“It was fast and constant action, but it was a no-brainer to take the challenge,” said East Bay Met School Principal Brad Martin of Jamestown, Rhode Island.
Martin took a Hot Seat ride aboard an M32 catamaran during today’s World Match Racing Tour Newport, resulting from a challenge by one of his students at the high school, Cheyenne Pine, who is an intern at Sail Newport. The non-profit organization is Rhode Island’s Public Sailing Center and host for the Newport stopover of the tour.
While he has been up in a hot air balloon and done “loop-d-loops” in a bi-plane, Martin said he has never done anything like the ride on the high-speed M32.
“Nothing I’ve done on the water in my lifetime compares to this. This is the best,” Martin said.
Martin explained that “the goal of the challenge was to give me something cool to do to help celebrate the Met School’s connection to Sail Newport.”
Martin, who grew up just across the bridge in Jamestown, has sailed on Narragansett Bay but had not been on boats for a little while. “In challenging me, in my first year at the school, it’s a little bit of ‘let’s see what you can handle.’ Cheyenne is a great student of ours whose internship at has benefited both her academics and her mentors at Sail Newport – plus she’s fun and wanted to challenge me!”
The Met School provides a personalized learning experience steeped in Real-World Learning for high school students through internships across Rhode Island, and the school recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
The relationship between the school and Sail Newport is very special, according to Martin: “They’re a wonderful and giving organization that provides a partnership experience for our students. Every year in the fall we have students who learn to sail as part of their real-world learning experience. While our partnership with Sail Newport predates my time at The Met, it is clear that they really love our students; we work with them to help out in any way we can. I love how our students can become so passionate in their learning in a place like Sail Newport.”
Martin added, “I’m so grateful for the challenge; it was truly the ride of a lifetime. It was a no-brainer to take the challenge and get on that boat.”