Hi everyone, we were asked to publicize a pretty cool event happening over on Jost Van Dyke tomorrow. Here are the details:
The Jost Van Dykes Preservation Society (JVDPS), is pleased to announce that after several years, it launched its island-built sailing vessel Endeavour II on Monday, November 25th at 10:00 in the morning; and it will be christened on November 30th.
The general public is invited to the Christening Celebration that will be held in Great Harbour, Jost Van Dyke this Saturday, November 30th, 2013. The official ceremony will take place at 11:00a.m. and will include traditional BVI boat-launching elements, a blessing and the ceremonial breaking of a bottle of rum over the vessel’s bow. Live entertainers will perform for visitors, including mocko jumbies and steel panners.
The project is keystone of a Maritime Heritage initiative. The vessel will serve as the JVDPS’ floating classroom, offering hands-on environmental and sailing education activities for all BVI youth. JVDPS will offer informative day sails to the public to help support operational costs for the vessel. Since 2008, JVDPS has promoted hands-on outdoor education for island youth, including numerous field trips to the BVI’s protected areas and snorkel clinics/dive training activities. And, over 8000 hours of JVD youth apprentice-in-training were invested in the construction of the hull.
Endeavour II was built on-site in Great Harbour, Jost Van Dyke; Its design, informed by island elders, is based on the BVI-specific “Tortola Boats” that were once built and sailed throughout the Virgin Islands’ waters.
The original Tortola boats were about 18- 20 feet in length and planked in native woods. Endeavour II is an updated version of the classic vessels and is planked in tropical hardwood, but saturated with epoxy resins and sheathed in fiberglass for protection and durability. Built to endure longer-range sailing needs, Endeavour II has a 4,000 pound lead keel that was poured on site from salvaged boat wrecks around the Virgin Islands, as opposed to original vessels which had moveable rock ballast. The sailing sloop has a 55. H.P. engine for auxiliary power and will carry a traditional leg-of-mutton sail plan.
For more information contact the Preservation Society at 284.540.0861.
Very Cool!! Wonderful to see the finished product of a project that was a personal favorite of Foxy himself. One of my wife & my self’s best memories of our 2008 St. John vacation was our visit to Jost & Foxy’s. Foxy himself took us and my brother/sis-in-law on a quiet little tour of his bar, desalinization plant, on-site brewery and a behind the scenes look at this boat while it was being built in his back yard. The hull was being readied for the epoxy and the mast had been almost finished, but still rough. He was extremely proud of the project and his island’s youth experiencing it first-hand.
Congratulations to JVDPS, all the hard working youths, and Foxy!!