Maybe it is the salt air, but labels have a way of coming unstuck aboard the sail training vessel Spirit of Bermuda.

The Spirit of Bermuda is a sail training vessel with a programme designed to help young people from all walks of life learn navigational and sailing skills while gaining personal maturity and self-confidence.

Before coming into the programme, many of the kids have been called 'disruptive', 'lazy', 'attention deficit' or even 'gifted'.

"I have seen amazing things from students that other people have described with labels," said Simon Colley, who became ship master last July. "Those labels don't necessarily apply at sea.

"For example, attention deficit disorder is a label that refers to a student's behaviour in a very specific environment.

"Whether that is a fair diagnosis isn't for me to say, but many kids that have difficulty learning in the classroom are more suited to a wholistic activity like sailing.

"The student who speaks out in class or is disruptive can have strong leadership potential in a different environment if channeled correctly. It's been said that sail training is a great equaliser."

The Royal Gazette spoke with Captain Colley shortly before the vessel set sail for the Azores this week. The crew plans to make a stop over in the Azores before sailing on to Vigo, Spain for the start of the Tall Ships Races in April.

Many of the crew are returning students. Some of them have completed several voyages aboard Spirit of Bermuda as students or junior watchleaders.

Capt. Colley is originally from Sydney, Australia but was living in Maine in the United States for several years before coming to Bermuda. He previously worked on the tall ship schooner Roseway.

"I saw Spirit of Bermuda in Rockport, Maine shortly after she was launched, with many young Bermudians aboard getting her ready for her maiden voyage," said Capt. Colley. "I turned and said to Caitlin Kulinski that it looked like an exciting programme to work for. Now she is the First Officer on Spirit.

Capt. Colley said sailing is in his blood his father was an ex-Royal Naval officer.

"I got into sail training about a year after leaving university," said Capt. Colley. "I had a degree in marine biology, but I was working an information technology job. I starting volunteering as a deck hand on a tall ship. They offered me a full-time, low-paying job and I took it immediately. That lead on to working for Sea Education Association in the United States."

Sea Education runs semester at sea programmes with an oceanographic focus.

"I see going to sea on a traditional sailing vessel changing anyone's life to some extent, but especially young people," Capt. Colley said. "These programmes definitely have an impact on young people's lives."

He said he gets great pleasure out of sailing tall ships like the Spirit of Bermuda.

"Sailing a vessel like Spirit of Bermuda well, is motivating for the crew," he said. "I also always love the interaction with the students.

"It is not just a case of me teaching them. It is a shared learning experience. I learn something from them."

He has worked on a variety of different training ships for about 16 years, including four tall ships, Spirit of Bermuda being the smallest of them.

"Some ships I have worked on are super yachts, but I keep coming back to working on traditional ships with educational programmes," he said. "They just feel different.

"They are just as tiring, sometimes considerably more tiring. But because of that interaction with the students, you are wearied by it and sustained by it at the same time. You are giving more of your own energy but you are being buoyed by it at the same time."

He also worked with Outward Bound for ten years, and also helped to start a high school with a focus similar to Spirit of Bermuda but on a school bus instead of a boat.

He said it is particularly rewarding when students write to him years later, saying they suddenly understood something he had said long ago.

"At the time they might be caught up in the visceral response to whatever calamity they are facing [and so] they don't necessarily get a chance to reflect on it right away," he said.

But he said the Spirit of Bermuda programme has opportunities for reflection and self-introspection built into it.

"Without giving the participants opportunities to reflect through directed journal writing, debriefing or group discussion it is just a cool experience and not much else," he said.

He said one of the important things about the Spirit of Bermuda programme was that none of the activities were contrived.

"Whether it is, scrubbing the decks, cleaning the toilets, or working hard to stow a sail in a gale, we don't ask them to do anything that there isn't a need for.

"We really need them, and for a lot of young people it is the first time they have ever been truly needed.

"If they don't tidy their room at home it doesn't affect anything, except maybe their relationship with their parents.

"If they don't help out with the dishes, someone else will do them. If you don't keep the deck stowed; if you don't coil a line correctly and later it is fouled when it needs to run, it has a significant impact on the rest of the day for them and everyone."

He said every task on board had an easily identifiable relevance.

"When we are offshore we still have educational activities, but they are directly related to navigation, collision avoidance and that sort of thing," he said. "They are working in the engine room."

And he said some classroom concepts such as geometry are much easier to comprehend, for some kids, when there is an obvious practical application for them.

"This is where we teach you celestial navigation," he said. "This is where we teach you coastal piloting and the angles that may come in to play, and [where] geometry is learned as part of the overall activity."

One powerful lesson that the ship attempts to teach is teamwork and co-operation.

"There aren't many tasks that you can do on the ship on your own," said Capt. Colley. "There isn't much room for individualism.

"We always ask the kids at the end of a voyage, 'What have you learned, other than how to steer a ship?'. One of the most powerful things I heard was: 'I learned that I don't need to be friends in order to work with someone'. I know adults who haven't figured that out yet.

"There is something powerful about trips at sea, particularly the longer ocean voyages. In a very short time you have a rapport between people. It is a contextual rapport, linked to the ship and the experience."

For more information contact the Spirit of Bermuda on 777-4748 or visit www.bermudasloop.org.