Islesford boat School Building Experience For Future
Written by Craig Crosby
Friday, 14 July 2006

CRANBERRY ISLES — Their program is called Islesford Boatworks and, this year at least, classes revolve around teaching children the art of building a dory.

Boat school instructors Amanda Ravenhill and Brendan Ravenhill go over shop safety rules with their students. But the Ravenhill siblings do not see themselves as boatbuilders. They are farmers, mixing the seeds of skill and confidence in children who could one day help an island return to its roots.

“The idea is to restore marine trades to the island, because right now there’s just lobstering,” said Amanda Ravenhill. “And there is a lot of lobstering, and it’s great it’s flourishing right now, but if it were ever to go under, this island’s year-round population would probably dwindle to nothing.”

There are lots of things the Ravenhill siblings – Amanda, Brendan and Geoffrey – hope to accomplish in their workshop on Islesford, and teaching kids to build a 12-foot dory is just one of them. They see the program as an opportunity to expose youngsters to the tools and skills the Ravenhills learned throughout their lives.

“Our dad taught us woodworking from a really young age,” Ms. Ravenhill said. “He was always really good about explaining not only what he was doing, but why he was doing it. We’ve been learning woodworking all our lives.”

The siblings are now using those skills on the island they love and have always considered home, teaching others in the hope that students might follow their lead.

A student at Islesford Boatworks sands the blade of an oar.

“In shop classes in the high school and middle school curriculum now, there’s just no exposure to these tools for a lot of these kids,” Brendan Ravenhill said. “As a result, the tradition kind of dies out. Hopefully we’re planting a seed in a lot of these kids’ heads that they like woodworking and find it fun and interesting. The challenge of fine woodworking will hopefully give them the confidence to try simpler things later on.”

“We’re not going to consider ourselves a failure if none of these kids go on to build with Ralph Stanley, but there are so many levels that we’re empowering them,” Amanda Ravenhill added.

After roughly a year of paperwork and tracking down sponsors, the Ravenhills finally opened Islesford Boatworks to students on July 3. Over the following nine weeks, the Ravenhills will lead students, all between the ages of 8 and 15, through the process of building a simple flat-bottom boat. During construction, the students will use tools they have not used before and do things they never imagined possible. It turns out, kids jump at these opportunities when presented with them. So far the class has drawn students primarily from Islesford, but the first two classes were nearly booked solid with seven students.

“I’m here because it’s my last year on the island and I want to get the experience,” said 13-year-old Hannah Folsom, who lives on the island year-round. “I’m thinking of going to Maine Maritime [Academy]. I might want to get into something like this in the future so I want to try a little bit of everything.”

“The Islesford community has been amazing,” said Mr. Ravenhill. “We were shocked we had enough kids from the island to fill the class.”

The program is modeled, ironically, after a boat school in The Bronx, N.Y. called Rocking the Boat. Brendan Ravenhill taught at the program, which introduces inner-city high school students the art of boatbuilding, for one year before returning to Islesford this year.

“If this makes sense in The Bronx and it’s so good for kids down there, it really makes sense up here where kids work with boats every day and understand them better,” Ms. Ravenhill said.

Brendan Ravenhill, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Oberlin College in 2001, spent three seasons working as a sternman before heading to The Bronx.

“I just missed being up here in the summer time,” he said.

His time in The Bronx is paying dividends for Islesford Boatworks. Not only is he a skilled craftsman, but he is at ease engaging with students. During the first junior session last week (for children age 10-15), Mr. Ravenhill, the principal instructor, displayed the energy, patience and communication required of all effective teachers. Even during a discussion of safety and shop rules, the students were attentive and alert while brainstorming for rules to add to the list.

“I think I’ve always got along well with kids,” Mr. Ravenhill said. “Since I’ve been doing this, I can anticipate what things to do without the kids and what are better things to do with the kids and what are the better teaching examples and how to skip certain steps.”

The shop is set up in stations so every student is constantly busy. The student-teacher ratio is excellent – there are usually six or seven students and four instructors, including the three Ravenhill siblings and any number of friends and family who have volunteered to help out. This allows constant supervision and plenty of opportunities to ask questions.

At the end of the class, students are each given a chance to tell the others about their daily progress. Each student will keep a journal of what they did in each class, which includes a list of terms they discuss. Last week it was stem, transom and chine.

“It feels really good to me to work for something and then have it finished and have it really nice,” said 10-year-old Coleman Fernald, who spent the entire first day sanding a new oar.

“I just like woodworking,” said 10-year-old Adam Wriggens. “I like to try something new.”

The Ravenhills are in the process of making Islesford Boatworks a nonprofit organization, but until that paperwork is finalized, the school is able to accept tax deductible donations through the Island Institute, which agreed to be the program’s fiscal sponsor after several letters of recommendation from Islesford residents. EBS and the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation also have sponsored the program. That support is key, Ms. Ravenhill said. Students are charged tuition, but those fees are waived for any family unable to afford the charge. Even if every student paid the full fee, however, it would not cover the cost of tools, supplies and insurance. The insurance premiums cost more than the tools and supplies combined.

To make a donation, send a check payable to Islesford Boatworks to P.O. Box 261, Islesford, ME 04646 or visit their website, IslesfordBoatworks.org.

The Ravenhills are dreaming big when it comes to the program. They are assembling a board to guide the program’s next steps.

“Once the board comes, they’re going to have a lot more say where Islesford Boatworks is going to go,” said Ms. Ravenhill, who plans to start a youth boatbuilding program in Bolivia in the fall. “This is kind of a seed we’re planting. Hopefully even some of these kids we taught today might become the educators later on or might take it into their own hands in years to come.”