Schools
IYRS Celebrates Graduation and Boat Launches
On Saturday morning, the public joined the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS) to celebrate the rite of graduation and observe the launch of the boats they built and restored.
For students like Raffaele Luciani, who traveled to Newport from Italy to study boat building and restoration, Saturday’s graduation and boat launch at the (IYRS) celebrated the beginning a career which many students referred to as a dream come true.
“I read an article on IYRS ten years ago. I worked for ten years to make this happen,” Luciani said. He spent those years to saving money and obtaining his visa in order to come to the restoration school on Thames Street.
“It’s a dream to do something you love,” he said.
Other students who graduated came from throughout the United States as well as France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and the Grand Cayman Islands. Tiverton graduated two students and Little Compton had one student.
The students of the Composites Program constructed Moths, a small, high-performance boat considered to be the fastest sailboat ever built. Moths have been clocked at 27 knots, faster than the speed of wind. These diminutive single-handed boats are no longer than 11 feet in length.
The Boatbuilding & Restoration students restored a fleet of Beetle Cats, a Columbia Lifeboat, a Herreshoff 12 ½, and a Starling Burgess–designed R-Class sloop.
Graduates in the Boatbuilding & Restoration Program
Andrew Baittinger (Noank, Connecticut)
Brian Brown (North Kingstown, Rhode Island)
Andrew Chapman (Braunfels, Texas)
Tobias Green (Brooklyn, New York)
John Hanas (Waterbury, Connecticut)
John Hedley (Chicago, Illinois)
Bryce LeFort (Stuart, Florida)
Raffaele Luciani (Sarzana, Italy)
Ryan Lynch (Middletown, Rhode Island)
Jeff McPheeters (Brookline, Massachusetts)
Cameron O'Connor (Provincetown, Massachusetts)
William Oberg (Warwick, Rhode Island)
Doug Park (Marblehead, Massachusetts)
David Redero (Miami, Florida)
Chris Sanders (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Nele Spitzley (Bremen, Germany)
Graduates in the Composites Technology Program
Sam Carnahan (West Kingston, Rhode Island)
Chris Cox (Tiverton, Rhode Island)
Robert Cutler (Newport, Rhode Island)
Patrick Koar (Newport, Rhode Island)
Alex Moore (Barrington, Rhode Island)
Brian Morton (East Greenwich, RI)
Kurt Musselman (Jamestown, Rhode Island)
Dongyul Park (Jung-gu, Ulsan, Korea)
Graduates in the Marine Systems Program
Peter Bascom (Bristol, Rhode Island)
Dan Buckley (Newport, Rhode Island)
Jeffrey Cefalu (Fairfield, Connecticut)
George Chase (Little Compton, Rhode Island)
Stephen Collins (Charleston, Rhode Island)
Bob Delnickas (Mystic, Connecticut)
Heather Gardner (Newport, Rhode Island)
Andrew Gottschalk (Newport, Rhode Island)
Andy Lamothe (East Greenwich, Rhode Island)
Ed Sullivan (Woolrich, Maine)
Brendan Meagher (Baltimore, Maryland)
Felix Schliebitz (Germany)
Charles Sokolowski (Jamestown, Rhode Island)
Edwin Thomas (Duxbury, Massachusetts)
Ryan VonVillas (Tiverton, Rhode Island)
