11-Day Class on Bounding Main : Young Feet Find Their Sea Legs

Silhouetted against the pre-dawn sky off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, four young cadets cranked the windlass of the 145-foot topsail schooner Californian. They had already stripped away their heavy jackets and worked up a sweat as they pumped feverishly to raise the anchor.

“Come on, get mad at it,” crew member Ted Witten shouted with mock severity. “Bend your backs.”

Standing at the helm, Capt. Bill Curry oversaw operations as his wife, Helen, the ship’s bosun, directed the raising of the port anchor. “Slack off on your hawse. Take up on your burden,” she shouted as the anchor slowly made its way out of the water.

‘Take Up Your Sheets’

With only a sliver of sun sitting on the horizon, First Mate John (Sugar) Flanagan directed other cadets raising the mainsail. “Smartly on that halyard,” he shouted. “Take up your sheets there.”

When all were ready, Flanagan ordered, “Haul away. Heave, heave, heave,” as the mainsail inched its way up the mast.

The Californian, an 8-month-old vessel modeled after the 19th-Century revenue cutter C. W. Lawrence, was under way. A sleek seductress of a sailing ship, it was completing an 11-day training mission to give cadets what Curry calls “a unique, challenging experience.”

Two weeks ago, most of the 12 cadets aboard the Californian had no idea what the myriad lines aboard a sailing vessel were. Only after coming aboard did they learn that those various strands of what appeared to be ropes could be lines, halyards, sheets, hawse, burden.

But by the time they headed into Dana Point Harbor at the end of their cruise, they could throw around those terms with all the accuracy and apparent experience of old salts.

“I started from zero,” said Greg Meiners, 17, a senior at Nordhoff High School in Ojai. “Now I can name all the lines on the boat, and I know what they do. With a little practice, I think I could handle a small sailboat now.”

The Californian and its cruises are the realization of a dream for the 1,100-member Nautical Heritage Society in Dana Point. Society members raised the $1.25 million it cost to build the ship, the only sail training vessel operating on the West Coast.

Official Tall Ship Ambassador

California’s Legislature has designated the schooner as the state’s official tall ship ambassador, and the Californian’s cadet program is open to any state resident between the ages of 16 and 21.

“This is a new program for the West Coast,” said Steve Christman, the society’s founder and executive director. “You don’t have to belong to a special group to go.”

Most of the cadets on this mission were high school students from the Oxnard area, but the society has 14 more cruises scheduled for this year, giving youngsters from all over the state an opportunity to go to sea.

Cadets were issued a thick binder filled with information on the ship, the basics of seamanship, navigation, the history of the Lawrence, which patrolled San Francisco Bay for the U.S. Revenue Marine Service--forerunner of the Coast Guard--during the California Gold Rush. She sank in a storm off San Francisco in 1851.

Each day cadets were tested on their knowledge of basic seamanship, navigation, knot tying, history. But the cruise taught cadets as much about themselves as about the sea.

“We have people aboard who are shy, quiet,” Curry said. “They developed confidence. They do everything aboard the ship, and they’re taught everything a crew member would be taught.”

The cruise also teaches cadets “to work together and live with a group of people who were initially strangers,” said Christopher Gann, 23, a crew member.

Sleep in Hammocks

On this mission, cadets slept in the saloon--not the booze-serving kind, but the ship’s main cabin--in hammocks, with only a few feet of clearance beneath the overhead. Their wake-up call could come as early as 5 a.m., and they would sit dazed and bleary-eyed for up to 20 minutes while waiting to get into the head.

Several became intimate with the ship’s rail during the first few days at sea, leaning over the side to “feed the sharks,” as their queasy stomachs rebelled against a meal’s intrusion. Showers were a luxury unknown on board, and standing night watch in temperatures that sometimes dipped into the 30s sorely tested their long underwear and down jackets.

Yet, any one of the cadets who completed the 11-day training mission would have jumped at the opportunity to repeat the experience. Immediately.

“I’d just like to stay on the boat longer,” said Liz Lewis, 17, a student at Gateway School in Oxnard, as the Californian headed into Dana Point Harbor Thursday at the end of its cruise. “I’d like to learn a lot more.”

“I did things like steer the ship that I never dreamed of doing before,” said Joanne Curtiss, 17, a senior at Newbury Park High School. “And I never knew how much strength it took to haul in a line.”

$600 Scholarships

Most cadets on the cruise learned of the mission from their teachers less than a week before the ship set sail from Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard, and they had to scramble to round up all the gear they needed. Eleven of them were awarded $600 scholarships to apply to the mission’s $700 cost.

Christman is busy trying to persuade businesses to provide more scholarships to defray cadet costs on the ship’s remaining 14 missions this year, and he said he is confident each cruise will be full.

If the cadets completing last week’s mission had their way, they’d return to fill each cruise.

“When I got on this boat, I was terrified of boats and water,” said Sioux Pavkovich, 17. “Now I love it, and I want to sail. I’d go back tomorrow. I wish I could stow away.”

For James Clarkson, 16, of Oxnard, the cruise was “an incredible experience. It taught me how to take responsibility for everything.”

Clarkson, who had no previous sailing experience, said the mission taught him how to get along with people a lot better. “I’m usually shy,” he said. “Now I find I’m really coming out . . . maybe a bit too strong. We all do have to work together.”

Crew Praised

The cadets had nothing but compliments for the Californian’s eight-member professional crew, whose patience and love for sailing set an example that made the cadets work all the harder on board. Crew members consider themselves lucky just to have landed jobs on the majestic ship.

“Most people just fantasize about going off on a square-rigger,” said Witten, 23. “I’ve lived it.”

And ship’s cook Jeanne Felton calls serving on the tall ship “the ultimate for me. I have no desire to return to land full time.”