Sailing away

Deepa Bharath

Robert Prear is a different person when he gets a whiff of ocean air.

The 15-year-old, a student at Jordan High School in the Watts

neighborhood of Los Angeles, says he “likes being around water.”

“It takes your mind off school and all that other stuff,” he said.

Prear and several other members of the school’s Sailing and Outdoor

Adventure Club are working to fix up the Dunnigan, a 36-foot boat donated

to them by the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum.

Their goal? To sail the boat in San Pedro by October.

Guillermo Mendoza, 17, says sailing is a hobby that keeps him away

from trouble.

“How’s sailing? It’s all right,” he said with a smile. “It keeps me

busy, and it keeps my mind free.”

It was with that exact goal that Jordan High computer science teacher

John Finn and librarian Steven Belton started the Sailing and Outdoor

Adventure Club in the fall of 1999 -- a club they claim is the only one

of its kind in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The teachers say the experience makes the moments in the classroom

real to students.

It all started on a day when Finn, who also teaches English, was

reading from Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” to his students.

“The kids didn’t know what a tide was,” he said. “Many of them hadn’t

seen the ocean or a boat. They said, ‘We don’t have cars, we haven’t been

to the beach.”’

So Finn and Belton formed the Sailing Club with four students. They

went on little trips to Redondo Beach and the Sea Scout Base in Newport

Harbor, home to the UC Irvine sailing program.

Now the club has expanded to include nature walks, hiking, swimming

and photography, and membership has grown to more than 100 students.

The partnership between the school and the museum began last year.

Manager Marshall Steele said he hit upon the idea of donating the boat to

the club through the Have a Heart Foundation.

Steele said he was touched by the students’ love for the ocean, a

sentiment the museum tries to cherish, preserve and spread.

Finn “told me about their first trip to Catalina,” he said. “And you

know what the students were most impressed by? The stars. They’d never

seen stars.”

Weeks ago, Prear steered a boat for the first time.

“It was good,” he said. “I learned how to use a compass. It’s

definitely different from driving a car. At first I didn’t understand how

to control it.”

Prear said a lot of his friends were intimidated by the club at first.

“According to them, there’s too much water out here in the ocean for

them to drink, you know,” he said. “They have this fear of being on

boats.”

The only way to conquer that fear is to do it, Prear added.

“You’ve got to get on your life jacket,” he said. “I’d suggest you get

on a yacht and see how the water moves. And then you get used to it. You

keep coming back.”

Just like he did.

Prear and his friends are now busy getting the Dunnigan back in shape.

“The other day we were looking for cushions,” Prear said. “Everything

on that boat’s antique, so you’ve got to look for all this stuff.”

The museum’s contribution came to Jordan High when the school was

going through a tumultuous time. A Los Angeles County Grand Jury in July

had handed out a tough evaluation to Jordan, in which the committee

stated conditions were “alarming.”

The report said committee members observed the teachers’ appearance

was not professional and in many cases could not be distinguished from

volunteers or maintenance employees. Also, the report said teachers

complained to the committee about compensation, safety and problems

resulting from Proposition 227, which eliminated most bilingual

education.

Steele said the museum will continue to offer its support to Jordan

High’s Sailing Club -- a gesture he believes will help the students learn

and grow.

“It’s a worthy cause,” he said. “This is what we’re about.”

* Deepa Bharath covers public safety and courts. She may be reached at

(949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at o7 deepa.bharath@latimes.comf7 .