COURSE OVERVIEW

Maine Sailing & Backpacking

This 22-day journey is an opportunity for those seeking a fresh challenge in a unique wilderness environment and an intense team setting. At sea, our 30-foot open sailboat serves as both home and classroom. In the mountains, students learn to camp and travel simply, relying on each other and what they can carry on their backs. In a phased teaching progression, instructors will introduce beginning, intermediate and advanced skills in mountain and coastal navigation, small boat seamanship and woods craftsmanship, weather observation, anchoring, and campsite selection. Regular group discussions allow for reflection on each day’s progress and ensure that leadership and responsibilities are shared so that every crew member is integral to planning the next day. 

Your course will begin at the Wheeler Bay base camp in Spruce Head, Maine. Here you will meet the members of your group and get an introduction to your requisite gear, briefings on emergency procedures, and soon begin your adventure. Our courses are expedition-based, which means that you will leave the basecamp on the first day of your course and not return to it until the end of your first phase of course. Then you will transport to the other base camp for your next expedition where you use your skills in a new environment. While on expedition, you will travel with all of the food and equipment you need for your expedition: stoves, food and water, etc.

You do not need to have previous sailing, backpacking or expedition experience. We will teach you everything you need to know: packing and adjusting your pack, route finding, sail handling, steering, anchoring, navigating using maps, charts and compass, and living comfortably in the backcountry.

Arriving physically fit will enhance your experience and ability to do well on the course, and ultimately allow you to take full advantage of the expedition.

Through living and working closely together, students learn far more than wilderness travel skills. The habits learned and strengthened through this sailing and backpacking expedition will serve students for life, and for whatever challenge is next. 
Course Skills

Backpacking

  • Proper fit and loading of packs 
  • Moving efficiently over rugged terrain 
  • River crossings
  • Distributing group gear fairly amongst the group
  • Group travel
  • Route Planning
  • Weather signs and forecasting

Expedition Skills

  • Emergency preparedness
  • Safety management and basic first aid
  • Campsite selection & Route finding
  • Shelter construction
  • Outdoor cooking
  • Conservation practices
  • Ropes and knots
  • Stove use and maintenance
  • Recreate Responsibly wilderness ethics
  • Nutrition and ration planning
  • Navigation using map/chart & compass

Group Dynamics

  • Leadership and decision making
  • Followership and expedition behavior
  • Communication & Conflict Resolution
  • Individual and group goal setting

Rock Climbing (weather dependent)

  • Belaying and rope handling 
  • System safety
  • Climbing technique 
  • Rappelling

Open Boat Sailing Skills

  • Boat handling skills, sailing and seamanship  
  • Live aboard skills
  • Tides, currents, and weather forecasting 
  • Anchoring 
  • Marlinespike seamanship
Course Area

The mountains of western Maine and northern New Hampshire comprise the northern end of the Appalachian mountain range. Within this region, the White Mountain National Forest, the Appalachian Trail, the Carter-Mahoosuc Range, the Hundred-Mile Wilderness, the Grafton Loop Trail, Bigelow Preserve, and the Caribou-Speckled Mountain Wilderness all offer classic backpacking terrain. These spruce-fir and hardwood forests are home to hundreds of species of birds as well as moose, deer, and black bear. Rushing waterfalls, clear twisting streams, and spectacular views from rocky summits reward backpackers ready for adventure.

Your course area along the coast of Maine, with its intricate and indented shoreline, is a unique segment of the North Atlantic seaboard. It is renowned among sailors for its picturesque beauty, iconic lighthouses, abundant bays and harbors, rocky islands, and quiet coves. Our cruising area covers nearly 200 miles of the Maine coast, with countless rivers, bays, and islands to explore. The rocky, spruce-covered islands are the summits of a prehistoric mountain range; many generations of inhabitants have made their livelihoods here. Evidence left behind on the islands reveals the historic presence of indigenous Abenaki camps, pre-colonial fishing communities, post-colonial timber and farming operations, and early 20th-century granite quarries. Cold, nutrient-rich waters flow from the Canadian Maritimes and make the Gulf of Maine home to a wide range of sea birds, seals, porpoises, and whales.

Course Progression

The essential goal of any Outward Bound course is for the students to learn autonomy. Our expedition curriculum supports this happening in a progressive way.

During the first third of a course (a phase called “training expedition”), the instructors are very present in the group. They teach outdoor skills, the technical aspects of the activities and guide the students as they form a team.

In the middle third of the course (what we call the “main expedition”), the instructors take a step back so students may step forward. Students begin to teach what they’ve already learned to each other, and experiment with applying basic skills to bigger challenges. The instructors continue to coach and support as the students practice leadership roles. When the group meets a particular situation, environment or activity they haven’t learned about before, the instructors jump back in and teach. Each time this happens, the group reaches competency more quickly.

By the last third of the course (the “final expedition”), students are the stars of the show. They are applying what they know, leading each other, setting goals, and solving problems collaboratively. The instructors are close by and ready to step back in to prevent a safety issue from occurring but will let students find their own resiliency when they make mistakes, and ensure they feel the full spotlight of success when they meet their goals.

Course Activities
Backpacking

Your course focuses on wilderness expedition skills. In the mountains, you will learn map reading, cooking, how to load and adjust your pack, foot care, hydration, knots and, most importantly, leadership and teamwork. Backpacking is a great combination of team and individual elements. The mountains of Maine are rugged, wooded, and will at times be muddy and steep, making it necessary to “spot” and coach each other through difficult terrain. At times you will travel on wilderness footpaths, at others, you will navigate off-trail. From mountain peaks, if the weather cooperates, you will be rewarded with spectacular views. Living and traveling with just what you can carry on your back is a simple existence, in which small choices can make deceptively great differences. To live well in the outdoors, all crew members must share the chores that turn a camp into a home, including setting up tents and tarps, making a kitchen area, taking a turn fetching water, and cooking satisfying meals.

Rock Climbing

During your course you may spend a day rock climbing on one of this area’s many granite cliffs or on our ropes course at the Outward Bound basecamp. You will learn to use climbing equipment, tie knots, climb and belay each other, while instructors provide overall supervision of the site. Climbing gives you a chance to practice your balance, coordination, and flexibility as well as the group’s ability to trust and encourage each other.

Solo

The solo experience is a standard element of Outward Bound courses. With sufficient food and equipment, you will set up camp at a site on your own. The solo will last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the length of your course. Your solo site is chosen to offer as much solitude as possible, yet be within hearing distance of other group members. You will not travel during this time alone, and your instructors will check on you occasionally. The solitude and break from the fast pace of your expedition allows for rest and personal reflection, which is necessary to make the most of your experience.

Service

Service projects are often incorporated into Outward Bound courses through coordination with local land managers, conservation groups, government agencies or social service agencies. While in the wilderness, students are encouraged to practice service to the environment and their team by sharing responsibilities and following Recreate Responsibly ethics throughout the expedition.

Personal Challenge Event 

Our courses end with a Personal Challenge Event, an individual final physical push. These events might take the form of a running, rowing or swimming activity, or it may be a combination of the three.  This event is a chance to finish your Outward Bound Experience with a true personal challenge where you can own all of your decisions and efforts in contrast to the time you have spent operating within an expedition team.

Sailing

The 30-foot open sailboat is your home and classroom. These seaworthy boats are rigged to take full advantage of the power of Maine coastal winds, and when the winds do not cooperate, the boats can be rowed by two or four people pulling on oars. At night the boat will be configured as a sleeping platform and you and your watch mates will take turns at anchor watch under brilliant night skies. Underway, you will learn to set your sails properly for sailing at different angles to the wind, and to anticipate and respond to changes in weather. As you practice rowing, you will discover that by coordinating all of the rower’s movements so that the oars splash as one, you halve the effort it takes to travel on windless days. You will learn to navigate using a chart and compass across open water and among the bold granite islands, concentrating on the environment around you.

Program Outcomes

On your HIOBS program, you will learn four important Outward Bound Core Values:

  • Compassion
  • Integrity
  • Excellence
  • Inclusion and Diversity

Some of the most important lessons you take home are learning about yourself and your community while acquiring backcountry skills and having an adventure. As you will be traveling through wild places on your expedition, you’ll also learn to protect and appreciate the unique, unspoiled environments through which you travel.

High School Courses

High school is a time of transition, developing learning and life skills while preparing for what’s next, be it college, a career or a gap year adventure. To get ready for increased independence, teens must be impelled to step up and make choices that have real consequences for themselves and others, with the support and supervision of knowledgeable and compassionate adults. Outward Bound instructors on Teen Courses specialize in coaching students to meet challenges and make good decisions, independently and as a group. Teen Courses are designed to be the perfect expedition classroom for this stage of life. 

Students need only to be physically fit and motivated to learn and work together. No previous wilderness experience is necessary—all travel and leadership skills are taught from the beginning, and each phase of the expedition builds on the previous one. By land or by sea, an expedition requires initiative, teamwork and problem solving, skills that will take them to any horizons they strive for.