Tall Ships = Tall Orders: A Framework For Reflecting After Taking Out The Ship (Or Minivan)

In my free time, I volunteer with Call of the Sea, crewing aboard the brigantine Matthew Turner out of the Bay Area. We take students out sailing to experience the maritime environment, local history, and something increasingly rare in the classroom: learning by doing.

This year, I had the opportunity to blend my passion for sailing-driven education and my Ph.D. dissertation focus.

The Call of the Sea’s brigantine Matthew Turner — 35mm photo by Matthew Kurkjian

To blend my passion and my scholarly focus, I submitted a proposal to the 53rd Annual Conference on Sail Training and Tall Ships, hosted by Tall Ships America, whose theme was Traditional Sails, Modern Winds. The session focused on something I study deeply in my doctoral research: how experience becomes skill.

Experience alone doesn’t guarantee learning. Learning happens when we pause, reflect, extract insight, and apply it forward.

At the conference, I introduced a simple debrief model I’ve developed called the S.A.I.L. Framework:

• Situation — What happened?

• Awareness — What did you notice?

• Insight — What does this mean?

• Learning Transfer — What will you do differently next time?

It’s grounded in Dr. David A. Kolb’s experiential learning theory but designed specifically for deckhands, captains, educators, and youth programs who are already doing extraordinary work and want to make learning more visible, transferable, and measurable.

It was especially meaningful to share this work at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center in San Diego, surrounded by people who believe deeply in traditional training and its modern relevance. Our exploration of the San Diego Maritime Museum was unforgettable. I’m grateful to the Tall Ships America team — especially Erin and Chris — for creating space where research and experience-at-sea can inform each other.

It turns out my dissertation and my time on deck vessels from times past are not separate pursuits. They’re the same conversation, just in different settings, or dare I say, winds.

Please feel free to download the S.A.I.L. one-pager if you think it’d be useful in your practice, whether after taking out tall ships or the family to dinner (perhaps a rowdier crew).