The Sail Training Program of the Year award is presented to the “program which significantly contributes to the development of seamanship, navigation skills, teamwork, and leadership skills.” Sail training teaches specific knowledge and skills needed to sail the ship, through which individuals learn lessons in teamwork, communication, work ethic, leadership, responsibility and trust. The value of sail training is in its outcomes; it inspires students to do their best to fit into the ship’s community and excel. The sailing experience is as challenging as it is rewarding. Its ultimate reward is personal growth, enhanced self esteem and social confidence.

NIAGARA’s outstanding sailing programs would not be possible without the stellar leadership of her captain. ASTA also recognized Captain Wesley Heerssen by presenting him with the 2010 Sail Trainer of the Year award. It is given “to an individual who makes a significant contribution to the field of sail training through the demonstration of leadership by means of empowerment and inspiration.” Captain Heerssen has demonstrated his dedication to sail training through nearly 25 years of work on traditional sailing ships, starting out as a young volunteer onboard ELISSA and moving on to many other vessels before joining NIAGARA 10 years ago. Countless trainees, professional crew, volunteers and students have been privileged to learn about sail training from this gifted teacher and passionate sail trainer. With this distinguished award, Captain Heerssen joins the ranks of the most highly decorated sail trainers in North America.

Remarkably, the Niagara Sailing Program was honored during the same year as her captain. Never before has this dual recognition by ASTA been received within one organization.

http://www.newportharborguide.com/articles/art10_sailingToLearn.html

About the Newport Harbor Guide:
Published every spring, the complete Newport Harbor Guide is available worldwide online. Pick up printed copies at the Seamen’s Church Institute of Newport, plus marinas, yacht clubs and select retail outlets in Newport, as well as throughout Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound. The Guide can also be found at high profile marinas and yacht clubs along the East Coast from Maine to Florida, Bermuda, the Caribbean, Great Britain, Europe, and the Mediterranean.

One of the most powerful quotes is as follows:
So far the voyage has been fantastic. I graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst two days before driving to Erie, Pennsylvania. The following two weeks completely changed my life. I feel as though I am now free to sail the world. I always wanted to travel upon graduation, and I’ve found my ticket. I have learned a great deal about sailing, open water, community, family and what it means to be a part of a dedicated and functioning team. Each person is needed for every step. No one is left behind and everyone is important.

On Saturday 15 May, seven students from the northwest Pennsylvania schools Allegheny College and Edinboro University set sail on the Flagship Niagara.  For the next three weeks the students – now “sail trainees” – were full members of the ship’s crew, working, eating, and sleeping alongside professional sailors and dedicated volunteers.  In their first hours, the students would have agreed entirely with Richard Henry Dana’s assertion in the first chapter of Two Years Before the Mast, that “there is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor’s life.”  As one student wrote in their reflective journal on that first day, “I had NO IDEA what was going on.  People were shouting orders, then repeating them, then pulling, tying, or coiling the ropes.  It was insane.”  Yet, as the days wore on, the fog of that insanity started to clear, and the students began to make sense of their new world and embraced it wholeheartedly, to the point where none of them wanted to leave at the end of their three-week class. They began to “speak sailor,” as another student described it.

Many of the students wrote a concluding comment in their journals on the last day.  Those comments are reflective of the cumulative, “life-changing” nature of the experience.  As one wrote, “the combination of sail training with historical study has granted me what I believe to be an incredible historical insight.  Aside from the benefits to my historical philosophy, this experience has served to boost confidence and show me parts of myself that could be markedly improved and increased my quality of life.”  Another said, “overall, I feel like this trip was amazing and I would recommend it to anyone.  It is a really great experience.  I learned a lot.  Not only about sailing, but friendship, leadership, teamwork and etc.”  But perhaps the most evocative comment was this one, from a student who doubted if they would prosper in this environment:  “There are few words to describe my experience aboard the Niagara. . . . There’s no freedom like the freedom that this crew experiences. . . . I feel like I want to live alone in a shack for the rest of my life if I can’t have this.”

The seven students from Allegheny and Edinboro set out to study the War of 1812 and the historical life of sail.  They accomplished that goal, but along the way they became part of an historical community of sailors and preservationists.  They put themselves last, ship and shipmates first.  They accepted leadership and lead others.  They accepted responsibility and saw their peers do the same.  They came as close as one can to re-creating the nineteenth century community of sail.  And they would all do it again, in a heartbeat.  To quote the Niagara’s Chief Mate, “Once part of Niagara’s crew, always part of Niagara’s crew.”

Ian Binnington, Ph.D.
Department of History
Allegheny College
Instructor, History 508, ” History Under Sail: The Flagship
Niagara and the Great Lakes,” Summer 2010