PORT TOWNSEND — This course provides career training and credit toward graduation. It’s also about rowing, sailing, boatbuilding and saving lives at sea — and it’s free.
The Port Townsend Maritime Academy, now in its third year, will hold two open houses this month to introduce high school juniors and seniors across the North Olympic Peninsula to next fall’s program.
“It’s really an incredible opportunity for kids who are hands-on learners, who like to be outside and who have an interest in anything maritime,” academy teacher Kelley Watson said this week.
The first open house, in person at 5:30 p.m. this Wednesday at the Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St., will offer information about the program’s activities and which credits students earn, plus a tour of the center’s facilities and boats.
Another open house will be held online at 5:30 p.m. May 9 via Zoom; the link is zoom.us/j/92529759677.
Watson also welcomes email contact from prospective students and their parents at kwatson@ptschools.org.
“I’m happy to meet one on one with families,” she added.
In her reflections on the maritime center website, nwmaritime.org, Watson writes about the variety of experience levels her students brought to the maritime academy. She also notes their grit as they rose to the challenges of those morning classes.
“The first month we rowed. Some students were quite competent out of the gate and ready to take on Seventy48,” she said, referring to the maritime center’s 70-mile, 48-hour race held every June.
“Some students,” she added, “had barely ever been in a boat before.
“One awesome student was hesitant; we tied a long line to the bow, pushed them out, and they hesitantly rowed back to the safety of the dock.
“Within weeks, that same young person confidently rowed the 1.25 miles to the marine science center in a 12-foot skunk island skiff without stopping.”
More of Watson’s comments on the maritime academy can be found at nwmaritime.org by typing “Kelley Watson” into the search box at the top right side of the website.
Port Townsend Maritime Academy classes will meet from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. weekdays during the 2022-2023 school year. Students can earn up to three credits in career and technical education, English language arts and P.E., all while learning practical skills that range from carpentry to navigation.
There’s a drill conductor unit in which students learn fishing vessel safety: how to respond to fire, crew overboard and flooding situations. Wilderness advanced first aid is another one of the units. The academy also schedules numerous local field trips.
Enrollment information for the academy, a partnership of West Sound Technical Skills Center, the Port Townsend School District and the maritime center, is found at wst.smapply.org/. There are no prerequisites or grade-point-average requirements, Watson said, while the maximum enrollment is 20 students.
Robin Mills, program director at the Northwest Maritime Center, noted that Watson’s classes are designed to provide students with job skills as well as real-world experiences they won’t have on a traditional campus.
“One of the things I would like Peninsula families to know is that the maritime industry is desperately in need of workers,” she added. The academy program gives juniors and seniors a chance to explore this, one of Washington state’s largest industries — where the jobs pay a living wage, Mills said.
A maritime career can mean going to sea, traveling the world, working on the Peninsula or all of those things — with “a skill set that can go a variety of different ways,” she said.
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Jefferson County Senior Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz @peninsuladailynews.com.
