Thoughts on the sinking of the Concordia
I can say unreservedly that, as a single contained event, my senior year of high school was the most fundamental building block of the man that I am today. The second would be the first half of 2001. The two are connected: both were spent aboard the S/V Concordia in the Class Afloat programme.
When Captain Straburzynski (who commanded the ship on both of my journeys on the ship) passed away in September, it occurred to me what an important mentor he had been. It had never been a thought before, he was bedrock - such an feature in my development that I had not taken the time to truly appreciate his impact. Always calm. Always collected. I saw him face some exceptional stress and he was immovable. He was an exceptional man.
He sailed an exceptional ship.
The sinking of the Concordia off of the coast of Brazil on the 17th of February was a shock. Having spent a formative 16 months aboard (over both times), the ship was a very noticed and visible feature of my life and that of my other fellow alumni.
I found out about the sinking through Facebook. The Facebook Class Afloat alumni pages quickly filled with comments of shock and concern. First of the crew, and empathetic horror of having to go through such an awful ordeal. Once it was clear that the whole crew were safe, our attentions turned to the Class Afloat programme itself. A school so unique and exceptional that it must be defended.
The Concordia was a collection of steel, rope, paint and other materials configured into a sailing ship, but that unto itself was not the source of its greatness. The Concordia was a medium that teenagers - and those who supported them - used to explore the world and themselves. I think it is the intense nature of exploration that makes the Class Afloat programme and the Concordia such a monument the lives of its crew. It is why the idea so powerful that parents (like mine) would put their children into such an unknown environment.
It is why the sinking of the Concordia was such a story, not so much that a ship sank off the coast of Brazil but that there was such a ship and programme to which the event took place.
It was exploration. The itinerary of the ship could have followed a cruise ship style milk-run route year in and year out. The programme could have been defined in 1984 when it first started and forever after supply chains nurtured in each port, routines developed and costs kept down through such consistency. It did not. The teachers, students and programme (the only really consistent part of the programme was Captain Straburzynski and other Polish crew) make a completely different year from one to the next. Not because it's easier or more efficient - it wasn't. If it were easy and efficient the exploration would not be genuine. It would only be a school on a ship.
Instead the Class Afloat programme exists in a place we rarely find. Where our culture is dominated by removing or avoiding risk, Class Afloat teaches addressing and interpreting risk. Where our lives are filled with rationalising toward efficient systems, Class Afloat remains pushing outward against frontiers. Where society establishes identities as typecast marketing target groups, Class Afloat provides the tools to ask questions about who we really are.
People need to be challenged. We need to search beyond what we know. These are tools that I have because my time aboard the Concordia nurtured them. Like other alumni, I see them as important parts of who I am.
