Half Moon expected to be in high demand during Henry Hudson quadricentennial |
On Board Online • Around the State • June 30, 2008
By Marc Humbert
Senior Writer
To those that know their history, the Half Moon was the ship that Henry Hudson steered into Albany 399 years ago. But there’s another Half Moon, a replica of the first, and it might be best described as a floating classroom.
About 500 students have taken part in the Half Moon’s one-week “Voyage of Discovery” program. In groups of about a dozen at a time, the students learn to tie knots, hoist sails, swab decks and read the river.
More than 50,000 students have toured the boat and as many as 500 teachers have taken training programs offered by the Albany-based New Netherland Museum, the organization that runs the ship.
Capt. William (Chip) Reynolds, who has commanded the 19-year-old replica vessel for a decade, said the program works with teachers both in the classroom and at workshops held right on the Half Moon.
“The main effort is to help teachers understand how they can incorporate the learning in math, science and geography into their ongoing curriculum, and gear this to the standardized testing and the demands that are placed on teachers in the classroom everyday,” he said.
The Half Moon will be a centerpiece of next year’s quadricentennial celebrations along the river. The 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage up the river coincides with Samuel de Champlain’s arrival at the lake north of the Hudson that now bears his name.
“There is a lot of competition for us to appear at events next year,” said Kipp Van Aken, chief engineer of the ship, as he prepared to reroute fuel lines to the ship’s auxiliary diesel engine while she sat tied up in Athens, about 30 miles south of Albany.
Some students have fallen in love with the ship. One is Sarah Read, who just graduated from Emerson College in Boston. She began sailing on the Half Moon when she was in seventh grade in the Albany school district. She is serving as a boatswain’s mate this summer before heading off for her dry-land job as a teaching assistant at a school for the deaf.
While Hurricane Floyd forced Read and her shipmates off the river during that 1999 “Voyage of Discovery,” she got back on the ship the next day and has been returning ever since.
“It’s the whole environment,” Read said when asked about why she kept coming back. She said she likes the hard work, the camaraderie and “the learning thing.”
As she worked on sail rigging about 30 feet above the Half Moon’s deck, Read told On Board that the shipboard experience teaches students how to “work toward common goals.”
The 85-foot long Half Moon, displacing 112 tons, is quite the sight as it moves up and down the Hudson River, its six canvas sails catching the wind. She even sports six cannons.
The state’s official quadricentennial website, www.exploreny400.com, lists information and events for the general public as well as for students and teachers.
There are lots of education-related events. The Half Moon won’t be alone in teaching today’s students about yesteryear’s explorers. Other teaching tools include the Hudson River sloop Clearwater and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Basin Harbor, Vt.
For dedicated paddlers, there will be a kayak trip from the foot of Lake Champlain in Quebec to Manhattan. The Albany Institute of History & Art will be staging a major exhibition called “Hudson River Panorama: 400 years of History, Art and Culture.”