A few months ago, the hull of a former Coast Guard lifeboat was a mass of worn paint, rusty fittings and stripped out components.
Now, she gleams as students from the Ocosta High School maritime afterschool program work to put the final details together before the boat goes on display at the Westport Maritime Museum.
“We’ve come over and worked an hour every day after our class session,” said instructor Paul Mirante. “Everyone has an assignment.”
The students have picked up skills with alacrity, said Conor Casey, who, along with Josh Fuhrmann, run BlueThumb Marine, which has provided the shop space for the boat as the students work on it.
“It’s been really rewarding. I’ve amazed how fast they’ve been picking things up,” Casey said. “I’ve been really impressed.”
Casey and Fuhrmann have been instrumental for the class, not just in providing the shop space for students to work on restoring the vessel, but also for their coaching as students learn a variety of shop skills, said Andrea Mirante, director of Ocosta Extended Learning for the school district.
“If it wasn’t for BlueThumb none of this would have been possible. Not only the space to house the project but the knowledge and skills Josh and Conor bring,” Andrea said in an interview. “The plethora of knowledge and skills that they do, that was a really pleasant surprise.”
The course, which emphasizes classroom knowledge like navigation and rules of the road as much as the hands-on process of vessel maintenance, may be helping to grow the next generation of sailors to work out of Westport, Andrea said.
“The knowledge and the skills that the students are learning here that they will be able to implant into Grays Harbor and Westport will help to grow the community further,” Andrea said. “One of the key elements of the program is to really emphasize Westport and the gem that it is, how unique it is.”
Casey concurred, saying the class, with its hands-on shop aspect, something less commonly seen in recent times, will help to create qualified workers who can operate in the modern maritime industry.
“It’s been pretty fun. I really like welding. I really like using the stick and the tig,” said Evan Brockhoff, one of the students in the program in an interview. “Because of this, it made me realize I want to go to college to weld. It’s a ton of fun.”
Next year, the program will be offered during school hours, which will likely increase participation, now that students are not forced to choose between the program and sports or other afterschool activities, Paul said.
“There’s so many things to study. There’s navigation. There’s ancient navigation. There’s history. There’s boat building. There’s what type of boats are out there working,” Paul said. “It’s my opinion that if a student started freshman year, by senior year, with all the knowledge, they’d be prepared to proceed with a maritime career.”
The students will finish out their year with several weeks of instruction in marine diesel operation in cooperation with Grays Harbor College.
“One of the things this program has going for it is the immense amounts of support from the community,” Andrea said. “Anybody we converse with about it supports it and wants to see it flourish.”
The students’ hard work over the school year will soon be rolled out for the public, with the boat going on display outside the Westport Maritime Museum when it’s ready.
Contact Senior Reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757-621-1197 or mlockett@thedailyworld.com.
Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World Students with Ocosta High School’s maritime program are restoring an old Coast Guard lifeboat for display.
Paul Mirante, instructor for Ocosta High School’s maritime program, directs Logan Johnson as he paints an old Coast Guard lifeboat that students are restoring for display. (Michael S. Lockett / The Daily World)
