Students at The Harbour School are set to become the envy of children across Hong Kong, when their school completes the retrofit of an elegantly built second world war-era sailing yacht later this summer. After that, it will put to sea, allowing students, parents and teachers to set sail in search of adventure along the city's coastline. The purchase of the Black Dolphin for US$40,000 (HK$310,113) is part of the school's plan to expand its marine science lessons. The school, which has 165 students spread across three campuses in Kennedy Town, has been teaching the subject in some classes since it was founded in 2007, but plans to expand it into a systematic curriculum in the coming academic year. We wanted a boat with a big flat deck that kids could sit on and work Craig Blurton The boat, a 40-foot gaff-rigged diesel-auxiliary cruising ketch, arrived in Hong Kong on April 4 after it was transported from its former home in Long Beach, California via a container ship operated by OOCL, which offered the school a steep discount for the move. It is docked at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, and will undergo a retrofit before putting to sea again in June. The school's marine life curriculum will be developed by a marine scientist employed as a teacher, and through referencing other marine education programmes around the world. The yacht will be equipped with a range of scientific equipment, which will allow students to conduct field experiments. Students will be required to study navigation and mapping before being allowed to board the yacht. "We expect that it will be taken out for half day periods several times a month. The kids and the parents are really excited by it - sometimes the parents more so," says Jadis Blurton, the school's principal. "There's a lot of things you can do on a boat you can't do in a classroom. When you take children into the outdoors, they are experiencing being in nature. They are collecting data," she says. Blurton says the school is in discussions to help with a number of marine projects in the city, including using an artificial mollusc developed at the University of Hong Kong to measure the levels of heavy metals in the waters off the city's shores. Another project being discussed is to help Cesar Harada, a Hong Kong-linked inventor and environmentalist, develop an inexpensive and flexible optical scanner to detect and measure plastic particulates in the oceans. The Harbour School manager Craig Blurton says the school has been searching for a suitable vessel for two years, in response to demands from parents and students to expand its marine science curriculum. "We wanted a boat with a big flat deck that kids could sit on and have a conversation, do experiments and work. It had to be big enough for small-sized classes, yet not so big that it was like standing on land," he says. The Black Dolphin is undergoing assembly and servicing to bring it back to seaworthy status. Its mast, which was dismantled and stowed for the long voyage here, is being remounted. Other work includes the certification of its engine and electrical systems, and repairs on its hull. Finally, it will be repainted in the school's colours: blue below the waterline, white on top, with a red stripe running down the length of the hull. The boat will be moored in Aberdeen, when the work is completed. "We want to restore the boat as close to the original as possible," Craig Blurton says, adding that this would include restoring some of the painted-over woodwork, as well as replacing the boat's aluminium masts with wooden ones. The boat was built in 1944 at the Wilmington Boat Yards in California. It was designed by noted boat builder Hugh Angelman, whose company also built the 36-foot replica of the HMS Bounty, which was used for the filming of the 1935 movie Mutiny on the Bounty . To operate the boat, The Harbour School is looking to hire a crew of two - including a full-time skipper who will be responsible for its operation. For the moment, the purchase and refurbishment of the Black Dolphin has been financed out of the pockets of the Blurtons. But the idea is to eventually make the boat self-financing, possibly through charter to other schools and environmental groups. life@scmp.com