The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum welcomed 15 students from Rocking the Boat to experience environmental and boatbuilding career opportunities. Rocking the Boat is a Bronx, NY-based program where students work together to build wooden boats, learn to row and sail, and restore local urban waterways, revitalizing their community while creating better lives for themselves. Students explored Maryland’s Eastern Shore July 11-14, which included a day at CBMM’s boatyard and campus.
While at CBMM, the students took sailing tours of the Miles River on the oystering skipjack H.M. Krentz, sailing the boat and dredging for oysters as they learned about the ecology of oysters and the Chesapeake Bay. They also worked on CBMM’s current Apprentice for a Day project Pintail, a 25-foot draketail replicating CBMM’s Hooper Island draketail Martha. Planking Pintail gave the students a chance to learn and practice the models and techniques of Chesapeake Bay boatbuilding.
The Rocking the Boat students also had the opportunity to experience the Miles River by sailing, rowing, and paddling CBMM’s small craft boats, built in CBMM’s boatyard.
“We are very excited to host these young folks from Rocking the Boat,” said CBMM President Kristen Greenaway. “CBMM’s own youth after-school boatbuilding program, Rising Tide, is loosely based on Rocking the Boat, and we are very proud to be associated with such an impactful program.”
Established in 1965, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is a world-class maritime museum dedicated to preserving and exploring the history, environment, and people of the entire Chesapeake Bay, with the values of relevancy, authenticity, and stewardship guiding its mission. Serving nearly 70,000 guests each year, the museum’s campus includes a floating fleet of historic boats and 12 exhibition buildings, situated in a park-like setting along the Miles River and St. Michaels’ harbor. For more information, visit www.cbmm.org