A group of students from a Boston area school are delighted after a boat they built and launched into the Atlantic Ocean was retrieved by a McCallum couple after washing ashore in Fortune Bay.
John Feaver and his wife Sherrie heard about the plight of the HK Pride, a 5-foot sailboat that was pushed northward into Fortune Bay by the remnants of Hurricane Elsa.
Sherrie says John knew right away where the little boat could be found when he heard that it had run aground in Kent Cove, known locally as Bushy Bay. She says they got up early yesterday and got in their boat to look for the little craft.
Sherrie was the one who spotted the boat, and while John initially expressed his doubts, there it was “just there on the beach, right there by the rocks.” They note the little boat is in remarkably good condition for her journey.
(Submitted by Sherrie Feaver)
Emily Bryant, an Educational Advisor with the USS Constitution Museum in Boston says they were tracking the progress of the two boats when they noticed they were being pushed northward. The HK Pride’s sister ship the Teal Turtle ended up in Nova Scotia waters, and they’re hoping her fate is similar to that of the Pride. Bryant calls the unexpected outcome of the attempted trip across the Atlantic a real learning experience.
(Submitted by Sherrie Feaver)
Students and museum staff were tracking the boats’ positions online, and getting more excited as they tried to predict where they’d end up.
DFO officials were scheduled to come retrieve the HK Pride — which is packed with school swag — with plans to transfer it to Harbour Breton where an event involving local students is in the works.
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U.S. Students’ Mini-boat Runs Aground and Found on South Coast of NL
One of two mini-boats launched in May by a group of grade 4 students in Boston has run aground on the south coast of Newfoundland thanks to hurricane Elsa.
The six-foot-long Teal Turtle and HK Pride were built by eleven fourth graders in Mr. Brett’s science enrichment class at Harvard-Kent Elementary.
The boats were launched into the Gulf stream with the help of the U.S. Navy’s USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, on May 4th.
The kids had been tracking the movements of both mini-boats, and watched with interest as the HK Pride approached the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon on July 16.
This past Sunday, the HK Pride went aground at Kent Cove, an isolated part of Fortune Bay.
The craft was recovered Thursday morning and is now in the town of McCallum.
The Boston students are awaiting pictures and information from the people who recovered the boat to determine its condition.
