An opportunity for Aboriginal children?
What makes a boat float? Children from Philadelphia School District spent part of this past school year at the Philadelphia Wooden Boat factory attempting to find the answer to that question. — messing about in Boats, Vol. 18, No. 9
I came across Robert Keeley's article, "Tasmania's Shipwright's Point: More Than a Boatbuilding School", in the current issue of WoodenBoat magazine.
A photograph shows the owner of the Tasmanian boatbuilding school, John Young, on the deck of his boat. Just off the stern, beneath a roof-shelter supported by piers, floats a small fleet of dinghies built by adult students.
They remind me of my first boat. I was but 10 years old when necessity forced me to build it to ferry my family at the height of the rainy season from our house, which was situated on a flood plain, to and from high ground about a mile to the north.
During the annual flood, on each weekday morning, Daddy, with flashlight in hand, carefully climbed aboard that little boat. He placed a neatly folded blanket across the middle thwart and kneeled in the bow in a paddling position. Then Momma would get in and sit on the blanket. Always the last to get aboard, I stood astern with a pole and steered as Daddy's paddle strokes propelled us into the pitch blackness.
Paddling and poling against the current, it took us several minutes to reach the state highway, Route Six. I carefully poled the boat alongside Daddy's car, which he had wisely parked there the night before. They climbed into the Henry-J and were off to work.
After watching them drive away, I poled the boat's bow beneath the corrugated tin roof of a shelter and tied it up. Surrounding myself with the warmth of Momma's blanket, I curled up in the bottom of the boat, before heading out for my seven-kilometre walk to school.
I would lay there for hours in the darkness counting the cars and trucks that sped by. Momma's warmth would fade quickly from the blanket, but the scent of her perfume remained. I sometimes dozed off to sleep and dreamed of sailing around the world.
Of course, in those days there were hardly any African Americans involved in the US sailing and boating scene. Even today, not a lot has changed in that regard. Rarely is there a mention — let alone a photograph — of African Americans in most of US boating and sailing magazines.
I am encouraged to have found, in messing about in BOATS magazine, the article about the Wooden Boat factory's program, accompanied by a photograph of at least 30 black children.
I subscribe to WoodenBoat magazine. I read every issue cover to cover. To my disappointment, there has been nothing in its pages about the factory's program, in which African-American children from west Philadelphia were taught to build six impressive wooden boats.
Well, that is how things are in the United States. How are things in Australia?
Perhaps Australian readers can ask John Young, the owner of the school mentioned at the beginning of this column, if he ever includes Aboriginal children in his boatbuilding classes. He can be reached at Shipwright's Point School of Wooden Boatbuilding, Main Road, Franklin, Tasmania 7113; telephone (03) 6226 3586 (work) or 6266 3486 (home), fax 6266 3586. If he doesn't already have such a program, he might be encouraged to start one.
"Looking out" is an interactive space for all, and with the intention to make it even more so, I invite you to clip and send this essay to Mr Matthew P. Murphy, Editor, WoodenBoat, PO Box 78, Brooklin, Maine 04616-0078, USA.
There is just no telling where the goodness and love that goes along with teaching children — all children — to build boats could take us.
BY BRANDON ASTOR JONES
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or email <BrandonAstorJones@hotmail.com>. You can visit the author's web site at <http://www.BrandonAstorJones.com>.]