S.C. students get lifelong lessons in weeklong sail
This October 2017 photo shows Roscoe Davis, the director of the Offshore Leadership Program, aboard the Liberty Clipper in Charleston. For a week each year, participants in the program sail from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to Charleston, showcasing leadership skills they've learned over the previous year.
COLUMBIA (AP) - Amanda Goldman was a shy kid when she embarked on a weeklong sail from North Carolina's Cape Hatteras to Charleston two years ago. Now, the high school senior says that tall-ship journey gave her the confidence and leadership skills she'll take to college next year.
"It really showed me I could get through even the hardest situation," said Goldman, a senior at Ashley Hall, a private all-girls school in Charleston. "It was probably the best experience of my life."
For a week each fall, students enrolled in a competitive course on leadership and stewardship embark on a sailing journey, learning firsthand some of the mental toughness they've studied for a year.
This week, a new crew of students is setting sail. Seventeen girls and three teachers, along with nine professional crew members, will staff the Liberty Clipper, a 120-foot schooner based out of Boston. They're set to return to Charleston this weekend.
Roscoe Davis chairs the school's classics department and coordinates the trip, which culminates a program that gives students cues from works by Plato and shows like "Restaurant: Impossible." Working around the clock in shifts, the students take turns standing watch at the helm and hauling and striking sails. They also pull galley duty, cleaning and cooking for their mates.
"Initially, they're pretty apprehensive when they step foot on that boat," Davis said. "Each one experiences things differently, but they all eventually get through it, facing those fears and feeling like there's a victory."
That's what Golden said she felt, even though she and the other participants had been in class together for months beforehand. Goldman said she was a shy kid new to town when she began the course two years ago. The sailing trip changed all that, she said.
"After the first day, the connection and the bonds that we formed were so incredibly strong," Goldman said.
The Offshore Leadership Program has been taking place at Ashley Hall for 11 years, during which Davis said he's stressed the motto, "Ship, Shipmate, Self."
"I tell students, 'You can never be a leader until you're a leader of yourself,'" Davis said, referencing works in which Plato stressed service to others.
Duties aren't over when the students return to Ashley Hall. Graduates of the leadership program are members of Compass Rose, an honor society for which Goldman serves as president. Members mentor third-grade students at a nearby elementary school and work with them on activities like swimming and stargazing.
As she prepares to leave home, Goldman said she knows she'll be able to take that confidence with her.
"I can take what I learned from that and apply it to college," Goldman said. "While it may be hard and scary at first, I'll grow close bonds with people around me."