Bermuda Schooner being built by the Bermuda Sloop Foundation at their invitation, she jumped into action and alerted all the schools in the Turks and Caicos to canvas their students to see who might be interested.

I might add that the Federation had asked the former Director but nothing happened. She has come up with volunteers from Middle and North Caicos. Interesting… Nothing on Providenciales yet, but if you have a child who would want to have this experience of a lifetime just call me at 243 2093. We don’t have much time left. The Bermuda Sloop Foundation has sent the question, do we want to accept the invitation to us and we are answering yes.

The invitation includes a one-week Outward Bound course in seamanship and social interplay. And it is all free, except for the transportation to Maine and the transportation from Bermuda.

Sloop Update
Nothing has happened on Mary Jane for the past 2 ½ weeks and I cannot get in touch with Gold Williams.
Carlon Forbes will be coming to Providenciales to choose his wood this week for the Going Through Sloop, commissioned by Leeward Marina Resort and Spa.
Environment I did not get hauled out but the mast is being laid out and constructed this week and we hope to coordinate the haul out this Friday. If you wish to help just call 243 2093.
The mast for Cable & Wireless’ Mobile Enforcer will also be made at the Environmental Center and the mast will be rigged by us there. We cannot wait for Gold’s busy schedule to finish this sloop. We want these boats to be in the South Caicos Regatta with crews that understand the basics of the abilities of the sloops they are on.

The design and construction of Environment I was the creation of Mr. James Dean of Wheelands as a Blue Hills Conch Sloop. She measures 22’9” overall, with a width (beam) of 7’8” and a draft of 30”. Environment I was launched last Saturday, 25 March 2006 during the Discount Liquors’ Fishin’ Fools Wahoo Tournament at Turtle Cove Marina.

A nice crowd of approximately 150 witnessed the launching, with about 12 people participating in the lowering of the trailer. Volunteer, Geoff Mander, put the anti-fouling on the bottom. James’ daughter Cheryl (Dean) Malcolm broke the champagne bottle and pronounced her name, Environment I, to send the Sloop into her natural element. This also completed a cycle.

The Generation Cycle:
Mrs. Cecelia (Dean) Smith was the first to teach her little brother, James Dean, how to build boats. Now, James built Environment I, his fortieth vessel in his 68 years of life. Environment I will go to Sailing Paradise, which is owned by Kevin Harvey. Kevin, called Baba by most, built Sailing Paradise as a tribute to his grandparents, David and Cecelia Smith. Kevin will use the Sloop as part of a fleet he is presently involved with constructing to take visitors on cultural tours, showing them the old ways of fishing and sailing. He will also take young people out through the Federation’s Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club from Sailing Paradise in Blue Hills.

What a story, eh?

Note: Environment I has been filled with water to swell and will be taken back to the Environmental Center for rigging and sail fitting this week.

We Don’t Want Our Children To Sail
One thing that has not been resolved and we need the public for this one, is using the unique opportunity of sending two Turks and Caicos youth to Maine this July to be aboard the inaugural voyage of the Spirit of Bermuda. I find it amazing that nobody has come forward with this one. There is no cost to the families of the youth. The Federation will seek the sponsors for the transportation to Maine and from Bermuda, all one has to do is apply??? The child needs to be a resident of the Turks and Caicos Islands and be 16 or 17 years old.

Models started up again and we need volunteers
If you can squeeze it in during the hours of 1PM and 2:30PM we need your supervisory temperament at Enid Capron Primary School this Friday and the next. The Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme has started the second group of students off on building gemelemi model sloops that will be raced in inter- and intra-scholastic sailing competitions… and proud display.

Though we have not received much media coverage, the results of the first group’s trials has surprised local boatwrights with their attention to detail. This is a perfect way to take these skills to the private school sector as all the public school sixth graders in the project are completely enjoying their learning experience. I am too.

Two weeks ago we had five volunteers. Last week we had me.

Call us if you wish to contribute to the happiness-in-learning of these kids. 946 4935/ 243 2093, probably the mobile is the better choice.

Federation Holding General Meeting This Tuesday
Under the title, Generating and Sustaining Nonprofit Earned Income, the Maritime Heritage Federation is holding a mini-seminar on how cultural groups can organize to become self-sustaining. We are doing this using our needs as an example and going through the processes needed to insure that we not only survive but can expand our programmes and projects to include as many aspects of our mandate as the public wishes.

The meeting was called for last Tuesday as part of a brain storming session for the Board of Governors, but because of the interest aroused amongst those invited, we decided to postpone a general meeting in order to make things more precise for a larger group of people.

The gist is to create an for profit enterprise that supports the non profit business of the Federation that has to be in keeping with our mandate. This is not a new idea, but in a tax haven sometimes the strategies of nonprofits in a non-tax haven are overlooked. We have researched and are researching to bring as much information to this meeting as possible, which is why we are calling it a mini-seminar. We want the worthy mandates of our cultural community to be fulfilled which is why we do How Culture Works every Wednesday evening at 9PM.

The meeting will be held at the Environmental Center at 5PM, Tuesday 4 April and the public is invited, if I forgot to write that.

Speaking of How Culture Works
Tonight we will have a special guest, they are all special, in Dr. Gilbert Morris. The theme will be The Benefits of Cultural Tourism to Youth. What do you think? It is a call-in programme? Dr. Morris, I find, an economist is also a philosopher so I guarantee this show will be interesting. Next week we will have onboard, Mr. Delton Jones and Mr. Clyde Robinson addressing the National 10-Year Plan.

Wing’s New Sloop-Forgive me Wing
Wing Dean has been frantically building his big and revolutionary 28-foot Wheelands Sloop to race in the upcoming Famous Fools Regatta and the South Caicos Regatta races. I have failed to keep up with his progress but plan to do a story on the conception and realization in the Free Press on our Maritime Heritage page for next week.

Forgive me Wing. He is already painting the hull…

Note: Wing has his winning 1 Can of Whoopass Caicos Sloop for sale at $5000 to support the present venture. If you want a fast, fast traditional Sloop, give him some money and let him get out of boat construction debt. You can call me, Ross, at 243 2093 or Wing at 231 3586.

The Turks and Caicos Famous Fools Regatta 2006
Yesterday the Federation Board voted on taking on the 16th Annual Fools Regatta’s under the new name, Famous Fools Regatta, as suggested by H. Hinderaker, a Governor in response to many having problems with the Fool part of the name. It was thought that the Famous shifted emphasis.
Last night we attended a Volunteer Fire Department meeting in which Chris Gannon put it to the members to take on the Famous Fools Regatta Raft Race this year and they agreed unanimously. The Fire Department put on the best raft race yet with 23 entrees. This year they will have specific rules and a lot of categories.

The concept for this year’s regatta is for the non-profits to emphasize education and to create a cooperative faire atmosphere. So far, after three days work, the Red Cross, TCSPCA and the Fire Department have agreed to participate as groups. We will be calling all the registered NGOs for the next month to invite them to become a part of what could be the best (Famous) Fools Regatta yet.

The t-shirt spaces are going fast so call us if we haven’t called you yet. It is $100 for a logo on the back of one of two t-shirts. This year we might even have to do three designs. It looks like we want a party on the 17th of June this year!

Mary Jane
Gold got to work on the Mary Jane again this week. He placed two more planks after planing them to beautiful red cedar sheen. He followed this with painting the seams with epoxy and micro-balloons. As a matter of fact he is out there right now planing down some more planks and wants to finish planking by next week’s end.

Gold wants to race Mary Jane and is looking to put together a crew. Washington, Phillip, Mike?

Leeward Marina Resort and Spa
Going Through is getting off to a slow start with the materials finally arriving yesterday. Carlon is working on another project at the moment and will not be able to get to the starting of the construction until next week. He will come to Providenciales and we will go through all the materials that he will need and ship them back to Middle Caicos, where he will build the 22-foot sloop at the Doris Robinson Primary School.

Primary School Maritime Heritage Programme
This was the last day of work for half of the sixth grade students of Enid Capron Primary School. Unfortunately for the kids WIV Channel 4 News did not think it a priority to come and shoot the five weeks of progress that they put into their racing model sloops. Our still photography is the only preservation method used in their feat.

These students went out on a Caicos Sloop, wrote essays, took a heritage test, chopped, chiselled, carved, sanded, cut sails and rigged gemelemi logs into models. Next, after the models we will be doing a more detailed essay and a painting programme.

We will be starting the second half of the sixth grade students at Enid Capron and always need volunteers to give the added attention to the students. If interested please call 243 2093 Katya

Providenciales Museum
National Museum Director Nigel Sadler invited several members of the community groups and government bodies that would be affected by a museum on Providenciales to a special meeting to introduce the awarded architects, Lee and Astwood of Providenciales and Snohetta of Norway. The meeting was also to see what uses can be incorporated into the design plan that were submitted by the cultural groups.

The proposed museum will be on a small ridge along Leeward Highway overlooking Grace Bay and will drop down to a wetlands area. We should all support the effort of the National Museum in this endeavour and contribute our ideas to what the museum should contain.

A special programme will be aired on How Culture Works this evening at 9PM to discuss what a museum should be to get the public interested in attending and using the facility.

The Famous Fools Regatta and the South Caicos Regatta
We are presently starting up a promotional and strategy session to try and combine the two big racing events, well the South Caicos Regatta used to be and we hope will be again, of this year. The name Fools Regatta has turned a lot of potential sponsors off so we or at least H.H. Hinderaker thought up the shift of emphasis name Famous Fools Regatta, which is what we will call it now.

The event will change in another way. The Federation wants to encourage community group participation in the Famous Fools Regatta and turn it into a maritime day faire, with the groups participating sharing the income in a cooperative manner.

We thought the natural linkage with the South Caicos Regatta might strengthen the attendance at that 27 May event in South Caicos. We will be needing crews for the Caicos Sloops that we hope will sail a race to South Caicos and another one after the main race, back from South Caicos. More information is forthcoming.

Environment I
We are winding down the finish work on the DECR hull with even more sanding and the painting of two stripes of blue and green. Today the decks will be detailed with white and the topsides also painted white between the stripes of colour.

The mast will also be started today. Lots to do at the Environmental Center, so if you want to help just come bay most afternoons after 3PM and until dark. We want to have the finished hull in the water by the end of the month with mast, rigging and sails.

(Leeward) Going Through
The Leeward Marina Resort and Spa sloop still awaits building materials ordered through Southwind Millworks. A miscommunication is the culprit but the materials are on the way. The hull will be planked with straight grained Spanish Cedar and we hope Leeward will want to finish coat her in varnish to show off this beautiful wood. She will be built as a fast Middle Caicos Conch Sloop by Carlon Forbes on Middle Caicos at the Doris Robinson Primary School for maximum exposure to Carlon skills.

Sailing Our Sloops
This year Enid Capron, in Five Cays, will be celebrating Commonwealth Day with an Open Day at the school this Friday, all day, for those interested in seeing what their students have been up to this year. One of the features that the sixth graders are in the process of finishing will be the Gum alemi model sloops. The students have been working on four of eight models for five weeks under the supervision of Maritime Heritage Federation volunteers and supporters as a part of the Federation’s Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. Beaches, the school’s mentor, donated the materials for the sloops.
The shorter version of the title is the ‘Sailing Our Sloops’ Programme. In this programme they have sailed on Chalk Sound on a Middle Caicos Conch Sloop, written essays based on lectures by local sailors and boatbuilders and now they have designed and constructed racing models in the traditional ways of hatchet, chisel, sand paper and sweat.

Mr. Edgar Howells, Deputy Director of Education, will join Federation Officer Katya Brightwell at the Open Day to measure the progress of a programme they designed to insure maritime heritage will be emphasized in the schools.

The Federation will be assisting the 24 students in the finishing of the models from 12 noon to 3PM Friday, 10 March.

Bermuda Schooner Youth
We still do not have two young people to crew the new (and now $5 million) replica of the first vessel to use the Bermudan or Marconi sail configuration, the Spirit of Bermuda. We have submitted proposals to Government, promoting the historic connection between Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos and explaining the inexpensive promotional advantage of supporting this experience. We have to provide for the transportation of the youth (ages 16 or 17) to Maine for the launch and sail to Bermuda and the air fare back from Bermuda to the Turks and Caicos. The Bermuda Sloop Foundation invited the Federation to put two youth aboard the 85-foot schooner. The launch is scheduled for 16 July 2006.
If you know a deserving youth who would gain from such an experience please call H.E. Ross at 946 4935 or 243 2093.

Museum on Provo
Next week will see the first brain drain workshop for the proposed museum that is hoped to be constructed here on Providenciales. National Museum Director Nigel Sadler has invited representatives of different organisations to the meeting with the intention of having all working from the same page in getting this project underway and a success.

I know that Nigel wants the museum to be community responsive in an interactive way. He is hoping that once a person comes through the doors of the new museum they will need to return and feel comfortable doing so.

We, of course, want a maritime museum on Providenciales, with emphasis on the study of this culture from the maritime perspective.

Karen Misick, daughter of Washington Misick, dropped by the site to see the namesake of her grandmother being built. Gold gave her a tour and lecture on the changes in design he has incorporated into the North Caicos Sloop he will be sailing himself. He pointed out the cutback entry that will part the water and give buoyancy at the same time. He stooped to show Karen the minimal amount of discord in the flowing of the water past the hull. Karen wanted to know when the boat would be finished so she could test Gold’s theories. I perked up an ear to hear this part, but Gold is a pastor and I think they are akin to lawyers in moving the language around and I still don’t quite know what the answer was.

Kevin ‘Baba’ Harvey was on hand to admire Gold’s craftsmanship. Baba owns the Sailing Paradise complex in Bluehills and will be running traditional sloop environmental tours with two sloops he has commissioned James Dean to build and the DECR’s Environment I. The tours are a part of the Federation’s Sail Training Programme and will be run out of Blue Hills.

Environment I
Before I left for vacation we put a brushed a coating of epoxy with micro balloon filler into the seams and onto the underwater hull of Environment I at the Environmental Center. The DECR commissioned Bluehills Sloop was built by Master Boatwright James Dean and will be used to bring tourism attention to the maritime aspects of the Turks and Caicos cultural tourism destination.

Vacation
While on vacation I met with Mr. Lynn Cullivan of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park to bring his attention to the historic link between the Turks and Caicos and San Francisco through the Bermuda Sloop evolution into the California Coastal Schooners. Cullivan will be assisting in the creation of an affiliation with the SF Maritime Museum Association, a prestigious preservation organisation that is presently funding the restoration of the C.A. Thayer, a 3-masted Coastal Lumber Schooner that was originally launched in 1895. The Thayer, aside from being a tourist display, was used to initiate an Age of Sail overnight experiential programme for San Francisco school children.

The restoration of the Thayer has run over $20 million. San Franciscans, and I am one of them, take their maritime heritage seriously.

Another restoration project in San Francisco is being planned by my friends, Kathleen Hallinan and Robert Bonnet. Bob owns the Billikin, a 1917 Cup and Saucer Bay Boat. This type of craft was used by San Francisco’s wealthy from the time of the California Gold Rush of 1849 through the 1920s as a smaller day sailing family yacht. Bob hopes to work with the Age of Sail Programme of the Maritime National Park and take students out on Bay sails with restored sailing antiques. His Coastal Classics organisation is now affiliated with the Federation.

GRITS-Get Right Into Traditional Sloops
-A Maritime Heritage and Environmental Programme

We Need Volunteers
The GRITS Programme needs the commitment of volunteers to provide continuity to the learning process at its initial stages. It is hoped that after a few of the classes are completed the first project of the newly forming Sea Rangers Youth Sailing Club will take over the responsibility of their own learning process and initiate other types of more specific projects using the pattern of the study portion of this GRITS basic sailing and heritage project.

This first Sea Rangers enterprise is a sailing traditions educational activity project.

The overall GRITS Programme is a direct continuance of first two modules of the successful Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme which emphasizes experiential education as a means of making research relative to the lives of youth living in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The concept for this particular GRITS project begins as a basic sailing programme for youth between the ages of 7 and 17 years. They learn aboard a traditional Middle Caicos Conch Sloop on safe and shallow Chalk Sound. The Rangers learn contemporary nomenclature, knots, sculling, sailing procedures and anchoring. Each student will captain the sloop, Ranger, a donation of the Providenciales Rotary, performing course navigation and coordination of the crew.

A lecture on what fishermen look for and how they traditionally fished, conched and captured lobster will be provided on a regular basis with the qualified lecturer being invited by the Rangers. Use of the traditional tools of the trade will be part of the sailing lecture. The Rangers also will receive a lesson in the marine life of Chalk Sound by a qualified environmental lecturer.Eventually, the Rangers will make an overnight stay on one of the cays, using the techniques acquired in the basic sailing, environmental and heritage classes, being assigned a study task to perform. The tasks will be selected by the Ranger from a list of interesting subject matter.

The studies will be shared with the other Rangers for critique and possibly an extended study. All of the information gathered will be compiled in a small illustrated reference book with the names of the Rangers responsible. They will self-publish a small number of the book that will be made available for Turks and Caicos students.

The idea is that the Sea Rangers learn to become self-sufficient in the maintenance of their youth club with the consul and assistance of parents and interested adults.

If you wish to volunteer, and we do have a list of specific jobs, just call 946 4935 or 243 2093, email herossea2004@yahoo.com or drop by the Federation office at The Market Place.

Middle Caicos Conch Sloop Purchase

South Caicos Regatta 2006
The 40th year since HRH Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited the Turks and Caicos is being celebrated this year with an attempt to revitalize the South Caicos Regatta. In 1966 the sailors from around the archipelago came to South Caicos to celebrate the first royal visit to these Islands by parading by the Royal Yacht Britannia with the royal couple returning that salute. The estimate varies but there were at least 23 Sloops of all sizes and designs participating in the Sail By.
The sailors decided that it was fun to all get together and created the first official sailing regatta in Turks and Caicos history the following year. The proceeds went to create and fund the T&C Rescue Squadron, a very needed entity back when there were very few radios or engines. It has been held every year since 1967 but has deteriorated from a proud sailing event into a land based party with no boats participating last year.

Bill Clare became outraged by the show of disrespect to not only the sailing heritage of South Caicos but to the Queen herself. He is spearheading a revitalisation of the South Caicos Regatta Committee with the intention of having a renaissance of the commemoration celebration.

The Regatta Race Committee holds Director of Maritime Affairs Henry Wilson as Chairperson, Honourable Norman Saunders, Lee Penn and myself as committee members. That means that three of the four committee members are in the Maritime Heritage Federation. Honourable Norman and Henry are Board Governors of the Federation. Lee and Norman are original founders of the South Caicos Regatta.

There will be a Sail By and possibly a race from the Rock to South Caicos, in South Caicos and from South Caicos to the Rock. The Race from the Rock to South Caicos is seeing the first sponsor for the Regatta in the form of Provident Limited.
Bengt Soderqvist, representing Provident remembers, “In 1967 Provident’s Fritz Luddington brought Harry Kline here, he had to do with starting the Out Islands Regattas, to organize a race. That was back when there were about 15 sail boats. There was even a starting cannon.. it was about 1-foot long, I think, and you had to pull a cord to fire it.”
Henry Wilson is looking for a starting cannon but if he finds one or not, he promises, “We have to have a sailing race this year.”

15th Annual Fools Regatta 2006
The dynamo who headed up last year’s revitalized Fools Regatta, Katya Brightwell, has started preparations to tackle this year’s event. She is starting off with a warning to the Federation’s Board of Governors that a project the size that this has taken on is a job for a dedicated group of organizers.

The Board unanimously voted to host the Fools Regatta this year. The Programmes Manager wanted to move the venue to the original Sapodilla Bay with other shallow races taking place on Chalk Sound. This was voted down and Grace Bay selected as a logical area. The one concept that everybody agreed on was that the atmosphere should be that of a faire and that all the organizations that put in time on the preparation should partake of the benefits, such as the money collected at the end of the day.

A clear preliminary plan is being created and more information is definitely forthcoming. It looks like June 10th or the 17th will be the date targets, allowing enough time for the excitement from the South Caicos Regatta to enhance a festive mood for the Fools Regatta.

Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme
About 24 sixth graders of the Enid Capron Primary School were at times uncontrollably excited about the finishing stages of their Beaches sponsored Gumalba or Gumelemi (Gumbo Limbo) model sloop design and construction. The three volunteers, Katya, Jacqui Conway and myself, were not prepared for the excitement this phase of the programme generated. The students had been working on building the models for four Friday afternoons in the outdoor sheltered lunch area. This phase included finish sanding, painting and making the standing rigging.

The students were disappointed that we had to skip a week because of prior commitments but were happy to know that we would try to take them to see a Gumbo Limbo Tree, the corkish fragrant wood that they were using to make the models.

Wesley Methodist Private School Lecture
We received an invitation by Mrs Edna Cottoy, Principal of the Wesley Methodist Primary School to give our maritime history lecture. We asked if they would have a local personality attend to make it relative to the children and she thought that would not be a problem.

When we arrived Monday morning we found we were doing the two-hour committed time period alone but found the three classes, who amounted to 21 children, as interested as the public school children and were able to finish with them still wanting more.

A little essay from David Noel, age 11, about the importance of maritime heritage:
“It is important because if there would not be sailing boats we would not have a history and the Turks and Caicos Islands would not exist and we would not be living here. And we would not have fish to eat. And with sloops we can travel some days near to North Caicos, South Caicos and Middle Caicos.”

Mary Jane Gets New Frames and Commitment
Gold Williams was expected to build the Mary Jane for The Prestige Group and launch her by now, but being a responsible person who happens to be a Baptist pastor, he has been kept busy wearing that hat for the last two months. Now, if you go down to The Market Place in the afternoon you will see that dedication that has impressed so many by Gold.

When not attending the pulpit he was carving on the locust frames at his home in North Caicos, getting them close to ready when he would be able to return. Gold figures the Mary Jane will begin planking, Spanish Cedar, next Monday.

Gold is a cousin of the Misicks, who are The Prestige Group, who have all been to see the tribute to the former Chief and the present Chief Minister’s mother, Mary Jane Misick.

Our condolences to the Misick family on the loss of Mr. Charles Misick, Sr. This honourable gentleman has left a history of accomplishments that I hope the media in these islands will emphasize as an example to the youth of the nation.

Materials Delay For Leeward Sloop
Due to a mishap in the wording of invoices only one order of materials was accomplished and arrived last week. It was a surprise when we thought we would be unloading a much larger bundle of aromatic Spanish Cedar then we found. The wood has been assigned to the Mary Jane because that construction is at that stage. The Leeward Marina and Spa Middle Caicos Conch Sloop was planned to be started this week but Carlon Forbes, the builder, did not come to Providenciales for initial payment.

He will start laying up the keel this next week and begin framing by the end of the week.

Adults Are Still Needed For Sea Rangers Youth Sailing Club

At present we have two Middle Caicos Sloops in the water and rigged and within two months we should have about six constructed and rigged for their and other programme use.

The concept that we have for the Sea Rangers Youth Sailing Club is a little different then most in that we want these kids to do the maritime research that is missing from the history of the Turks and Caicos. We not only want them to sail boats, we want them to sail traditional Middle Caicos Sloops, Turks Islands Lighters, North Caicos Cargo Sloops and the list of types is increasing as we get the time to look into the development of the maritime history here.

We want them to go to traditional areas of fishing and conching and learn from fishermen why they went there… and we want them to learn from scientists why the fish and conch and lobster are there.

We need adult volunteers though for supervision, transportation needs and advice. Please call me, H.E. Ross, at 243 2093 or 946 4935 and help get kids on sloops and learning about them. Or email me at herossea2004@yahoo.com. You can also get Katya Brightwell at katya_brightwell@yahoo.co.uk, Imelda Burke at imelda@tciway.tc.

How Culture Works On Performing Arts
David Bowen and I will co-host this evening’s show with guest Matson Delancy as the guest. We will go into the problems of putting together street performers, like mime or musicians here who will give spontaneous presentations for the love of it and not just the money. We also wonder why there is no movement to put a National Theatre to showcase and train the talent that is here.
How Culture Works is a community showcase programme and we wish for you to call in with questions and suggestions.
If you have a project or programme exhibit or presentation, always non-political, you want to put before the public email me at herossea2004@yahoo.com. We try to arrange our programming two weeks in advance.
9PM Wednesday evenings…Channel 4… How Culture Works.

2006 Desk Calendar For Sail
Only eleven months to go but all of the beautiful pictures are still there. Our 2006 Sailing Calendar and mahogany stand is offered for sale at our Market Place office and at the Turtle Cove Marina office. The proceeds go toward the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. The Calendar with the stand costs $12.00.

Annual Report Too Heavy
I got a little too self-critical in putting together our Annual Report 2005-2006, so have scrapped it to begin again with a light and more graceful overview. I will finish this less intense version early next week and it can be viewed on our website, www.maritimeheritage.tc probably by the middle of the week.

Sloop Update
Again, there isn’t a lot to report. Gold has not been able to stay on Providenciales lately and so the work is slowing down on Mary Jane. He has done a small amount of work on the Mobile Enforcer mast but we have been out of touch and don’t know the next steps he is taking.

Doug Carlson of Southwind Millworks has received the materials needed to complete Mary Jane and Going Through, to be built by Carlon Forbes on Middle Caicos at the Doris Robinson Primary School. We are transferring the wood to our storage site today.

Carlon has hauled out and painted the DECR’s new purchase for Federation programmes, now named, Environment II at Bambarra Beach for the 11th, Middle Caicos St. Valentine’s Day celebration.

Environment II begins our new direction of restoring traditional working sloops and using them in cultural. The concept is being funded by the Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources’ Community Conservation Fund.

We are finishing Environment I at the Environmental Center. I haven’t been able to do any work on the finishing because of meetings and finishing off the government proposals for this year’s budget. .If you want to volunteer to assist in the finishing contact Ross at 243 2093 or 946 4935.

Gumbo Limbo Model Sloop Project at Enid Capron
Thanks to Beaches, who sponsors Enid Capron Primary School in Five Cays, we are having our fourth session with the sixth grade students designing and building two-foot long Model Sloops for competition. Thanks to volunteer Imelda Burke we were able to keep 24 students busy and productive last Friday.

Building the Gemelemi (North Caicos pronunciation) Model Sloops is a part of the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. There are to be 60 sailing models built by July. The Kiwanis of Providenciales got the boats rolling with a nice check for $3000 to purchase materials for the Caicos Islands building and Beaches followed by sponsoring the models to be built at Enid Capron.
Reverend Gold Williams and volunteer Wil Gibson started the hands-on construction on Friday, the 20th of January but couldn’t come to the last two sessions that happen each Friday, so I had to do it. It was fun.

This next Friday they will be finishing the hulls and rigging the models this Friday, and possibly painting them. We have the other half of the class to get their models worked on so, if anybody knows anybody who does Gemelemi model building ask them to volunteer. We also need more Gumbo Limbo branch wood about 10” thick.
Our old stock was donated by the ever selfless Donna Bartram and The Market Place.

DECR Sailing Lessons
We are giving sailing lessons to the staff of the DECR who wish to form a racing team to compete with Environment I in sloop races. We are going through international basic nomenclature and terms but will soon move into Caicos traditional terms, which I will give updates on here and on our website. Lew Handfield wants to do a dictionary of Turks and Caicos nautical terms and I would like to assist that one. Where is the time???

Culture and the 10 Year Plan
Government has called in economic analyst Earl Bartely to put together a 10-Year Plan for the Department of Economic Planning and Statistics and we were invited to contribute concepts on the culture, values, attitudes and national identity in a sub committee of that same name.

We had two meetings in Grand Turk and it was an honour to be invited to be on this sub committee with the likes of Robert Hall, Lillian Misick, David Bowen, Blythe Clare, Anthony Smith (L-32), Smithie (RT&C) and hosted by Denika Been and Joy Lightbourne of the Statistics Office.

I, as representative of the maritime aspect of the culture, was the only non Turks and Caicos Islander attending aside from Mr. Bartely, who hails from Jamaica.

Two of the conclusions agreed by the sub committee were the need to get serious about the Department of Culture and extend its influence in establishing cultural educational institutions (meaning a bigger budget for more and an active staff), and the need for complete media communications throughout the island chain. One point was also brought up which is the need for voted on voluntary( in place of appointed and paid) Boards for departmental oversight.

We have been trying to put together a lot of government proposals for the past two weeks and have not been able to provide updates on what we are doing. As a result because we seem to be doing so much this is probably incomplete but am trying to keep my poor little brain to the task.

Adults Needed For Sea Rangers Youth Sailing Club
As a result of Imelda Burke’s assistance (and other invitations) in trying to organize a sailing club for young people we have forty-two youth between the ages of 7 and 17 who want to join enough to have actually signed up. We have a source pool of many more, so much is the need by youth here to get on the water.

The concept that we have for the Sea Rangers Youth Sailing Club is a little different then most in that we want these kids to do the maritime research that is missing from the history of the Turks and Caicos. We not only want them to sail boats, we want them to sail traditional Middle Caicos Sloops, Turks Islands Lighters, North Caicos Cargo Sloops and the list of types is increasing as we get the time to look into the development of the maritime history here.

We want them to go to traditional areas of fishing and conching and learn from fishermen why they went there… and we want them to learn from marine biologists why the fish and conch and lobster are there.

We have and are constructing Middle and North Caicos Sloops but we haven’t had the time nor personnel to find out about the other designs yet. And, that will be their jobs to study and to sail.

We need adult volunteers though. Our problem is with having some of you put in some time to organize this worthy project.

Please call me, H.E. Ross at 243 2093 or 946 4935 and help get kids on sloops and learning about them.

How Culture Works In The Street
We have started a new format for our Wednesday night programme, How Culture Works. We are taking the camera into the street and asking interesting questions of the public to air as a function of how culture actually works. Tonight’s show at 9PM will have some interesting responses, so interesting I am thinking we should have done this from the beginning. The studio is just too stiff, even with our effervescent personalities bobbing about the screen.

We are also featuring an interview with Cable & Wireless’ new Chief Executive Drexwell Seymour who gives some very very interesting stuff for community groups. He was and is still a fund raiser himself.

Anyway, we will mix both formats for your more then entertainment. Channel 4 How Culture Works.

2006 Desk Calendar For Sail
Only eleven months to go but all of the pictures are still there. Our 2006 Sailing Calendar is offered for sale at our Market Place office and at the Turtle Cove Marina office. The proceeds go toward the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. The Calendar costs $12.00.

What we have done and are about to do
We are putting together our annual report and even I am amazed at what we have accomplished in the time we have been around. The report will be posted on our website at www.maritimeheritage.tc when finished. In the meantime you can look at our trying to be not just in construction website whenever you want to. We do need a person who can do websites to enjoy all the photos and information going through our hands.

If interested contact Ross or Katya at 243 2093.

Sloop Update
There isn’t a lot to report. Gold has finally been able to put his other job as reverend to the side to work on the Prestige Group’s Mary Jane and the mast for Mobile Enforcer. He is apologetic but when finished we all know the end result will be worth the wait.

Doug Carlson of Southwind Millworks (who I called Woodworks in the last update) has received the materials needed to complete Mary Jane and Going Through (to be built by Carlon Forbes on Middle Caicos at the Doris Robinson Primary School.

Carlon has hauled out the DECR’s new purchase for Federation programmes, now named, Environment II. He will start painting her today. The DECR and the Federation will begin a new project of restoring the traditional working sloops and use them in cultural charter programmes with businesses that are already in that arena such as Big Blue and SailProvo.

We are finishing Environment I at the Environmental Center. We were hoping to launch the Sloop this Thursday but will be late. If you want to volunteer to assist in the finishing contact Ross at 243 2093 or 946 4935.

Gemelemi, Gum Alba, Gemelba Model Sloop Project at Enid Capron
Thanks to Beaches, who sponsors Enid Capron Primary School in Five Cays, we are having our third session with the sixth grade students designing and building two-foot long Model Sloops for competition.

Building the Gemelemi ( North Caicos pronunciation) Model Sloops is a part of the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. There are to be 60 sailing models built by July. The Kiwanis of Providenciales got the boats rolling with a nice check for $3000 to purchase materials for the Caicos Islands building and Beaches followed by sponsoring the models to be built at Enid Capron.

Reverend Gold Williams and volunteer Wil Gibson started the hands on construction on Friday, the 20 th of January but couldn’t come to the second session the following Friday, so I had to do it. It was fun.

We have whiddled our original 25 students down to 16 hatchet choppers, with the others doing rigging drawing. This next Friday they will be finalizing the hulls with chisels and wood rasps and sand paper and rigging the vessels the following Friday.

If anybody knows anybody who does Gemelemi model building ask them to volunteer. We have quite a few more to do.

Sign Yours Sloop

We ran out of room with the signing of the Sloop and had a variety of people, with kids leading the pack.

The points of the Sign Your Sloop Exhibition was to acquaint the community with the concept of the community sloop. People generally have been owning their own sloops and racing them, or in the past fishing them or trading with them. That concept has stayed and is stuck in the psyche, which does not allow for a transference of cultural skills to the whole community which lessens the value of transferring heritage and culture.

The Caicos Sloops that we are having commissioned were done so with the agreement to use the vessels in self supportive sail training programmes that benefit the community as a whole. We have now commissioned four and have changed tack a little to purchase two others, completing our goal of six Sloop representing all the boat building islands in the archipelago.

Thank you for signing and you now have a vested interest in these sloops and their programmes. You might as well just join the Federation now, either as a Sea Ranger, Adult Individual or Corporate Member…?

Going Through will be starting construction at the Doris Robinson Primary School with Boatwright Carlin Forbes replicating a Middle Caicos Conch Sloop, but using Spanish Cedar, Locust, stainless steel screws, stainless steel rod and the best in paints. She will have a Shoulder O’Mutton mainsail and stainless steel gudgeons, pintals and chainplates, with lignum vitae deadeyes. The materials have been ordered through Doug Carlson’s Southwind Woodworks.

Mary Jane’s construction has stalled but Gold will have his truck back in North Caicos this week and promises to make rapid progress by bringing what he has worked on there here and attaching the frames. The rest of the materials have been ordered through Doug Carlson’s Southwind Woodworks.

Mobile Enforcer sits at the Turtle Cove Marina awaiting Gold’s return. He has finished the mast and will be rigging it next week

A Membership Drive that would include the whole community and invite international preservation groups and individuals;
Vessel Construction that would bring in youth as apprentices;
Promote maritime heritage and preservation through the local media, including radio and television;
Website communication that would be interactive
Organise Sail Training Programmes, mainly for youth
Create a Maritime Educational Programme of lectures and experiential activities
Publishing articles, newsletters and books on the maritime history and heritage of the T&C;
Lay the groundwork for a Maritime Research Centre;
Start up a Retail Outlet for articles and periodicals of a maritime nature;
Assist Sailing Events
We weren’t able to do the apprenticeship programme, substituting it for school excursions during the construction of vessels.
Our website is still in construction but active.
We did not conduct a membership drive because of misunderstandings within the Federation about the overall concept of our community group origins.
Aside from that, we have been doing all right and the words maritime heritage are being used everywhere in these islands.
Self-reflection and honesty have also been words used by us about our selves. Sailing as a philosophy is a humbling voyage.

Sloops
Environment I
Sorry that we could not do the exhibit at the Graceway IGA this last Saturday but we decided that paying respects to the families and friends of the four young men who died in the plane crash was more critical.

We will be bringing Environment I to IGA this Saturday from 11AM-4PM and invite the public to literally become a part of the project by signing the hull of the Caicos Sloop. We are giving this exhibition to make it clear that these Sloops that are being commissioned are community sloops and are for the community of the Turks and Caicos, all of the community.

Environment I is to be utilized as a community Caicos Conch Sloop. Some of the programmes that we have come up with will take teachers on weekend expeditions to follow in the wakes of fishermen who used to work all the types of waters around here. This is to instill in them a sense of from where this culture has come by hands on experiences. Another programme shows students why lobster, conch and other marine life is where it is and why from both the fisherman’s perspective and the scientist’s.
The DECR, the Department of Culture and the National Trust will also be at the exhibit letting you see what they are doing. In particular, the DECR will exhibit swim zone charts for the beaches and answer questions about where and what.

On the lighter side we will have face painting and some light entertainment.
We have almost finished the caulking and painting of Environment I, which is now on view in the rear of the Environmental Center where a site has been cleared and a tool shed erected. Our thanks to Brian Riggs and Michelle Fullfort-Gardiner for that one.

The colours we have been given to use are white, green and blue, which are the colours of the Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources. As per our contract with the Conservation Fund Committee we have been offering sail training classes to the employees of DECR so they might use the vessels that they have commissioned. We hold the classes on Wednesdays between 12-2PM (lunch) aboard our Rotary funded, Ranger, on Chalk Sound.

Mobile Enforcer
Cable & Wireless’ Mobile Enforcer is still sitting at Turtle Cove Marina, thanks to the generosity of Boots, Carol and Crazy George. Again, Reverend Gold Williams, the builder, has been called to perform ministerial duties and has not been able to complete the rigging. His mast is now being finished at The Market Place and will be rigged this week. We all hope to see this fine work sailing within the next couple of weeks.

Mary Jane
The Prestige Group’s Mary Jane is moving along every chance that Gold has he is at the site. The lines are quite distinct from Mobile Enforcer upon close inspection. There is a sharpness of entry and a flair to the quarter that should promise a fast steady hull.

Going Through
The Leeward Marina Resort and Spa’s Caicos Sloop, which we are calling Going Through for the moment, has been commissioned to be constructed by Carlon Forbes in Middle Caicos. Carlon has been building Middle Caicos Conch Sloops for donkey’s years and we are just providing him with the materials and the note that the vessel has to be young passenger friendly, which translates into a little more beam then usual.

Ranger
When the Rotary donated the funding to purchase this 18’6” Middle Caicos Conch Sloop from Carlon Forbes, we sanded her down to bare wood, recaulked and painted her and put her in the water for the Junior Park Warden Programme. Since that time we have used her almost every week either taking out over 200 students in the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme or giving lessons to those interested in learning how to sail this particular type of internally ballasted and keeless Sloop.

JJ Parker and Gold Williams will be hauling out Ranger in the near future to re-deck her, put some rails around her and install a bronze traveler that was donated by H. Hinderacker. Anybody wanting to assist just come by the office or call us at 946 4935.

Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme
The Sailing Our Sloops public primary schools programme is starting up again after the holidays with in the classroom gum elena (or gumbo limbo, or gemelami) model sloop building. A week from this Friday, sixty sixth graders at Enid Capron Primary School will be starting their model building supervised by Wil Gibson and the untiring Gold Williams. The programme calls for one sloop for every five students and will start with a cut log and go through to a rigged vessel that will compete against the other sixty proposed sloop models that will be built throughout the islands.

Funding for the start of this programme has come through the generosity of the Kiwanis of Providenciales.

The last phase of the Sailing Our Sloops Programme will be the essay and art module, which will end the school year. The Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme will be come a part of the public school curriculum.

Sea Rangers
Volunteers Imelda Burke, Geoff Mander and Kevin Harvey are attempting to organize interested adults to supervise and assist the organization of the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club. The idea behind the Sea Rangers is to promote preservation of traditional sailing skills while researching the maritime history of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The youth will be divided into two groups from 7-11 and 12-17 years old. Anybody interested in this start up organization, which will be under the umbrella of the Maritime Heritage Federation, call us at 946 4035/ 243 2093. You can also email me at herossea2004@yahoo.com. We need adults, we have a lot of eager young people and we want to start this as soon as possible.

How Culture Works
Ethlyn Gibbs-Williams, the Director of the National Trust will be our guest tonight on How Culture Works at 9PM (Wednesday) on WIV Channel 4. Ethlyn also sits on the Board of Governors for the Maritime Heritage Federation. I will be hosting and the subject matter will be a survey of the programmes and projects the Trust has accomplished and is doing. This will be a call in programme tonight so tune in with pen and paper and an eager telephone finger.

Last Wednesday night’s guests was Bishop C. Alexander Williams of the Abundant Life Ministries. Next week will see the Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources answering your questions about the new legislation concerning environmental laws, as well as the new zoning for a variety of environmental and safety needs.

How Culture Works is a community organization showcase. We have an open invitation to all groups and want to be groups to come on the air and let the public know what you wish them to know. It is informal and usually we have a good time. David Bowen and I alternate the moderators’ position.

I know there is a bunch more stuff but it gets me tired just typing it so I will hold off on what else we are doing until next week. But, if you want to join the Maritime Heritage Federation our dues starts at $25 a year and we want active members. Our website is www.maritimeheritage.tc.

A long sentence, hunh? The fact has been that the older group want to share their past but are shy
because of many reasons in doing so. The young, and we are focusing on the 10-14 year olds, are eager to know about the real past of this place, Belonger or those who were not born here. In encouraging the youth to become more then curious and to do actual research we are initiating a new programme called the Sea Rangers Youth Sailing Club. The ages allowable at this time to join the Sea Rangers are 7-11 and 12-17. The emphasis is on research and preservation of skills and history.

We wish to emphasize that the Sea Rangers is for all young people in these Islands and our purpose in creating this club is to engage them in experiential education. To join, call 946 4935 or 243 2093. We need adults to assist in the organisation and coordination of Sea Ranger activities.

Sloops Are Building and Rigging
Gold Williams has his general shape of Sloop and is still refining as he applies ribbands (laths) of pine to form for his eye the concept of Mary Jane. The Prestige Group’s North Caicos Conch Sloop has fine lines already and can be seen, as well as Gold spoken to, at The Market Place site on Providenciales.

Books On History and Design
Wing Dean is getting a lot of advice on his big 28-footer that he is building in his side yard in Wheeland, Bluehills. The method for construction and design parameters are moving away from the traditional and into the era of 1960s bluewater racing. This is a natural progression for this very competitive racer because his influences are only from his immediate background. This is not putting down what he is doing, for there are others like dependant upon what has been passed down and moving into a more modern direction.

Wing’s historic dilemma is resultant from a lack of literature dealing with both maritime history and vessel design. Since most of the builders find their ways to the office here, we would hope that anybody with any books somehow related to the maritime would leave them off here for the perusal of all those interested.

Cable & Wireless IGA DECR WIV Cable Federation
The Mobile Enforcer will be having her mast rigged this Saturday by WIV Cable, who has donated the Class C galvanized cable to the Federation. They will be demonstrating how to splice cable at our DECR Environment I exhibit which will be presented from 11AM to 4PM on the side of the entrance to Graceway IGA. There will be DECR exhibitions of the latest marine rules and a lot on environmental concerns. There will also be a special signing of the sloop hull to promote an awareness that the community is a part of the projects that we are involved with and that this sloop belongs to the community not to an individual.

There will also be face painting for the kids.

Sailing lessons
For the past month, excluding a couple of weeks during December, we have been offering the DECR and the Department of Education staff free sailing lessons on Chalk Sound, using our Ranger. Deputy Director of Education Edgar Howell says he is learning his nomenclature and showed great promise as a patient sailor aboard a keeless monohull that relies upon weight as balance not to go over. The overhang on
Ranger is 7 ½’.

These lessons are a part of our Sail Training Programme to introduce not only students but teachers to a hands on knowledge of the Caicos Sloop.

The Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme needs funding to continue. If you happen to have a little left over from the Christmas holidays, strange statement, just send it on over. Any checks can be made out to T&C Maritime Heritage Federation.

How Culture Works Invites You If you want to showcase an event of preserve heritage by public viewing call us at 946-4935 or 243-2093 to get on the community service show, How Culture Works. Last Wednesday night, David Bowen was pushing rake and scrape music and as you can see by the picture they got into it. How Culture Works views every Wednesday evening at 9PM on WIV Channel 4.

There will be special treats for children including face painting and a visit from Sloop Dog. WIV Cable, who has donated all of the standing rigging for the commissioned sloops, will be giving demonstrations at IGA on wire splicing rigging for our masts. Running rigging has been donated by Captain Marvin’s Watersports.

The exhibit will focus on the Federation concept as a community organization, invite new members and offer a sign-up sheet for the Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club. The Sea Rangers is divided into two groups from 7 to 11 and 12 to 17 years of age. The focus of the Sea Rangers is for young people to learn, through hands on experience, everything from sailing the traditional designs to researching their development and the development of related vessel designs. Pretty hefty stuff…

Environment I is usually seen at the Environmental Center being finished. Volunteers are always needed to assist in the last stages of rigging and painting, the fun stuff.

New Sloops Being Built
Reverend Samuel Goldston Williams has assembled his setting up framing for the Prestige Group North Caicos Sloop, Mary Jane. “Look at that… she will be fast and safe and easy on the tiller.” is Gold’s vision as he sighted down the turn of the bilge outlined by narrow widths of spruce that show the form of the hull. Gold has been very busy with his clergy and religious events for the past couple of months but has been cutting framing from a locust plantation on his property in North Caicos and shaping them at home.

Gold laid the keel, set up the transom, sternpost and stem and arranged the setting up frames in two days. Word of mouth had at least a dozen visits, on the second day, to the site from local boat builders and a couple of amateur maritime historians such as John Philips and Nicky Turner. The site is the leased property from J.S. Johnston (which was arranged by Bob Pratt) and is accessed through the parking lot of The Market Place. The public is welcomed to visit the site and school excursions are especially welcome. For further information please just call 946 4935 or 243 2093.

Leeward Marina Resort and Spa Sloop Materials On Order
Carlon Forbes of Middle Caicos will be receiving the best in materials to construct a 21-foot Middle Caicos Conch Sloop for the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa in the next week or so, depending upon the shipping. The Middle Caicos Conch Sloops are generally much shallower then the Sloops around the rest of the Islands in that they are designed for shoal areas. They do, I might add, seem to carry a whole lot more sail area with overhanging booms that sometimes extend 8-feet over the transom.

Carlon, who was our guest lecturer at the Doris Robinson Primary School on Middle and also volunteered to take the sixth grade students for a familiarization sail, has been an incessant in the face promoter for the sloop regattas and races. He was skippering the big freight sloop pictured here in the 1968 South Caicos Regatta, courtesy of Bill Clare’s Collection.

Wing Dean Is Framing Up Big
Wing Dean, who trades off 1sts and 2nds with his brother George Dean in most of the Blue Hills races, has almost finished framing a 27-foot Sloop, tentatively named Juicy Lucy. Wing’s design is being created to race against the current group of larger new constructions, such as George’s 26-foot, Wild Thing and James Dean’s new and untested 27-footer, Eagle III.

The Deans are looking toward this year’s South Caicos Regatta, which is being heavily promoted amongst the local sailing community by Mr. Bill Clare. In 2006, the 40th anniversary of the first official sailing regatta venue, South Caicos, will return to being a sailing regatta venue.

Schools Programme Taking a Break
The tally is in, 415 sixth graders from Provo, North, Middle, South and Grand Turk, have been given lectures on the relativity of maritime heritage to them and 205 sixth graders were able to take familiarization sails aboard traditional Caicos Sloops. Grand Turk, South Caicos and North Caicos did not have any sloops available to take the youth out but we are trying to get sponsors to purchase a sloop for each island for Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club extensions.

This was a lot of coordination that worked and is hoped to be included as a permanent part of the Department of Education curriculum planning from here on out. Katya Brightwell will be getting back into it right after the holiday season with the last two portions of the programme which include essays, artwork and the classroom construction of gemalba model sloops by groups of five students.

The Kiwanis of Providenciales are donating the funds for 15 models and Derek Taylor of the Kiwanis of Grand Turk is getting his members to do hands on supervision of their models.

It is hoped that the students will seek sponsors for scheduled inter-scholastic and inter-island model sloop regattas. If you want to contribute or sponsor a sloop call Federation Education Programme Officer, Katya Brightwell at 243 2093.

How Culture Keeps Working
Federation Board Governor, David Bowen, in his usual fashion, never stopped for the holidays. As co-founder of the WIV-Channel 4 community show, How Culture Works, David had musician Herbie Swann on the show for a conversation about the state of musicians in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Herbie will be back tonight to expand on the subject with Arnold Simmons joining the conversation. David is concerned by the lack of variety in music and the lack of local musicians. It is a passionate topic so it should be a good show.

If you didn’t know it, David is also the Director of Culture under the Ministry of Culture.

We started the How Culture Works Progamme as a place for community groups and community group supporters to share a forum for discussion and also a way of showcasing what they are doing. We welcome any notices of events and will announce them on the show. Just call Ross at 946 4935 or 243 2093.

2006 Sailing Calendar
We have created a desk top calendar with a mahogany stand to support the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme. The calendar shows vintage photographs and sailing scenes from what we have been doing for our first year in existence. The calendar is on sale at our office at The Market Place on Providenciales.

We also wish that all of you take the time to reflect on the fine things that you have accomplished this year. There are usually more then you think. The ones that we hide from ourselves, so interesting are the things that were not accomplished, failed or disappointing…?

The Federation members and Board, as well as us in the administration, wish everybody a continued happy holidays and workdays too. We also wish our Chairman Mac Stubbs and Pam congratulations in their marriage last Sunday and to Katya Happy Birthday today.

As far as the Federation update, we somehow have managed to be busy even with the holiday spirit diffusing a lot of our and their energies.

WIV Cable TV has donated 600 feet of ¼” Class C galvanized cable to rig our gaff rigged sloops. The Class C is sort of impervious to salt water rusting and galvanized is what is used for the standing rigging on gaff masts. The galvanized wire allows the mast to move a bit. The normal, these days, rigging for Marconi, Bermuda or triangular sails is made of stainless steel so that the masts do not move.

WIV Cable technicians will also give lessons this week on how to splice the rigging, so if anybody is interested in learning how to rig a gaff rigged vessels give me a call or contact me via internet at 243 2093/ herossea2004@yahoo.com.

Gold Williams has disappointed us a bit on the finishing of the rigging on Mobile Enforcer and the start up of the new Prestigious Group’s Mary Jane, but his duties during the last couple of weeks as pastor has kept him moving around the islands. In his spare time he has shaped most of the frames, the keel, stem and sternpost at his home, which he has kept secret from my camera and me. He promises next Monday as the day all will see the results. He will put up the basic framing of the sloop in one day.

We have moved James Dean’s creation, tentatively called Environment I, from James home in Wheeland to the Environmental Center in the Bight. Because of insufficient funding to complete the finishing of the vessel volunteers are coming forward to do the finish sanding, painting, spar making and rigging. If you want to be a coming forwarder, just contact me at the above number or address and we will see if we can squeeze you in.

We are looking for voluntary administrative assistance in the office. Our filing system was disrupted and is slowly going back into order but the many aspects of keeping the Federation going call us out far too much and coordination suffers.

Speaking of activities, we have rounded all of the Islands with our Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme, Sailing Our Sloops, as of last Wednesday, my excuse for not having an update submitted. We gave a lecture at the two public primary schools on North Caicos, Adelaide Oemler and Hubert James and had Captain Victor Forbes give recollections on his youth aboard Sloops. Captain Forbes emphasized to the sixth graders in both schools that they have to think of basics in the future with the insecurity in fuel costs. He told them that they should all know how to farm and fish, and they should all know how to sail. We also gave our lecture on The Little History of the Sloop that Laura has included to start off our present direction in updates. That little piece was written for 11 year olds, by the way.

The Sailing Our Sloops Programme has been created for sixth graders in the public school sector simply because we do not have the people to organize it for all grades, all schools, private and public in the Turks and Caicos Islands. If you wish to create a similar programme in school, let’s get together and we will assist as much as we are able. Katya is attempting to put together a system for the private schools, which will have to be flexible enough to customize it for each private school with their own emphasis.

A marketing meeting was held last week in which the juices got flowing and the crew who turned up volunteered to take on tasks to ensure that the Federation would broaden its membership locally and internationally. It was thought during the meeting that the Bahamas invitation to race here in the Turks and Caicos be planned for next year as nobody here took up the gauntlet to capitalize on this great potential for international tourism publicity. They were, at their own expense, bringing around eight boats here to race all comers. Housing was to be the greatest problem but the idea of having the community invite them into their homes was brought up at the previous marketing meeting and like so many things remained unresolved.

The Sailing Our Sloops Programme, which started in mid-October after Friday will have put 210 students aboard a Caicos Sloop. Before the Programme we had put over 130 young people on board a Caicos Sloop since January.

The hands on exposure to one of the strongest elements in Turks and Caicos culture and the blending of history unique to this area seems to instill a sense of pride that we hope will translate into a curiosity about all the educational subjects that become relevant to their experience such as marine sciences, mathematics, economics, hydro- and aero-dynamics, geography, history, English, architecture, carpentry. As well, we put them in situations in which they have to rely upon each other, a micro-working of a social system.

It is interesting to see what they see us doing, here are a couple of examples of their opinions of this first contact:

Javin Greene, 11, “I learned the parts of the boat which are, the main sail the jib the mast and the boom. They teach us how to turn the boat and even let us go sailing in the boat and we had to put on life jacket. It is so much fun. They even come to our classroom to talk more about the boat building programme and they give us a little quiz. And we was on the tv channel four news. We all had fun on the field trip.”

Darrel Smith, 10, “I think that maritime heritage is important because if we did not have any sloops/boats it would have been hard on us. Why? Because they used the boats to go out to hunt the whales also the boat was used for taking salt to the ships and they used it to carry passengers to go out to the reefs and fish. If we did not had any boats how would we have done these things? What would we have done if we did not have any boats? How would we have got food if we did not have any boats? Boats are very important in our society.”

The Programme is to go on through the school year and will be adapted to continue for semesters to come as a part of the curriculum. The funding was not adequate for this initial part of the school year. The Ministry of Education had already allotted any extra monies since their adoption of their budget and we have been continuing as we can. We appeal to any corporation or individual who wishes to assist the Sailing Our Sloops Programme in any way to call 946 4935 or 243 2093 and we will discuss what can be done. This is one method of creating a positive value in good citizenship.

Sloops
Congratulations to Cable & Wireless
…and thanks for the patience

The latest development in sloop construction after the Cable & Wireless Mobile Enforcer launch at the Conch Festival is in the rigging of that lovely vessel and in the smoothing of James Dean’s construction effort for the DECR, Environment I.

WIV Cable has donated 600 feet of ¼” Class C galvanized cable for the rigging of the six sloops. Ian Kyle, Executive Director of Cable & Wireless, said of the rigging of their sloop by his cable competitor, “ This is a community effort, isn’t it? We are all in this together.” Ian was privately hoping that WIV would build a sloop so Cable & Wireless could beat them on the race course. Ian has repeatedly issued challenges to other corporate bodies to support the sloop commissioning programme and more especially, to race. To date, we have five commissions of the six we are striving. The Federation is not a boat building business but strive to stimulate entrepreneurial interest in preservation replication and general vessel design and construction.

The sloops that we are commissioning were originally to train youth in boat building through a Youth Build’em Youth Sail’em Programme that apprenticed youth around 16 years of age in the advanced woodworking skills needed to construct a traditional vessel. Unfortunately, we could not find youth willing to apprentice locally, though we tried to enlist the Department of Social Services and Youth. Neither had youth to enlist in the programme despite promises to the contrary when we started it up.

As a result, the schedule for construction of the sloops went off, as the builders were supposed to build two sloops at the same time with the assistance of the apprentices. That would have amounted to a living wage for each builder. The builders who said they would work wanted more money then in the original budget and we have ended up with just two builders at the moment. Alone, as in the cases of James Dean and Gold Williams, they had to complete their hulls almost in a voluntary status with occasional assistance from Federation members.

Carlon Forbes, in Middle Caicos, says he will build a sloop within the budget and the Board is deciding upon contracting Carlon to build. The problem is in the supervision of the project and materials. But, I think Carlon will be building soon.

At present we are finishing the sanding on Environment I and will apply the first priming coat before this week is out. The paint scheme has been submitted by Brian Riggs of DECR and is green, white and blue, the DECR colours.

We are clearing the area adjacent to The Market Place for Gold to lay the keel of Mary Jane, the Prestige Group Caicos Sloop. Samantha Slattery and Rob Wild were in North Caicos with Gold documenting his cutting of the framing for the sloop for a botanical documentary they are videoing. Gold will shape the keel and sternpost at the site and attach the frames starting Monday. The site has been reconfirmed by the J.S. Johnson & Company, owners of the property, in their continuing support of the project by the peppercorn lease of $1.00 a year.

Along with about forty other folks HE, Governor Richard Tauwhare, delved back into his family’s maritime history by helping launch the 21’6” North Caicos Conch Sloop design, Mobile Enforcer, which had been commissioned by Cable & Wireless and constructed by Reverend Goldston ‘Gold’ Williams.

The occasion was a merry one timed to begin at the height of the 2nd Annual Conch Festival in front of 3 Queens Restaurant off the beach at the junction of the Wheeland and BlueHills communities. With over 1500 people in attendance the launch provided an apex to the day of eating and music.

Unfortunately the sea was too rough to give the promised rides aboard Caicos Sloops to the general public but as one volunteer launcher said, maybe we could make a special day of that, just taking people out for rides. We had brought the Middle Caicos Sloop from Chalk Sound and Goldray Ewing had his boat in the water ready to sail, but the onshore breeze and choppy seas were thought to be not the enjoyable interlude it was meant to be and people might not get a favourable impression of sailing a keeless sloop.

The launch began to begin around 4PM after the mooring anchor had been returned to the site. Goldray waded out to set the anchor, a big Bruce with about ten feet of chain, out toward the first reef with about three hundred feet of 7/8ths Dacron line donated by Captain Marvin’s Watersports. He also placed a second Danforth anchor with about fifteen feet of chain y’d from the first anchor line.

Goldray and I dragged four long 8-inch pvc pipes to the launch area, borrowed from Wing, Pring and George Dean’s sloop site just down the beach. Goldray and Pring laid out some driftwood planks to act as a rail and a volunteer was put aboard the sloop to take in the slack of the launch by pulling in on the anchor line. We were set.

Pring Dean and a proud master boat builder, Gold Williams orchestrated the launch, assigning people to positions on the sides, stern and bow. With a loud, “Heave” and a crowd of over a hundred supporting with more “Heaves”, the Enforcer was finally on her way to her natural place. The launch went in spurts as the weight, almost a ton, and fine sailing shape surprised everybody with an awkwardness of motion on land. At one point the vessel started to lay down on the Governor’s side with him giving encouragement to the others to hold it up, which they did with the help of the crowd.

She went into the sea easily after that, enjoying a downhill slide and slight splash, her bow still resting on the beach. The champagne was produced and calls for a mature woman of impeccable reputation was broadcast to the crowd, settling on the shoulders of Barbara Young, to christen the Sloop with the name Mobile Enforcer and impart wisdom gained through the years with the sailors’ baptismal tradition of breaking of the champagne bottle on the stem head of the vessel.

But the bottle would not break… after about ten minutes of trying and the wrapping and unwrapping of the Tattinger Champagne (donated by Donna Bartram), the strategy of breaking it with the small end and with somebody not exasperated was decided. Donna stepped up to the task and with the first swing broke the bottle while christening Mobile Enforcer.

Ian Kyle’s beaming face showed his appreciation of the Mobile Enforcer he commissioned. His small speech of congratulations did not fall on deaf ears, “It is very pleasing to see Mobile Enforcer, a fine example of the boat builder’s art, take to the water. Cable & Wireless is delighted to have been associated with the sloop building project. This has been a local initiative which builds on historical skills and excellence to develop exciting new vessels for the future, much like we do ourselves here at C&W. Everybody involved can be justifiably proud of the end result, which is tangible evidence of community power at work. On behalf of Cable & Wireless – well done to all!”

Drexwell Seymour, from South Caicos, who will be taking over Ian Kyle’s Executive Director duties at Cable & Wireless said of the commissioning of Mobile Enforcer, “Sometimes we take things for granted. I think this sloop will bring us a sense of pride in our heritage. I hope the Enforcer will remind us of where we came from, because even when I was growing up we still depended on the sloops.”

The shallowness of the water had the launchers wading to get her to a depth that she would float and then she was floating and turning to show off pretty lines of a soft rounding sheer and a pronounced stern that held the words Cable & Wireless. Her blue and smooth white paint job was accented in the bow by the C&W logo as she put her head to the oncoming chop and steadied as a stable platform to race, take children on experiential expeditions and adults on lessons about heritage.

Congratulations to Cable & Wireless and to Reverend Samuel Goldston Williams on a combination of resources, patience and skill that created a living instrument of learning, Mobile Enforcer, a Caicos Conch Sloop. Gold will be rigging Mobile Enforcer at Turtle Cove Marina, who supports the concept, aside Tiki Hut and the Fisheries and Parks boats.

Maritime Heritage Programme Update
Oseta Jolly Is One Complete Circle
“Maritime heritage is important because I think we need to know more about our culture. We need to follow our ancestors and keep our culture saved. The maritime heritage can teach us a lot of things about the past and we need to keep that dream alive.” Andresha Gardiner, 11, Iris Stubbs Primary School, South Caicos.

Back in January Katya Brightwell started a pilot programme that would familiarize Oseta Jolly students with Turks and Caicos sailing heritage. The programme was lucky enough to have Goldray Ewing volunteer to take twenty students out on his Albert Higgs’ Caicos Sloop, Maroons I and brought both Hammerhead Stubbs to tell sea tales and C. Washington Misick to remember he built a boat that sunk.

Katya used that information gained about working with young student numbers and what she felt would interest them about the study of the maritime heritage of this archipelago. She, with the assistance of Deputy Director of Education Edgar Howell and myself, put the programme into an orderly information package that would go through a school year and visit all the Islands.

The name of the Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme has shortened itself to the Sailing Our Sloops Programme but the concept is keeping generally on schedule despite a shortage of funding and no traditional sloops on Grand Turk or South Caicos.

This last week on Thursday Katya returned to Oseta Jolly with the result of the pilot. Some of the fifty-eight sixth graders had been in the original and all had taken a sail on Chalk Sound with Federation Vice-Chairman Goldray Ewing and Kevin ‘Baba’ Harvey skippering the 18-foot Carlon Forbes Middle Caicos Conch Sloop. Sixth graders are the focus of the programme with the future of immediately influencing the secondary schools that they will be entering after a school year of maritime cultural indoctrination. It is hoped that this programme will stimulate a curiosity in a combination of the words research and maritime.

Captain Lew Handfield told of his youth and the dedication to a life on the sea that was consuming and fulfilling. He related how his father, grandfather and great grandfather had sailed and built sloops. Captain Handfield said that he first boarded a vessel when he was three and never stopped his relationship with the sea. “My grand father could build a fast boat but not a tight one, so I learned about the bucket at an early age.

He would sail with his parents to their farm in North Caicos every morning and return at around 5pm. Little Lew wouldn’t leave the sloop, “I would stay in the boat because I liked it so much and my parents would say let him stay. I was in a boat since I was four years old, so I know all the tricks.”

“This is who we are. This is our heritage and we have to pass it on to you, children!”

Captain Lew wasn’t completely heavy in his conversation with the students, he did tell of childhood misadventures and laughed at himself through memories that seemed aching to be told to a receptive audience, which is what he had. After his ten minutes that turned into forty he was satisfied with his new title of Captain Longwinded and sat to listen to the rest of the class.

The students wrote an essay, as ends each session, on why maritime history is important to them. We ask them to take what has been taught that day, the history lesson on the development of the sloop designs, the stories of the guest speaker and write the outstanding feelings they have down on their booklet. Usually, one or two students are selected to read their small essay.

South Caicos, The Once Maritime Commercial Centre Of The Turks and Caicos
We had been looking forward to visiting South Caicos and to hearing Honourable Norman Saunders speak to the children of Iris Stubbs Primary School.

Norman met us at the airport, thanks to tickets supplied by Sky King, to tell us that he would not be able to do the lecture. He would have to fly to Providenciales on the same plane that brought us when it returned from Grand Turk. He drove us to the school and we met with Principal Durham who immediately found a substitute in her husband. The Durhams were advocates of returning sloop racing to the South Caicos Regatta, the first official sailing regatta in the Turks and Caicos.

Alden Durham brought three models of sailing vessels including the Bluenose to exhibit to the students. He sat at the back of the class and patiently listened to my “Little History of the Sloop”. But I could tell he wanted to take the floor and give his impromptu talk. Diligently Alden took the Question test with the students and was happy to answer all the questions. Then, it was his turn.

Durham has a downplaying type of story telling that showed a lot of passion for his favourite subject of sailing craft, especially the Caicos Sloops. He told of the different designs that he had witnessed in his life time, including several schooners that were built up in North Caicos. He told of the heydays of East Harbour (South Caicos) when you could see every kind of sailing vessel anchored out around the port.

Alden told of the times he had to go to Grand Turk by sloop and when it was choppy, the times everybody aboard was sea sick and only saw the passing by waters in place of the horizon.

“I love sailing boats.” He more than once said. He described seeing more then twenty sloops out for the first South Caicos Regatta, “… large and small… It was a sight to behold. They were a joy to watch… the sloops sailing up and down but for the last four or five years we have not had the sloops in the regatta.”

He ended his half hour speech with an impassioned plea to the students and to those who know about this silent history, “The sailing sloop is a part of our heritage. It used to be our way of life. You have to take over this heritage from us.”

Student Eddie Pierre understood from Alden’s speech that “Maritime heritage is important because it tells you all the facts you need to know that it is a part of your past and still could be a part of you, and you should ask some one and learn about their history. If our forefathers were here they would be proud to see that this is still going on since 1678.”

TCSPCA Christmas Fair

We will have a table at the 2006 TCSPCA Christmas Fair selling our t-shirts, caps, polo shirts, ladies’s wear and our new 2006 Calendar, as well as half models of sloops and the Bud Gascoinne and Jane Minty Charts. See you at the Christmas Fair on the 9th and 10th of December.

There will be a special opportunity for young people in the Channel 4 TV audience to ask questions of the TCSPCA’s new sailing recruit, SLOOP DOG, on the WIV-TCMHF produced programme, How Culture Works this evening at 9PM.

The late hour might be attractive to a few stout children and they can also ask questions of the first guests on the programme who have been through the first two sessions of the Sailing Our Sloops (Primary Schools Maritime Heritage) Programme.

The two guests will be Erika Rigby from Class 6L and Jordana Bodhanya, Class 6W with their experienced teacher-sailor, Ms Candace Williams from Enid Capron Primary School.

These now experienced sailors wish to be a part of the proposed Sea Ranger Youth Sailing Club and will be asking for other young people to join and tell why.

SLOOP DOG, the proposed mascot of the Sea Rangers, will bring along it’s sponsor, Susan Blehr of the TCSPCA and lately of the smash Brayton Hall hit, Caribbean Cinderella. They will be on the programme to tell some facts about being a dog in the Turks and Caicos.

How Culture Works will be hosted by me, with a lot less glitter then they.
How Culture Works, 9PM Wednesday, tonight, WIV Channel 4.

Derek Taylor Used to Sail
The Honourable Derek Taylor stepped forward to volunteer and tell sea tales to the 8th Grade students of both Eliza Simons and Ona Glinton Primary Schools on Grand Turk last Friday. Some of the stories were short and some were tall but they entertained and educated the total of 78 young people about young people on sloops “back then…” in the Turks and Caicos.

Derek started out with a tale about sailing over to Gibbs Cay in search of bird (pre-IGA) eggs and finding none, but getting a present of strings of conch as a reward for trying. He told of the worst trip he ever had in a sloop being a sail from Grand Turk to Salt Cay in 7 hours. He also let them in on the not so secret by those onboard with him, that he was prone to seasickness and heaved almost every trip but loved it so much he would still go back out.

We also gave our history of the progression of the Turks Islands and Caicos Islands Sloop designs, tracing them from the main influence of the Bermuda group of islands and 1678 as a benchmark year. This progression marks the Turks and Caicos designs as a historically important descendant of the Bermuda Sloop design that changed greatly influenced the sailing rig change from square sails to fore and aft sails.

All students in the programme receive a booklet that tells of the history of the T & C Sloops and has a questionnaire that they answer during the class session. The answers are randomly read aloud to the rest of the class and hopefully ingrained in the curiosity bent of the child. They were asked to interview elders who have experienced, in some way, the Turks Islands’ Sloops or the Caicos Islands’ Sloops for an essay that seem to be collecting cash prize monies for the best.
Enjaleek, a Grade 6 student at Eliza Simons Primary School, answered the question ‘Why is Maritime Heritage important’ with this insightful answer:

“My maritime heritage is important because I can pass it on to my children and I would know how to survive without an engine boat and it tells how people in our history transported goods and salt. It is also important because it is good for the air – it will not pollute the air. When the engine boats rust out we can still have sailboats.”

TCMHF Education Programmes Officer Katya Brightwell, who designed the programme with the support of the Department for Education, says she is delighted with the 198 children’s responses so far and inspired by their eagerness to learn about their maritime heritage. Having already covered schools in Provo, Middle Caicos and Grand Turk, the programme moves to South Caicos this Friday 25th November, and then on to North Caicos in December. We will be doing the heritage module tomorrow, Thursday at Oseta Jolly. The Sailing Our Sloops Programme was designed for the public schools but Ms Brightwell hopes to assist any interest by the private schools in developing a curriculum for their students.

Thanks go to sponsors Graceway IGA, The Governor’s Office, Air Turks & Caicos, Pine Cay Project and Sky King.

Though Ms Brightwell did not ask for it, TCMHF Vice Chairman Goldray Ewing has pledged $50 to the best essay and now master boat builder, Reverend Gold Williams has pledged another $50.

Invitation To Help Launch the Sloop
Gold Williams has just finished the mast for the Cable & Wireless commissioned, Mobile Enforcer and is working on rigging the sloop for a launch as the (2nd Annual) 2005 Conch Festival this Saturday, 26 November. The sail from SailRite, a cruising sailors’ do it yourself kit outfit, was finished by Needles and Pins, volunteered their services for the community Sloop.

This long awaited launch will invite the public to assist in the traditional pulling into the sea between tots of your favourite beverage. Don’t miss something that you are seldom able to see or participate. The launch is scheduled for 3PM in front or near the 3 Queen(s) Restaurant in Wheeland-Blue Hills, Providenciales.
The Conch Festival benefits the construction of a youth recreational centre for the Wheeland-Blue Hills community.

We will have a concession at the Conch Festival and will be on hand to put all of you aboard one of three Caicos Sloops for a little ride. We will also answer any questions on the Federation’s aims, sign you up for a $25 a year membership or a much more corporate membership as well as selling our new Sailing Calendars and our t-shirts, caps, Caicos Sloop half-models.

James Dean is Almost Finished and Launch Imminent
Master boat builder James Dean is just about finished with his DECR commissioned Sloop construction project, Environment I (or Stars and Stripes). Mr. Dean has been working feverishly to have the Sloop in the water, our second launching, before he leaves on vacation in the middle of December. James needs help with sanding the hull to get it to a fine finish for painting. James, at 70+, shouldn’t be left alone out in the hot sun to do this most tedious part of the project. Anybody willing, please call James Dean in Wheeland at 941 3506 or his wife, Marjorie (who has a delicious restaurant on the water’s edge) at 242 7909 to volunteer a little time.

The DECR Caicos Sloop will be used in sail training programmes for the young and old. All one will have to do is sign up and be put on a list or formulate a programme and submit a proposal to the Federation. These are community Sloops that are available for any worthwhile community focused project. You can drop by or call our office at The Market Place, 946 4935, Monday through Saturday (part day), sort of 9 to 5.

Three More Sloops About to Be Started
Mary Jane, of the Prestige Group will be starting construction soon at The Market Place and negotiations are being carried out with Wing and George Dean on the final Environment II and the tentatively called, Going Through. The two sloops have been commissioned by the Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources and by the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa.

It has been difficult getting builders to build because of their own schedules and the amounts offered.

Middle Caicos boat builder and sailor, Carlon Forbes has been okayed to construct by a email vote from the Board of Governors last week and is being approached to enter a bid on the design and building of a Middle Caicos Sloop for Federation community use.

We Need Ideas About Putting T&C Youth Aboard Bermuda Schooner
As the title says, the Federation is looking for ideas about how to choose who will go up to Maine and crew the Bermuda Sloop Foundation 85-foot three-masted schooner replica, Spirit of Bermuda on her maiden voyage to Bermuda next Summer.

An invitation by the Maritime Museum of Bermuda to the Federation to put two youth aboard the Spirit and to put them through an Outward Bound one week teamwork course, in preparation for the cruise. The Bermuda Sloop Foundation will support the youth while in Maine and aboard the schooner and all we have to do is pay for the air passages to Maine and from Bermuda.

Now, anybody have any ideas about choosing the youth, up to 15 years old, and support to send them there and get them back. Also, shouldn’t they have an adult along for the ride… I would volunteer or you might also…

“The children’s reactions have been inspirational”, says Education Programme Officer Katya Brightwell. “We have so far taken all Grade 6 children from Enid Capron and Oseta Jolly Primary Schools for familiarization sails on our Sloop ‘Ranger’ on Chalk Sound in Provo, and last Friday we started the first of our trips to the other islands by visiting Doris Robinson School in Middle Caicos.” The enthusiasm for the programme is contagious, one of the volunteers ventured. Many of those who looked with skepticism at a foreigner being successful at presenting a heritage programme to the archipelago have been some of those who are now participating.

“I came here with an objective appreciation for the rich maritime culture that is here and we decided that one way to promote that is to present it to the children. The sixth graders will be going into the secondary schools with information that might make it cool to know who you are and what your history is.” Ms Brightwell, a Londoner, felt the pressure of being a foreigner but so many came forward to offer assistance and that and the effect on the youth overbalanced the skeptical criticisms.

Mr. Edgar Howell, Deputy Director of Education, was in on the planning of the project and will be taking sailing lessons himself. Paraphrasing Mr. Howell, he said that he never felt like learning to sail on the other boats, but his own heritage made him “…want to learn on our design.” As a matter of fact the Honourable Floyd Hall is looking for time in his busy schedule to learn aboard a traditional sloop. The popularity of the Sloop is on the ascent but the Programme itself has not seen the funding that Ms Brightwell had hoped.

The school year long programme is scheduled to visit all the primary schools in the archipelago and attempt to get the a little under 500 sixth graders onto a traditional sloop, listen to local mariners talk about their experiences, write up essays, create art work and design and construct gemalba sloop models. There is even a plan for beautifying the schools with murals.

The programme went to Middle Caicos last Friday and took seven students from the Doris Robinson Primary School in volunteer driver Dwight Hall’s pick-up truck to Bambarra Beach and a sail aboard Carlon Forbes’ Middle Caicos Conch Sloop. This brought the number of students to board a sloop to 101 since the Programme started on the 7th of October. Like the other volunteer skippers, J.J. Parker, Goldray Ewing and Baba Harvey, after his time with the youth, Carlon agreed to be on hand for any further sails.

Captain Carlon, with his shoulder-of-mutton rig, sailed the small cays and along the empty white beach coastline bordered by Caicos Cedars. He took them through the paces of changing tacks, explaining what he was doing and warning them about what the meaning of the word boom might be to their heads.

Principal Elliott and Ms Brightwell accepted an invitation by Captain Carlon to take the last sail. Ms. Erlene Elliott, Head Teacher of Doris Robinson Primary School on Middle Caicos, praised the programme’s concept of teaching children this part of their history. “Sloop sailing and building has not been passed down through the generations and so it just died out…This project is going to wake it up around all of the islands; to revive it, so it doesn’t become a dead or past industry. I think it is wonderful.” She added: “I can’t swim, but I am going to go on the Sloop today, so that that is an experience that I can take back to the school, so that those children next year will know how it is, how it actually feels to be on a Sloop.”

Back at the school, Captain Carlon told the children that he was a boat builder and a sailor, a combination that they did not know made a distinction. The evolution of the Caicos Sloop designs from the Bermudian sloop designs was also something that they were aware. In reality, the students and the faculties of the three schools were not aware of the differences in sloop designs amongst the Turks and Caicos Islands. Part of the programme is story of the evolution hand out that also has a test that the students keep in which they have to write down three types of Sloops in the Turks and Caicos Islands and their uses.

At the end of the day Principal Elliott pledged to do what she could to keep this introduction to maritime heritage in her curriculum as a necessary ingredient to the children’s learning.
“Only a handful of these children had been on a sailboat before”, Brightwell added, “and they were all bubbles of excitement.”

Katya Brightwell is working with volunteers and a little funding from Graceway IGA, a computer and printer from the Pine Cay Project, the promise of $1,000 from the Government through the Governor’s Office and discounted air travel tickets from Air Turks and Caicos. If you would like to see the programme prosper in the future by becoming a part of it, please contact Katya Brightwell on 946 4935 or 243 2093.

Cultural Sailing Tours on Middle Caicos
Captain Carlon Forbes of Middle Caicos has pledged his knowledge and his Sloop to take tourists out to see where and tell why fishermen went to certain fishing grounds and how they went after fish, conch and lobster. He hopes that these lessons on the traditions of the Middle Caicos fishing culture would give a chance to finance maritime cultural lessons for the school aged children on the island and possibly other youth from the other islands.

Several concepts are being put forward by members of the Federation, including weekend fishing expeditions, overnight mini-voyages, day trips and even sunset cruises on traditional sloops. The empty beaches would be accessible by the non-pollutant quiet of the sloops and the knowledge of a man who has spent over sixty years touching their soft white sand.

In the recent Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme only Captain Carlon’s thirteen year old son, Richard, had ever been on a Sloop out of the scheduled nine participants. This was on an island that has traditionally sent its youth to sea.

James Dean Extends the Keel and Mobile Enforcer to Launch at Conch Festival
Master Boat wright James Dean attached the keel extension on Environment I last Wednesday signaling the almost completion of the hull for the graceful DECR commissioned traditional Caicos Sloop design and competition for Gold Williams’ Cable & Wireless design.

The masts for both Mobile Enforcer and Environment I (or as James calls her, Stars and Stripes) should also be completed by the week end. The sails for both vessels will be arriving late for the Conch Festival but the standby and donated service Needles and Pins’ sails should be completed for Mobile Enforcer and it is hoped the Gold Williams’ Caicos Sloop will be ready for Cable & Wireless to launch with the Festival on 26 November. Delays have been considerable in the finishing of the Cable & Wireless commission but volunteers are working toward the Conch Festival launch date.

Reverend Gold Williams is in North Caicos starting the new Mary Jane, a Prestige Group commissioned traditional North Caicos Sloop design.

The Federation is talking to prospective builders for the remaining two commissions by DECR and the Leeward Marina and Spa Resort. Builders willing to work for a community project at a moderate salary have been a problem in production of the vessels to date.

The commissioned vessels are planned to be utilized in Federation youth and adult sail training and heritage programmes.

Conch Festival Racing?
The Federation called the meeting after canvassing the sailors and finding that they wanted not only to race next 26th of November but wanted to put together a schedule and create some standards for their participation.

They decided that there should be a entrance fee or a percentage of the purses that assists the reparation of their Sloops if damaged in a race. They understood that sponsors needed the assurance that they would participate in events to which they had committed themselves. But, they wanted cash prizes as incentive to not only race but to participate in community familiarization sails. These first demonstration rides, outside of Goldray Ewing, J.J. Parker and Baba Harvey, for the public would be at the Conch Festival.

The proposal was also made that they seek year long sponsors for the Sloops to insure the funding for an adequate maintenance schedule. For the sponsor, the active participation of the Sloops in Federation youth projects gets their logos frequently out along the shoreline as the only billboards around and gives them a notice to the public of an active participation in youth programmes that benefit the community.

For the moment, there is the problem of a late commitment to the Conch Festival Race and the funding of the cash prizes. Mike Sottak of Wired Island Public Relations, who is the coordinator of the event, says there are a few potential sponsors who wanted to assist with the race, who might still, and the Conch Festival Committee has a few trophies on hand for the race.

The racers will have to find sponsors for the majority of the funding though and they have only a week and a half left. There are six traditional Sloops scheduled to race on 26 November. The Federation will have at least three Sloops available for skippered rides offered to the public without charge.

The sails have been ordered through Donna Bartram of The Market Place. These sails will be precut and sewn by SailRite in the States.

James Dean is working with the sun, placing the bottom section of his keel this week while the seams are being epoxy using cotton fiber filler. The next step, once the time consuming caulking is finished will be a series of sanding and then a coat of Awlgrip paint.

Gold Williams has been stalled up in North with the start of his new Sloop construction and will be conferring with the Vessel Committee this week about a schedule for its progress.

A meeting is scheduled for this afternoon at Baba Harvey’s Sailing Paradise in Blue Hills that will bring together the Providenciales Sloop racers to see if they want to commit to some type of schedule. The Federation has kept its distance with the racers since the Provo Day race because of a lack of organization and commitment.

It is just too difficult to ask sponsors to put up money and their names to guys who might race or might not race, depending on what they feel. If the racers cannot commit themselves to being more professional about what they are doing and not just wanting to get paid then the Providenciales public might just have to wait until the Federation gets it’s Sloops in the water, with which we will have a schedule of races and demonstrations and an open crew list.

We feel that if money has to come into the prizes then the racers have to consider themselves professionals and accept the responsibilities of professionals.

The last two paragraphs are coming from H.E. Ross, the Programmes Manager.

Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme name
I have been corrected as to the name of this enjoyable Programme and apologize to Katya Brightwell about my misuse of the words.

I even have the wrong name on our website which is linked to TCI Mall at the very bottom of this page as www.maritimeheritage.tc. We have a lot of not so organized information about what we are doing in more detail and some history stuff. Unfortunately, I am doing the website and don’t have the time to give it its due. We are about to correct that with more people volunteering but everything takes time.

Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme Update

Last Friday, 4 November saw 56 sixth grade students of Oseta Jolly give Kevin “Baba” Harvey and Vice Chairman Goldray Ewing sailing workouts as they spent from 10AM to 4:00PM taking groups of three and four out on our Rotary donated Middle Caicos Sloop, Ranger, on Chalk Sound.

Oseta Jolly was the pilot programme school that was used and a couple of the students were able to get back on this sloop in place of Goldray’s North Caicos Sloop, Maroon I, that we used last Spring.

Baba volunteered to be a part of passing on the sailing skills and information about Chalk Sound to the youth and says, “Count me in on any other sails. They were great.” Baba’s grandfather Captain Smith used to sponge in Chalk Sound and Baba pointed out the crawls that he built and are still present to the students.

The indefatigable Goldray got infatigued after his time on the water and fell asleep in his chair at home that evening. Goldray exclaimed at the end of the sailing, that “…they are all little angels. They never stop asking questions.”

While the students were out on the pastel blue waters of Chalk Sound the remaining students went on reef, crawl, Taino excursions and learned some marlinspike seamanship (knots).

This was the biggest group so far and we learned a lot about pacing ourselves, Katya Brightwell, the Education Programme Officer decided.

Ms. Brightwell and I will be going to Middle Caicos this Friday, 11 November, with Chairman Mac Stubbs, to put nine students there on a Carlin Forbes Middle Caicos Sloop. They will be treated to a lecture by Brodie Forbes, President of the Middle Caicos Model Boat Association, on what the Sloop represents. There will also be a Sloop development lecture scheduled on their busy schedule in North. The air travel will be partially donated by Air Turks and Caicos, who will have Debby Ahoran consulting with Katya about getting involved with the year long Primary Schools Maritime Heritage Programme schedule.

Exciting News for Corporate Members and Sponsors and a Sailing Party
The Marketing Committee is batting about several concepts that should interest potential corporate sponsors and get a greater corporate membership, including the purchase of a 74-foot topsail schooner for sail training.

The concepts will be aired at a special party to be held on one of Jay Stubbs’ Sail Provo trimarrans that will leave the dock on the 19th of November at 3PM. Invitations will be brought around to businesses that have shown an interest and have sponsored programmes in the past with the Federation.

TC Invest and Cultural Tourism and Oral History Recording
Our community group television show, How Culture Works, will have representatives from both TC Invest and the Tourist Board on tonight at 9PM to talk about what they have to offer the community.

Mrs. Lillian Misick is scheduled to accompany Mr. Clayton Been on the show to talk about the small business seminars she is finishing as well as how community groups can be positively affected by TC Invest. Federation Board Governor Donna Gardiner is scheduling a representative from the Tourist Board for the show to explain how the new slant toward cultural tourism is looking for the community to really participate.

How Culture Works started its new schedule at 9PM last week with guests Nigel Sadler, Director of the National Museum and co-host David Bowen, Director of the Department of Culture. The show focused on a new programme that the Museum is offering the community that should assist in archiving oral history recording.

The Oral History Programme will teach volunteers and community group representatives how to use audio and video recording equipment and how to do interviews so that they might, by their own incentive, go out and record oral histories with the same Museum borrowed digital equipment. The interviewer can keep a copy but one copy has to be given to the Museum who will archive the material, making it available for public use through an agreement with the interviewer.

This is exciting news for history recording interests here in the Turks and Caicos. Now, schools and the private citizen will be able to have the equipment and expertise to get living history saved for the future! We will announce when the first seminars will be held as soon as we get the news. We will also announce it on How Culture Works.

Schools and Volunteers
The Schools Maritime Education Programme is getting teachers excited and volunteers coming forward. Ms Elliott, Principal of the Doris Robinson Primary School on Middle Caicos, when told of Middle Caicos being on the schedule she exclaimed that we wanted us to come the next day… Middle Caicos is being planned for the week of the 7th through 11th of November, with Brodie Forbes assisting in the organizing of a sail and an classroom lecture. There are only six sixth graders at Doris Robinson and Ms Elliott feels, “…the children will love it.”

Referred by Derek Taylor, Mrs. Lillian Misick feels the Programme is “right up my alley”. Mrs. Misick, Small Business Manager for TC Invest, was principal of the H.J. Robinson High School on Grand Turk. Mrs Misick said she was eager to get involved and is being asked to assist in the coordination and evaluation of the presentations with the intent of continuing the programme into future curriculum.

Federation Vice Chairman Goldray Ewing and Kevin “Baba” Harvey, of Blue Hills Sailing Paradise, will be taking 60 Oseta Jolly sixth graders sailing on Chalk Sound this Friday from 10AM through 3:30PM. It is a beautiful sight to see if you have the time just pop by the traditional launching site just down Carl Simmons’ big pink house on the hill.

How Interviews Work
The Wednesday night call in programme, How Culture Works, moves to a new time slot with a very important oral history programme as its feature. Directors Nigel Sadler (National Museum) and David Bowen (Department of Culture) will be explaining an oral history archival programme that they will be implementing through seminars on all of the islands.

Nigel and David were sent to England for a course in interview techniques with digital audio and video recording equipment. The concept, developed through the Ministry of Culture, is to instruct the public, mainly through community organizations, in the use of the state of the art equipment and techniques for conformity in interview and then let them use the equipment to do oral history interviews.

How Culture Works, produced by WIV Channel 4 and the Maritime Heritage Federation, will be airing this important programme at its new hour of 9PM, Wednesday night on Channel 4. Next week will see TC Invest representatives informing the public about how it works and programmes that could be helpful to investment here in the Turks and Caicos.

Sloops delayed by weather again
The anxiety level is leveling off at %*#@! these days as James Dean picks his hours to work without drops falling on Environment I. The 22-foot Caicos Sloop has taken it pretty form with jaunty shear curving and proud bow but it is still on land. Volunteer H. Hinderaker came by after work on Monday to lend a hand. Wild Bill McCollum of the Claymore Group is sending some sanding folk this weekend (we hope) and Bryan MacDonald of OBM will be earning blisters this weekend also.

Goldray Ewing and H.E Ross are in the process of building two masts of spruce for the Sloops this week at Wil Gibson’s shop.

Bermuda Sloop off Provo
The Bermuda Sloop Foundation is hoping to send a representative soon to do a topical survey on the site of one of only two known Bermuda Sloop wrecks. Bermudan Maritime Historian Nick Hutchings, who is corresponding with the Federation, hopes to be on Providenciales before the month is out to go over the reef where the wreck is located to evaluate what will be needed for a future survey. The Bermuda Sloop Foundation, an arm of the Royal Maritime Museum of Bermuda, hopes to work with the Turks and Caicos Government on a study of the wreck site which could bring quite a bit of international publicity to the archipelago and open up fields of study of the influence of the Turks and Caicos on the development of trade in the New World.

The Bermuda Sloop Foundation also hopes to launch their new 85-foot, $3million, 3-masted Bermuda Schooner, The Spirit of Bermuda, next July and has invited the Federation to send two students to crew and received seamanship lessons on the inaugural voyage from Maine to Bermuda.

Between Drops and Floods

This has been one of those eventful weeks also but not for the best of reasons. The flooding of last Tuesday night picked our Cable & Wireless Mobile Enforcer up and turned her 90 degrees letting us all see that she is also impatient to get into the wet. The Gold Williams designed and constructed Caicos Sloop wanted to get down to the creek bed behind her construction site but one branch of a locust tree stopped her progress with not even a scratch of paint.

Our office flooded and we have lost our laptop computer that was sitting on the desk, a lot of paperwork and had to clean a lot of t-shirts.

Everything is all bailed out now and the office is trying for a new look in a tiny space. But other things are happening between the drops like James Dean’s valiant effort at sealing the interior of his Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources’ Environment I (which James insists is Stars & Stripes). He has somehow, managed to deck the Sloop over and everything inside is now coated in epoxy.

James saw the inspiration for the name Stars & Stripes not from the U.S. flag or the Union Jack even but from a dream of a boat sailing toward him and on the one side were stars and when the boat tacked there were stripes on the other side. This was before he started building this boat, which he confessed he never liked until he started to plank her. He didn’t even remember the dream until he saw her framed one-day and knew it was this boat.

Anyway, speaking of sailing, the Bermuda Sloop Foundation of the National Maritime Museum of Bermuda, has reissued its invitation to the Federation to provide two Turks and Caicos youth to be on the inaugural crew of their 88-foot Bermuda Sloop replication of 1790. The youth will sail from Maine to Bermuda with thirteen other 15 year olds. There is also another offering they are sending our way which has to be clarified which is a berth in a training session for a permanent crew position aboard the schooner for a youth under 25 years of age. The three masted schooners was the first vessel to use the Bermudian triangular sail. This schooner will be called the Spirit of Bermuda.

At our first Board of Governors meeting last night, Chairman Mac Stubbs said he was grateful to be a part of an organization that truly was dedicated to preserving the maritime heritage and history of the Turks and Caicos Islands. He also included that the Board had the responsibility of passing the history, as the foundation of this nation, to our youth. I am paraphrasing but the point was the same.

The meeting elected Becky Carlson as Treasurer and Henry Wilson as her assistant, and Bill Clare was elected Secretary with Donna Gardiner and Brian Been his assistant.

Corporate Memberships and the Schools Educational Programme were the main topics on the agenda. Committees were being formed on the chalkboard and today the vessel committee has already held a meeting being led by Rev. Gold Williams.

Tonight on How Culture Works, bar another flood, our guests will be Chairman Mac Stubbs, Vice Chairman Goldray Ewing and Boat wright James Dean. This is the first night we have focused exclusively upon the Federation so please call in with any questions you have about who we are and what we want to do and how we do it.



Pictures of before and after the flooding last week Tuesday night.

Before the flood

Sailing Kids, Masts, New Board and General Manager
It is amazing the amount of things that can happen in a week. A technicality has evolved the Maritime Heritage Federation while programmes have stepped up their pace and our General Manager has returned with a pledge of promoting more energy in our dynamic. What a sentence…

Because of a brief conversation with Washington Misick it came to our attention that maybe we needed to have a first gener