Community
Building the Goldfield
The Goldfield in her hey day
The Cayman Maritime Heritage Foundationdoes not exist as the non-profit educational and charitable organisationthat its adherents propose to make it. that concerned group ofheritage activists finds it hard to sit and wait until the paperworkis routed and the signatures are signed to initiate the researchthat will be needed when the Foundation is up and running.
Craig Nixon, a 23-year-old Caymanian architect with OBM and anOlympic sailor, has bitten the Cayman pride bullet by startinga working proposal for the hoped-for offices at Captain Clark'sHouse, the Whitehall Bay site. His aim is the occupational infrastructurethat would accompany Cayman Maritime's overall goals.
"What we are planning here will see us as self-sufficientas well as fulfilling a cultural cycle. If it is planned properlyand we start out small, with the intent of building a good foundationthat will sustain a healthy economy, we can develop our Islandswith the maritime leaning that is in our blood."
Nixmon sees that the Cayman islands could be a learning centrein the areas that seem to have ironically been lacking in a maritimeculture, namely the marine sciences and trades. The progression,he feels, is from the design and construction of the little Catboatto the commercial replication of Cayman Schooners. Those, saysNixon, would be ready-made vocational schools paid for in thebeginning by donors, investors and/or sponsors. The businessesof design, supply, construction, marketing, chartering, salesare awaiting their own natural evolution and the first keel tobe laid down.
A new member of the Cayman Catboat Club, Craig Nixon cites theenthusiasm shown by its membership in looking for a positive directionin which to assist in Cayman's development. Now that the portfolioof Culture has been combined with the protfolio of Tourism, itis evident that His Excellency Governor Peter Smith and the newlyelected legislators are clearing the slate to promote the Caymanianas the attraction in the Cayman Islands. And the Caymanian, witha foot in land and a foot in the sea, needs to be comfortablewith the role that originally brought tourism here.
The Caymanian has to relearn what it was to be a Caymanian, tore-establish the character traits that are just under the skinand as Nixon states, "in our blood."
The Goldfield, as the initial schooner replication project, isan ambitious signal to contemporary Cayman that with modern materials,techniques and equipment this 88-foot fast turtler can be strongerand faster and more luxurious. The construction aspect would bewhat those Cayman boatbuilders in the past could only wish tohave in some shipwright's heaven. The teaching of the uses ofexotic synthetics in vessel construction could instruct thosein the construction trades, and a plan has been offered for prisoners.The possible utilisation as research charter vessel would finda comfortably different world afloat from that of the originalvessel. The intended specific use of turtle research could havethe turtlers from days past showing the way for academics notto have to reinvent the wheel. The old timers could also assistin the training of young cadets in the skills of seamanship.
Other Caymanian vessel designs could re-establish the Cayman Islandsas a classic yacht building centre and a venue for classic yachtraces such as in Brittany, Sardinia, Newport, San Francisco andCowes. The attention as a classic maritime touristic attractioncan be guided to establish a marine sciences institution. Anduniversity towns are usually safe and usually culturally affluentplaces to live.