2017 brought about the 20th summer of the Duxbury Bay Maritime School in operation. The school’s first summer back in 1998 had nearly 500 new students enrolled in sailing, most of whom were beginners. This year’s summer saw over 1,500 students! Spanning across nine weeks, and a plethora of programs, we had the opportunity to connect each and every student with Duxbury Bay.
Among the many magical moments that transpired this summer, the following highlights stand out for us here at DBMS. The new program Adventure Sailing saw enormous success to the degree that more sessions were added mid-summer to accomodate the demand. Drop-in Rowing for high school and college athletes allowed our talented staff to take time for themselves on the Bay and practice their craft with Coach Chuck Hewitt. Very valuable training sessions were had as well as the positive influence of collegiate athletes having fun rowing with the current high school crew team members. DBMS saw another successful year of hosting the Junior Olympic Sailing Festival. More than 150 participants flooded our campus for the weekend and the horizon of Duxbury Bay was littered with a spectrum of colorful sails. Some of you may have come across the Kindness Rocks that speckle the DBMS grounds. Our partnership with the Duxbury Senior Center and the Kindness Rocks Project resulted in dozens of colorful rocks adorned with positivity of all kinds. This turned out to be a brilliant activity for all on the few rainy days we saw in late July.
Over the duration of the sessions, we so enjoyed getting to know your children. For those of you who had the opportunity to join our Community Cocktail Parties on the Porch, thank you for coming out and spending some time at DBMS after hours. There were so many wonderful conversations had and we love the chance to get to know our student’s parents too. This school would not be here with out the support of people like you, so thank you for being a part of the DBMS family.