Hands On Floating Curriculum
In October of 2018 a group of NYC kids began the process of building a boat dubbed the Opti. Under the direction of Laura Botel, the program coordinator of Brooklyn Boatworks, a nonprofit after-school program and its volunteers met with students for two hours each week. Together they mastered new manual skills and a new vocabulary, including words like transom, daggerboard and thwart.
Schools in Crown Heights, East New York, Harlem, Washington Heights and Woodside, also built Optis that year.
In the fall at Middle School 88, the boat building process began with four unfinished sheets of marine plywood, design plans and some basic hand tools like screwdrivers, small saws and cordless drills. The idea was to build a seaworthy boat entirely by hand and then sail it in an inlet on the East River on an appointed day by the end of the school year.
The day came on June 10th. Yes it rained, but it happened. A small flotilla of Optis, each one of which had been built inside classrooms across the city, set sail, holding one student-builder and one adult. Note that it is standard procedure for Optis to be equipped with buoyancy bags.
kathyirwin1 