Hawai'i students learn the high seas
By Anna Weaver
Advertiser Staff Writer
John Velasco and Kris Kopra spent their summer semester learning how to run a 10,900-ton ship, mastering celestial navigation and outrunning a typhoon off the coast of Japan.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Far from taking traditional classes, these California Maritime Academy students and their 200 college classmates gained first-hand experience as they ran the training ship Golden Bear, which arrived in Honolulu Tuesday after two months at sea.
John Velasco of Kaua'i served as corps chief mate, or second in command, on the California Maritime Academy training vessel Golden Bear.
The students' practical training also included running and repairing engines, navigating and docking the ship, going through emergency medical and fire drills, and maintaining the ship.
The cadets were supervised by 48 faculty and staff members, but most of the ship's operation lay entirely in the students' hands. Because Cal Maritime belongs to the California State University system, students from colleges outside of the academy also may join the cruises.
"What is unique about this campus is the experiential nature of the trip," said Don Zingale, vice president of academic affairs at Cal Maritime. "All of our students have an interest, love or lots of questions about the sea."
"We got to implement everything we learned at school," said Kopra, an incoming sophomore from Waimea on the Big Island, who was one of seven Hawai'i students on the cruise.
"It definitely sparked an interest in classes I'll be taking next year."
The 500-foot-long Golden Bear is about half the square footage of the entire California Maritime Academy campus in Vallejo, Calif.
The former Navy oceanographic survey vessel has a library, student union and a gym.
Golden Bear takes two cruises every summer, each with a different group of students. This year's first cruise left Vallejo and traveled to the Aleutian Islands; Kiska Island; Vladivostok, Russia; Mokpo, South Korea; Okinawa; Saipan; Midway Island; and Honolulu. The second cruise left Honolulu yesterday. A student pays $3,000 for the trip.
"The first year you're basically learning the ropes, what it's like to work on a ship. It's also finding yourself and deciding what you want to do," said Velasco, a senior from Anahola, Kaua'i, who served as corps chief mate, or second in command, on this cruise. "You're senior year you're more in charge of leadership. It's like going from Indian to chief."
Cal Maritime is one of eight maritime academies in the United States and the only one on the West Coast.
Students from Hawai'i make up 8 percent of the Cal Maritime student body.
"For a lot of Hawai'i kids, they already know this is what they want to do. They love the ocean," Velasco said.
"I think it's apparent because a lot of the Hawai'i kids do so well."
Velasco graduated from Kamehameha Schools and spent a year at Brigham Young University before transferring to Cal Maritime. His interest in sailing came from years of work on his father's catamaran. After graduation, Velasco plans to go into the Coast Guard for a few years and then go into commercial sailing.
"One of the things I've learned on the trip is that you need to learn how to be flexible because things always change," he said. "The ocean itself is always changing." He pointed out that his cruise required flexibility when a planned stop in China fell through and when a typhoon chased Golden Bear out of Japan.
Each summer Kopra goes on a fishing trip with his father in Alaska. He said that sparked his decision to go into sailing.
"This was the best job of doing what I love and being able to stay in Hawai'i," he said, adding that he'd love to work as a pilot on an interisland ferry if the proposed system goes through.
Reach Anna Weaver at aweaver@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2455.
