At GreenFleet, "We're not just building boats; we're building kids"
NEW BEDFORD — "Just like that. Watch your hands," the boat-builder tells the boy.
Theirs is the age-old relationship of master and apprentice.
The boy is chiseling a notch into a wooden mold. The notch will receive the keelson — a main support beam of the 18' sharpie skiff.
"Make sure you're lined up just right," the man says. "What can you use to draw a line?"
The boy thinks. "A square?"
"That's right. Go get it."
It feels like a scene out the whaling era, but it is happening now, right on North Front Street in the city's historic waterfront district.
The boat-builder is Christian Smith of New Bedford. He and his wife, Jennifer, started GreenFleet in 2009. The program is free for all New Bedford teens to join. Any teen who signs up is in the program.
The Smiths have four main intentions with GreenFleet:
To teach inner-city teens from New Bedford to build boats To teach them to use the boats they build To have them use those boats to haul garbage from SouthCoast beaches To cultivate in these kids a pride in their waterfront
This is the type of program that is amazing to see first-hand.
Because it works.
n n
"I found out about GreenFleet at the Working Waterfront Festival last year," says Tyler DeMelo, 14.
The thin, quiet boy is a ninth-grader at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School. Dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, he quietly chisels away at the wooden mold of the 18' foot sharpie skiff.
"I was watching kids put a boat together, and I was interested in building and rowing."
On a recent day in the North Front Street workshop, Tyler worked side by side with 12-year-old David Hughes.
"I just thought it would be cool to build my own boat," says David, a Roosevelt Middle School seventh-grader with braces and glasses.
Looking ever the handyman, David dons a navy boiler suit, totes a saw around the GreenFleet workplace, munches on a Pop-Tart.
"It's fun; it's relaxing," David says. "I like the fact that I can work on something like this on my own, outside of school. "And I love rowing. Before GreenFleet, I had only been on a boat once, with my uncle.
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"We're not building boats. We're building kids," he says. "The boat is merely the vehicle." GreenFleet was born out of a conversation the Smiths had when they first started dating. They were talking about a teen boatbuilding program in the Bronx called
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Look around for your boat building supplies » Abaigally.com
As with all purchases, it is always worth looking around when seeking out boat building supplies. You can do this by checking directories, consultant sailing magazines as well as on the internet. The value of conducting a web search for small boat building supplies is that you can find suppliers you may have not ever heard about. Their sites generally have a catalogue of products on offer, with prices. They could have a hot line to place orders, or you might possibly be able to order online. It is also worth checking delivery costs. Though if you live near to the supplier and you can pick up the products yourself, you will be in a position to save on delivery costs. If you have to have the goods delivered it is sensible to test delivery times.
Chums and buddies who are used to building a wooden boat or two and are involved in sailing are always a great fund of advice when sourcing building supplies. They can offer advice on who the best suppliers are and which ones supply the best service.
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