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In its second century of life, the schooner Bowdoin has again developed a globetrotting schedule. A Maine-built vessel historically used for Arctic exploration, the 104-year-old Bowdoin has been owned by Castine-based Maine Maritime Academy since 1988. It’s now used for student training and education, which included three trips to the Arctic in its first 35 years at the school.
It made the 5,000-plus miles trip again last summer for the first time in 16 years, and the school now plans to send it there every three years following a student campaign for more regular trips. Learning to sail traditional, lower-tech vessels makes better mariners, according to its captain. But the Arctic is also expected to see an explosion of shipping and tourism in the coming years as climate change thins the ice there and new resource extraction projects begin.
That means it could also help students who sail the Bowdoin to prepare for future careers. Last month, the academy’s annual climate change symposium focused expressly on maritime industry in the Arctic, including the prospect of future jobs there. One of the speakers compared the situation to the Mediterranean Sea just being discovered.
The number of ships entering the Arctic already increased 37 percent between 2013 and 2023, according to the Arctic Council, and is only expected to go up. Wherever students go on to work, experience with a hands-on traditional vessel like the Bowdoin creates good mariners in a way high-tech modern ships don’t, according to its captain, Alex Peacock. Along with the situational awareness and engagement that comes with navigating manually through icy waters without autopilot technology, the students develop communication and teamwork skills while living and working closely together for weeks.
Though the design is more than a century old, the Bowdoin is “still the right boat to do it with,” Peacock said. It’s the right size for Arctic conditions and wood has more give than metal if it comes up against ice, one of the major navigation challenges on such a trip. Sailing safely through glaciers and sea ice requires days or weeks of advance planning around weather conditions, ice charts, winds and tides to avoid hazards such as getting closely “pinched” between land and ice without a way out.
That teaches students to think differently. “It’s very easy to lose sight of the big picture and all of a sudden be backed in the corner,” Peacock said. During the trips, Peacock also wants students to think about stewardship and try to learn and observe from local people.
That’s something they might not have much time to do when they return to the area on a commercial ship with a job to focus on. The students also collect scientific data to be analyzed when they return home, which helps to track change in the area. Compared to data from the schooner’s 1991 trip, there’s no denying glaciers have receded, Peacock said.
Overall, the trips are a way to attract new mariners — which the industry says it sorely needs — in a time when Peacock thinks young people are often less interested in the physical world or working outside. “There’s no better time than right now for experiential learning and hands-on trades for students coming out of high school,” he said. More articles from the BDN.
