After 8 years and $16 million, the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry is welcoming students for the first time this weekend, as Rhode Island’s official sailing education vessel. Students aboard will work alongside a professional crew to learn about ocean navigation. Executive director of the Perry, Jess Wurzbacher said the students will be learning skills fast disappearing on the water.
“Sailing a Tall ship is a little bit of a lost art,” said Wurzbacher. “We have 6 miles of rope, 160 points where our line is made up. So it requires everybody working together in a very combined nature to make the vessel move.”
Wurzbacher said the excursions are as much about developing teamwork and communication skills.
“Many of the students who sail with us will probably never get on a square rigged ship again because there aren’t that many of them,” said Wurzbacher. “So it’s about learning from sailing rather than learning to sail. So it’s not about learning how to sail a full rigged ship it’s about the things that you learn on the journey to do that.”
The Oliver Hazard Perry is one of the only ocean-going full-rigged ships built in the U.S. in a century. At 200 feet long and 13 stories tall, it is second in size only to one of the Coast Guard’s ships, the Eagle.