How many people do you know who can both forge iron and cook donuts successfully on an 1800's wood burning stove? Well, at Williams-Mystic, this is all in a typical day.
You'll devote two afternoons each week to extracurricular activities at Mystic Seaport in one of many traditional maritime skills, learning directly from a master of the craft. The activities are designed to enhance the Williams-Mystic curriculum through hands-on learning and interaction with Mystic Seaport's skilled staff, who include artisans and craftsmen, sailors and musicians, teachers, historians and authors. You will benefit from the opportunity to learn outside of the classroom in a relaxed atmosphere among people who have chosen a career at Mystic Seaport. Active demonstrations bring the Museum to life and preserve the skills that might otherwise be lost.
Just as the original crews on Mystic Seaport's full-rigged ship, Joseph Conrad, and whaling vessel, Charles W. Morgan, handled the sails high above the deck, so you will learn the proper ways to climb, set and furl sails and do rigging work aloft. Mystic Seaport displays living history to its visitors as members of its staff—known as the demonstration squad—perform the crafts and skills of a 19th-century seaport community. In this class you will also row and sail 30-foot whaleboats, split codfish, tong for oysters, cook over a 17th-century fireplace and perform other active outdoor skills conducted in the public eye.
Get ready to strike the iron! The shipsmithing class provides an opportunity for students to focus on a craft always found in nineteenth-century seaports. You'll work with a master craftsman in the coal-fired forge in Mystic Seaport's historic Driggs Shipsmith shop. You'll create hooks, nails and a selection of objects useful in the nineteenth century and today.
Let's go for a sail! The boat handling class is designed for students who have little or no boating experience to become comfortable on the water and develop some advanced skills. The class begins with basic sailing terminology and maneuvers, then progresses to individual sailing instruction. Points of sail, rigging and derigging, care and maintenance of the vessel, marlinespike seamanship and safety are just a few of the skills to be learned. All students master sailing solo in ten-foot Dyer Dhow sail boats.
The power of the sea and the power of song go hand in hand throughout history. The chantey singers develop a repertoire of sailors' songs including work songs, (essential on square-rigged ships), forecastle songs (sung on board ship for entertainment), and ballads, a means of setting the sailors' stories to music. Mystic Seaport's chantey men will teach you the history of sea music and encourage you to perform chanteys as part of the sail-handling and other demonstrations on the Museum's ships. No vocal expertise is required. Instrumental lessons on fiddle, concertina, tin whistle and banjo may be arranged separately.
High above the outline of the tall ship masts, you will learn to look to the stars for learning how to navigate the seas, just as sailors have done since ancient times. Your exploration of the stars begins in Mystic Seaport's Planetarium, learning about the movement of the earth and its relation to the heavenly bodies. On a clear night, you may study the sky over Mystic as did the mariners who sailed off of the New England coast hundreds of years ago. You will learn to take sights using a sextant and calculate your location using simple equations and information from the almanac. "Taking a sight" while at sea and calculating the ship's location gives Williams-Mystic students an appreciation for the genius of the early navigators.
