Setting Sail to New Educational Horizons

The pier opposite the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum was heaving with guests when the recreation of the 19th century gaff-rigged 110-foot 98-ton steel-hulled schooner Mystic Whaler was recommissioned in its new role – an educational vessel for youngsters, 10 to 18, run by Central Coast Ocean Adventures.

Originally launched in Florida in 1967, it spent the first 25 years of its life operating in the Northeast and in 2021 was bought by Santa Barbara tony twosome former Santa Barbara Yacht Club commodore Roger Chrisman and his wife, Sarah, and relocated to Southern California to be run by the nonprofit committed to adventure-inspired learning in the Santa Barbara Channel.

The vessel, with 3,000 square feet of sail, was rebuilt in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1993 and traveled from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Ensenada, Mexico, via the Panama Canal on an ocean freighter sailing to its permanent berth in the Channel Islands harbor in Oxnard.

For the ceremony Suzanne Malloy, former chaplain of Cottage Hospital, blessed the impressive looking boat which carries 50 passengers and 10 crew captained by Christine Healy, who started her career doing yacht deliveries in the Caribbean.

“Mystic Whaler, which provides dockside and multi-day voyages, offers a unique and institutional platform that can provide our young people with long-lasting personal and academic benefits,” she says.

After the ceremony guests repaired to the museum to quaff wine and nosh on canapés, as well as being entertained by Ariana Horner Sutherland, soprano, and tenor Matthew Peterson, singers from the Chrisman Studio Artists program, also sponsored by Roger and Sarah, accompanied on keyboard by Kostis Protopapas, general director of Opera Santa Barbara.

Among those in the right aria enjoying the works of Puccini, Mozart, and Gilbert and Sullivan, were Hiroko Benko, Fred and Nancy Golden, Ginni Dreier, Greg Gorga, Laura Schlessinger, Palmer Jackson, Tony and Sabrina Papa, Sigrid Toye, Jarrell Jackman, Francie Lufkin, Oscar Gutierrez, and Kristi Newton.