The instructors dress and speak in the vernacular of a 19th century captain and crew. Through the willing suspension of disbelief, students learn lessons about history and themselves that could never be duplicated in a conventional classroom. The State of California's Curriculum Guidelines and Framework for History and Social Science provide the foundation upon which the programs are built. Entire classrooms of fourth graders are being booked from schools throughout San Diego and Los Angeles Counties, Arizona, Nevada and even Massachusetts, as participants in our overnight program. The students, you see, leave the 20th century on the dock.
History obviously plays a large part of the experience, as does geography.
But these students are also posed with problems that, while solvable, are done so only through teamwork and communication. Among their tasks are the setting of a sail, hoisting of a large barrel from the orlop deck, hauling each other aloft to clean the mast, manning the bilge pump and cleaning the decks, preparing meals on board, and pulling night watch. The Maritime Museum searched for two years to find the best program available. That turned out to be the OCMI program which presently operates in Dana Point, California on board the Pilgrim and in San Francisco on board the C.A. Thayer . It should also be pointed out that this same program has won the Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in maritime education presented by the National Maritime Historical Society.