PORT TOWNSEND — A group of local alternative education students sailing as Puget Sound Explorers have swept the awards in this year’s Pacific Challenge, an annual contest of seamanship.
“We got four out of six trophies,” Marci Van Cleve said earlier this week. “We’ve never won multiple awards.”
Van Cleve and Jon Soini are the founders of Puget Sound Explorers, a cooperative program for high school students in the Port Townsend and Chimacum school districts’ alternative education programs.
The 22 students enrolled in the program spent every Friday last fall on the water learning basic seamanship, points of sail, boat handling and safety in the 25-foot longboats Townsend and Bear, provided by the Wooden Boat Foundation.
During the winter, they focused on navigation, knot-tying and sailing crafts, Van Cleve said.
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The rest of the story appears in the Thursday Peninsula Daily News Jefferson County edition. Click on SUBSCRIBE, above, to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.