When the 137-foot Gloucester schooner ROSEWAY was presented to a Camden couple last year, they rejoiced. A free boat that still floats is hard to resist. Since then, Abby Kidder and Dwight Deckelmann have plunged into the work of realizing their dream: a school afloat.

The World Ocean School is taking shape, at a small office in Camden, and on the ways at the Sample Shipyard in Boothbay Harbor. A final oak hull plank was replaced in October, using traditional trunnels to fasten it to frames. Caulking will follow. “We’ve made really good progress,” Kidder said. “To see that boat take shape again. It’s beautiful, and they’re doing a fantastic job.”

ROSEWAY’s decks are the next project, plus a new mast for the two-masted vessel. The schooner could be launched by the end of Nobember, with work continuing at dockside.

The couple accepted ROSEWAY a year ago, when First National Bank of Damariscotta, which had foreclosed on a loan for ROSEWAY, decided giving her away was better than bids it received at an auction.

Deckelmann and Kidder, both 32, admit that to launch a school based on a 78-year-old boat, you need to be passionate about it, maybe a little crazy about it. But they see nothing crazy about their plans for the school at sea, teaching high-school and college-age students to be morally courageous; to work for strong communities, a healthy environment, a world without war.

Those are lofty goals, but already the new school has an agreement with Seeds of Peace camp in Otisfield to take campers on a summer cruise. Seeds of Peace is known for bringing the children of conflict – such as Arabs and Israelis – together. World Ocean School is also working with Camp Kieve in Nobleboro to create an “ocean term” for campers.

The ROSEWAY – a former Camden windjammer listed on the National Register of Historic Places – gives the couple a graceful base on which to build their dream: a Maine-based school teaching sailing and other life lessons. Kidder hopes ethics will be incorporated in students’ daily experience. She is the daughter of Rushworth Kidder, founder of Camden’s Institute for Global Ethics, where she has worked. They plan to have students undertake public service projects in ports of call. They hope to enroll students from strife-torn Northern Ireland, perhaps for a Belfast to Belfast (Maine) sail.

While Deckelmann supervises reconstruction of the ROSEWAY in Boothbay Harbor, Kidder holds down the Camden office, in nonstop fundraising mode. Money raised so far is a mix of individual gifts, loans and grants. The overall goal for ROSEWAY is $1.5 million, of which $700,000 has been raised. “It’s hard going on that front,” Kidder said.

The program would include expeditions that integrate environmental and cultural studies, including marine biology and natural history. It would enroll students ages 16-21, from culturally and economically diverse backgrounds. Kidder hopes that eventually, more than half of all students would receive scholarships. For now, tuition would be about $900 per week, a figure she acknowledged puts World Ocean School on a par with prep school tuition.

Voyages of 10-12 weeks would be considered a full course; shorter, summertime sails could be tailored for younger students. The small passenger cabins below decks have been removed. In their stead will be two 14-bunk cabins for students, and accommodations for a captain and crew. A new deckhouse will resemble the original, retaining ROSEWAY’s classic lines. The schooner’s sails are good for another season, at best, and rigging is being checked.

Four dories, to serve as ROSEWAY tenders, are being built by the Philadelphia Wooden Boat Factory, a project for underprivileged young people in that city.

Built as a yacht at the James shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts, ROSEWAY survived for decades, and in the 1960s and early 1970s she worked as a diesel-powered pilot boat in Boston Harbor. For a generation, ROSEWAY has taken paying passengers aboard as part of the Penobscot bay windjammer fleet. In the late 1970s, she was purchased by Maine sea captains Jim Sharp of Camden and Orvil Young of Lincolnville. Young said she was always “a good sea boat.” They sailed her out of Camden for the next 14 years, then sold her to George Sloane, who reportedly neglected maintenance, lost his U.S. Coast Guard license to carry passengers, and defaulted on a $250,000 loan. U.S. Marshals then seized ROSEWAY, and the bank ended up with the boat before giving it to Kidder and Deckelmann.

The name ROSEWAY, her original name, is said to be the first owner’s jibe at his wife, as in “Rose gets her way.”