Welcome Aboard the Skipjack Wilma Lee!
Hey there friends,

Hope that you can see the Skipjack Wilma Lee during your next visit to Ocracoke. This amazing vessel is on the National Historic Register. June-August we have free dockside talks during the week (times and details will be posted later), and a sunset sail aboard this flagship of Ocracoke Alive is a must during the season. For more details click on the tabs below.

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About the Skipjack Wilma Lee
BACKGROUND
To download the Skipjack Wilma Lee Brochure, click here.
One of only a few remaining Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks, the Wilma Lee is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2002, the previous owner, Mr. Herb Carden, of Sandy Point, Virginia, along with Master Shipwright John Morganthaler began a multi-year project to restore the Wilma Lee. And in the spring of 2012, Carden and his wife Liz donated the Wilma Lee to our non-profit organization, Ocracoke Alive, so that, according to Carden, she might be "...used for educational purposes to all the young and old who might have the privilege to sail on her." One of Carden's special hopes for the Wilma Lee is that it will inspire young people to learn a love of boats and boating.

Though skipjacks are historically associated with the Chesapeake Bay oystering industry, they eventually made their way south, into the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. By the early 1900's, North Carolina boat builders were copying the famous design. Skipjacks are a single purpose boat, designed and built for oyster dredging, though Carolina watermen also used these boats, which they often called "oyster sloops" for harvesting she-crabs and hauling cargo. They are hard working boats with massive sails intended to generate the power necessary to drag heavy dredges and to work in low wind.

The Wilma Lee was built in 1940 on the Maryland shore by the well known boatbuilder Bronza Parks. It is one of the younger boats in the extant fleet of around thirty skipjacks. Over the years, about 800 of these boats had sailed the oyster-laden waters along the Maryland, Virginia and Carolina shores, though today only six are still used for oyster dredging.
The Wilma Lee is 47 feet on the deck, almost 75 feet overall, including the bowsprit and the davit. She is sloop-rigged with a centerboard, 16 feet at the beam, displacing 20 tons. Her mast rises nearly 65 feet above the water line. She is a shallow draft boat, built with 2 1/2" thick plank on frame construction. With the center board down, she draws around six feet of water and half that with the centerboard up. Her boom is almost 45 feet long, making for a sail area, including the jib, of over 1,700 square feet of canvas.

OUR KEY GOALS
To employ the Wilma Lee as a centerpiece in a broad educational and cultural program which will bring attention to Ocracoke's maritime traditions, both past and present.

To make the Wilma Lee available as a community resource and magnet attraction and to contribute to the ongoing Community Square revitalization.
To share and pass on to younger generations a love of boats and boating, especially the unparalleled beauty and romance of sailing boats.
To maintain the Wilma Lee in top condition in order that she is always ready to sail and always available as a museum quality example of this fast disappearing maritime legacy.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
Of our Key Goals, the educational component is the one which will be the most visible and the most beneficial to the community. Our project seeks to broaden the Ocracoke tourist base by developing the necessary materials to promote and produce two types of educational attractions. The first, directed to summer tourism, will be free hour-long dockside talks, presented two or three times a week, which will cover a range of topics including the skipjack in maritime history, local lore, the history of oystering and more.

The second, directed to building off-season activities in Ocracoke, will be a series of on-board half day and full day school programs made available to North Carolina school districts and which will be designed to supplement the NC Common Core and Extended Content Standards.

Our prospective audience ranges from casual tourists dropping in on a free dockside talk to onboard classroom events for school-age children, to serious researchers looking to learn more about Ocracoke's maritime traditions.

LONG TERM PLAN
While our current plan is substantially supported by the income derived from our lease agreement, we have had considerable discussion about the longer term prospects for the Wilma Lee and Ocracoke Alive. We have spent some time looking at other organizations similar to ours, with boat-based programs, among them the Ada Mae, which is docked in New Bern, NC. Some of those organizations support all of their programming by sponsors, grants and donations. We see that model as a likely long term future for the Wilma Lee.

We must, however, keep our eye on the short term for now, because of the immediate costs and the liabilities of owning a wooden boat. Ocracoke Alive took a significant risk by agreeing to take ownership of the Wilma Lee and we must be pro-active in fundraising and grant writing for both ongoing maintenance and program development.

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Skipjack Wilma Lee News
EDUCATION PROGRAMS TO GROW ABOARD THE WILMA LEE ~ Press release Sept 2016
 
The Ocracoke-based non-profit, Ocracoke Alive has announced the recent hiring of Laura McClain to serve as part-time Educational Program Coordinator.  According to David Tweedie, Ocracoke Alive's Executive Director, McClain's initial focus will be on creating and marketing educational programming to take place aboard the organization's historic sailing vessel, the Skipjack Wilma Lee.
 
“In the long term, Ocracoke Alive is aiming to grow our educational mission,” Tweedie explained.  “We see that mission involving not just the Wilma Lee and not just school-age learners, but all ages and many areas of learning.”
 
Initially the organization will work to develop a series of educational programs which will take place around and aboard the Wilma Lee and which will be geared toward middle school students.  A book of lesson plans that was developed for Ocracoke Alive by LEARN NC, a spinoff of  the UNC School of Education, will serve as a key guide in that process.
 
Ocracoke Alive hopes to be able to offer half day and then full day programming to both private and public schools around the state, and, of course, to students and teachers on the island.
 
“The first step in that development is to create a few 90 minute trial lesson plans and offer them for free to local students as Saturday programs,” McClain explained.
“We are taking small steps, beginning our programs, but we have plans to expand the content and offerings. Having an outdoor classroom aboard a historic boat will give us a platform for so many learning experiences and possibilities,” said McClain.
 
Besides the two programs they are offering next month, McClain described other possible lessons, including a program highlighting the Wilma Lee’s past as an oystering boat.  “That's next in the pipeline,” she explained, “but we have a lot of work to do and we have some great on-island experts who we are working with to create a collaborative program.”
 
Ocracoke Alive's educational programs will begin in September, and continue in the summer of 2017 as dockside talks for visitors.
 
"Anatomy of a Sailboat."  During this program, students will come to understand the differences between sail boats and other kinds of boats.  They will get to tour deep into the structure of the boat.  They will examine and take home “scantling drawings” of the skipjack.  Students will learn sailing terminology and classic knot tying.  They may even get to take a ride up the mast in a "bosun's chair."
 
"BUOY Bingo  - Nautical Charts and Navigation"  During this program, students will learn the fundamentals in reading nautical charts, using longitude and latitude hydrographic maps to determining location in degrees, minutes and seconds, reading compasses and learning about nautical symbols.  Students will make their own compasses and investigate the variations in magnetic north as well as play a game that will allow them to locate different maritime and historical features in and around Ocracoke Inlet.
 
Please note:  for both of these two programs, the Wilma Lee will remain tied up at the dock.  Future programs will involve sailing trips in the sound.

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Dockside Programs and Sailing Trips
The Skipjack Wilma Lee is docked at the Community Square Docks on Ocracoke Harbor. During the summer season, there are weekly dockside talks about the boat, Ocracoke sailing history, pirates and nautical lore, and more.  The Wilma Lee also makes several trips out every week of the sailing season. You can be aboard for a sunset cruise or special events cruise. Contact Captain Rob by calling 252-928-SAIL, by emailing to robswindfall@gmail.com or by visiting the website www.schoonerwindfall.com

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Sponsors and Contributors
Financial Sponsors
Ed & Susan Norvell
John Charles Saunders
John Manning
Connie Leinbach
Douglas Tanner & Kathy Gille
Jill & Bill Gravely
Ronald & Carolyn Tweedie
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hotchkiss
Mrs. Ursula Shears
Kati Wharton in Memory of John Wharton
Beverly Meeker
Ms. Francis Miller
Mr. and Mrs. Al Scarborough
Mr. and Ms. Andrew Preston
Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Clark
Jim & Ann Borland
Bill and Lida Jones
Donald & Merle Davis
Martha Howell
Mrs. Norma Sigal
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Toth
Bob and Brenda Kremser
Charles Ford, Mary Poteat, Janis Nappi
Ships Carpenters & Workers
Tom Pahl
Gary Davis
Bill Monticone
Ken DeBarth
Philip Howard

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Get Involved
You can help with donations of all sizes and manner. Donations can also include anything from giving time to our regular maintenance tasks, to helping us in networking and even simply sharing a story or an idea.

Please consider being a part of this exciting project.  
Contact:
Tom Pahl, 860-933-0259 wilmalee@ocracokealive.org
David Tweedie, President, Ocracoke Alive 252-921-0260 info@ocracokealive.org

 

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