NEWPORT BEACH : OCC Students to Sail to New Zealand

Every year the students from Orange Coast College’s Sailing Center take the school’s floating classroom, a 65-foot sloop named “Alaska Eagle,” a little farther. First they took it to Hawaii and back. Then to Tahiti and back.

This year, the students--along with a skipper, a first mate and a cook--will sail the Eagle all the way to New Zealand.

The launch is planned Saturday, when the crew of two teachers and nine students will set off for Maui, the first stop on a 20,000-mile trip that will last until next July and includes a four-month layover in New Zealand.

“It’s a great adventure,” Eagle skipper Brad Avery said as he rushed about the boat Wednesday morning making last-minute preparations. “By the end of this trip the students are running the boat by themselves.”

Students will operate the boat in groups of 10 for several weeks at a time. When the journey ends, about 130 students--including engineers, veterinarians, psychologists and lawyers--will have taken part.

They usually return from their time on the high seas with new respect for their own grace under pressure and for the beauty of the ocean, Avery said.

Sailing student Tom Devlin, 36, said he looks forward to experiencing natural wonders he has no opportunity to see during days spent working as a software engineer.

“I’m just hoping to see the ‘green flash,’ ” said Devlin, who will be a crew member on the 19-day leg from Tahiti to Pago Pago. “The story is that when the sun sets over water and under a cloudless sky, the final glimpse of the sun as it goes over the horizon is a green flash. I haven’t seen it yet.”

Although most of the students will be on vacation time from work, the trip isn’t about getting a tan or relaxing and enjoying a good novel, Avery said. This is a working vacation, with bunks to clean, sails to change and navigation skills to acquire.

Each participant pays $125 a day, which covers meals, a bunk and sailing instruction. Most students stay on the boat for one leg, which ranges from 13 to 25 days. Then a new crew of 10 students takes over the operation. They pay their own ways to the South Pacific ports where they join the crew.

More than 3,000 people each year take classes at the college’s sailing center, which opened in 1955. Some come from as far away as Canada, Montana and Arizona to sail the Pacific on the Eagle, which was donated to the college in 1982.