The Caribbean tall ship voyage of 25 Dutch high school students was supposed to end with a comfortable flight home from Cuba. HARLINGEN, Netherlands (AP) - Greeted by relieved parents, pet dogs, flares and a cloud of orange smoke, a group of 25 Dutch high school students with very little sailing experience ended a trans-Atlantic voyage Sunday that was forced on them by coronavirus restrictions.The children, ages 14 to 17, watched over by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers, were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home in March.

Her mother, Renee Scholtemeijer, said she expects her daughter to miss life on the open sea once she encounters coronavirus containment measures in the Netherlands.“I think that after two days she’ll want to go back on the boat, because life is very boring back at home,” she said. That’s amazing in itself, then suddenly you have to change the whole program and you have to cross the ocean," Masterskip director Christophe Meijer, whose company arranged the excursion, said.
(Arthur Smeets/Wylde Swan via AP) Being flexible is really important.”Instead of flying back from Cuba as originally planned, the crew and students stocked up on supplies and warm clothes and set sail for the northern Dutch port of Harlingen, a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), on board the 60-meter (200-foot) top sail schooner Wylde Swan.As they arrived home, the students hung up a self-made banner saying “Bucket List” with ticks in boxes for Atlantic Ocean crossing, mid-ocean swim and surviving the Bermuda triangle.

Three weeks into the ocean crossing, the Wylde Swan stopped in the Azores to pick up fresh supplies. “The arrival time changed like 100 times. - They went from the Netherlands to the Caribbean to go sailing.


2020-04-26 4:19:00 PM.

“There’s nothing to do, she can’t visit friends, so it’s very boring.”The twin-masted Wylde Swan glided into Harlingen harbor late morning Sunday, its sails neatly stowed. The teens hugged and chanted each other’s names as they walked off the ship and into the arms of their families, who drove their cars alongside the yacht one by one to adhere to social distancing rules imposed to rein in the spread of the virus that forced the students into their long trip home.For Hurkmans, the impossibility of any kind of social distancing took some getting used to.“At home you just have some moments for yourself, but here you have to be social all the time to everyone because you’re sleeping with them, you’re eating with them you’re just doing everything with them so you can’t really just relax,” she said. Please enable JavaScript and reload this page.

The goal is for students to build up enough knowledge to be able to sail the ship on their own, “the ultimate form of cooperation," Meijer said.The unscheduled trans-Atlantic journey required readying the ship, getting supplies and buying warm clothes for the teenagers.The students have gotten over any seasickness by now, but it has not been all smooth sailing.

Sunday, April 26, 2020 They have made us very proud.”Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague contributed to this report.Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreakJavaScript is required for full functionality on this website, but scripting is currently disabled. In this photo released by Wylde Swan on Friday April 10, 2020, Dutch high school children work the sail on the bowsprit of Wylde Swan tall ship, sailing between The Carribbean and The Netherlands.

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