End of course photo with students and teachers. /
The Aprendiztegi school of traditional shipbuilding will incorporate five students for the new course
Lea Conteau from France, Antoine Tuquoi from Labour, Vera Witek from Austria and Eva Sardà from Mallorca are the new graduates of the Aprendiztegi riverside carpentry school in Albaola. During this month, five new students will be incorporated to start the first of the three courses that this training program in naval carpentry consists of.
The new graduates of Aprendiztegi made their assessments during a ceremony held this week at the Pasaitarra maritime factory. Lea Conteau confessed that she likes traditional boats but “now I’m looking for new experiences.” In turn Antoine Tuquoi and Vera Witek announced that they are looking for work, “to put into practice everything we have learned during these three courses.” Eva Sardà underlined that “at Albaola both boys and girls work under equal conditions”. After three years of training and participation in numerous projects, the graduates have acquired, explain those responsible for Aprendiztegi, “all the necessary skills to build traditional boats, combining classic and modern techniques, something essential to preserve this trade in which they will be able to continue working after his departure from Albaola». The training offered by Aprendiztegi is eminently practical; apprentices acquire their knowledge through their participation in the construction of different boats under the supervision of their teachers.
transmission band
The International School of Shipbuilding was created five years ago in the image and likeness of the model created in 1972 by Lancee Lee, a pioneer of traditional shipbuilding education in the United States.
The three courses it offers are free “in exchange for motivation and commitment to the project of raising awareness, dissemination and transmission of this exciting trade and the entire maritime heritage”, they specify from the entity.
Through this school, Albaola becomes a transmission belt of this profession for the new generations. The students have participated in recent years in the construction of different boats: the patacha ‘Juanita Larando’, from the 18th century and 15 meters long; the ‘Potxua’, a boat with almost a hundred years of history; the motorboat ‘Ixil-ixil’, eight meters in length and plans from the 1940s; a ‘waterwag’, a whaling txalupa and the galleon ‘San Juan’.
Those responsible for the school emphasize that this training basically on wood also includes an approach to other trades necessary in shipbuilding, such as blacksmithing, rope making or turning, among others.