The Alliance will be docking at the Inland Seas Education Association dock on West Bay today (Friday) at 4pm. The 105-foot schooner has sailed from Maryland to join the organization’s flagship Inland Seas to provide educational opportunities for students throughout the Great Lakes. “We’ve reached a point where demand exceeds capacity. We’ve been turning away more than we can serve,” says Fred Sitkins, the executive director of the ISEA. The non-profit provides hands-on learning opportunities for some 5,000 students across the Great Lakes each year. When Alliance is fully operational next year, it will double that capacity.

“This is such a milestone for Inland Seas,” says Sitkins. “There is so much demand in the summer.” The schoolship experience enables students to become Great Lakes scientists. “This generation of kids is conscientious, caring, thoughtful – they care about the environment.”

The 51-ton steel-hulled schooner was built in 1995 by Treworgy Yachts, which also built Inland Seas. The Alliance sailed as a part of a windjammer fleet in Maine before moving to Yorktown, Virginia. As an ocean-going vessel, it needed a retrofit to sail the Great Lakes, particularly with regard to its wastewater holding capacity. That retrofit will continue this winter when the staterooms are reconfigured into dormitory space for the students. The Inland Seas has a capacity of 45 for overnight excursions; this summer the Alliance will only take day trips, but after its retrofit it will have a capacity of 54.

An anonymous donor pledged a yearly amount to pay the $830,000 cost. Sitkins says as the organization’s strategic plan had called for the purchase of another vessel, it had secured enough funding to pay for the ship outright, with the yearly donation then serving to replenish its reserve fund.

The Inland Seas Education Association was founded in 1989 by Tom Kelly, John Elder, and Peter Doren. Kelly served as its executive director until 2013, when he retired and Sitkins took on the role.