How Did it All Begin?
Tremolino's chronolgy begins in 1964 on the coast of France 100 kilometers from Marseilles. Reading Joseph Conrad's Tremolino and finding that the vessel worked out of Marseilles, running guns onto the coast of Catalonia seemed a wonderfully spirited and romantic undertaking. Why not build a copy of this wonderous lateen rigged balancelle d'espagnole? Some years later a raid on the Paris Musee de la Marins fired us up again. And forty years of striving to practice the legacy of Kurt Hahn strenghtned this resolve. A partnership between Indonesia and the United States and a Bornean and a Mainer was to result in the building of Lancing Madura - a gole'an fishing boat from the Java Sea.
The project of building Tremolino began tangibly in an old mill in Nobleboro, Maine where Brady Gow, master shipwright and graduate of The Apprenticeshop in Rockland, and Lance Lee formed another partnership and the keel assembly of the scaled down "Trem" was laid down. Partners from five countries involved us in research, construction, campaigning both boats, documentation, publications, and a public presentation. Since the last, we've extended Tremolino! in an increasing number of events. Principally, training trainers in the boats, as unusual educational devices. Here, in Tremolino, is a much scaled down - cameo - illumination of the work of forty years of maritime experiential education. The cast of characters begins with Hahn and goes on to include Joseph Conrad, the Outward Bound schools in Wales - the sea; Maine - the sea again; and North Carolina - the mountains, the Apprenticeshops in the United States (from 1972 to present) and Russia, Atlantic Challenge International (from 1984) - fourteen nations and sixty-four 38-foot, 10-oared, dipping lug-rigged Bantry Bay gigs; and the Tremolino! Project (from 2004.) [back to top]
But How Does it Work?
Since 1921 on Lake Constance, the open boat has rather epitomized Hahnian experiential education. The “magic in the puzzle” stemmed first from encounters with nature and the skills of seamanship. More important, encounters with each other – some twelve kids. Such open boats began Gordonstoun school in 1933 where two 15 year olds built the Lady Cummings. She subsequently served in the Moray Firth and was sent down by rail to the Irish Sea. Comparable boats are used today. Such small craft – open boats always – have subsequently characterized Outward Bound in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. The boats are microcosms – taking expeditions means connecting with others – ethics.
Tremolino! has involved more than 60 kids from nine nations in four diverse traditional rigs which demand learning new skills, making swift decisions, and encountering the newness of the older ways. This is how unique “Icon Boats” of our past, which are no longer commercial, serve a new generation.
But we have combined wood and words, the experiential as above and the literary of Joseph Conrad. Trem and Lansing involved three nations in a special “Tremolino Educators Collaborative” in August. For ten days the crew ran an island community, expeditioned both night and day, and brainstormed constantly - for they, from four countries, included teachers, drug counselors, instructors of youth at risk, and the rest of us. [back to top]
What Do We Do Next?
Dream dreams, then write them down, but in between live them.
– S.E. Morrison