Work by Riviera Beach Maritime Academy graduate, a 19-year-old sailor, pays off as restored 1968 sailboat launches

RIVIERA BEACH — Dozens of students from the Riviera Beach Maritime Academy watched this morning as Sean Wolfe broke a bottle of wine over the bow of his bright blue sailboat Sea Imp and climbed aboard with girlfriend Lea Davis for a maiden post-restoration voyage onto the Lake Worth Lagoon.

The day had been a long time coming.

Wolfe, 19, a licensed captain who graduated from the Maritime Academy in May, spent two years and countless hours restoring the 1968 Dutch-built sailboat with help from instructors at the charter high school. He plans to live aboard the 22-foot sloop and sail it to the Bahamas and along the coast of Florida.

The rail-thin sailor with a thick mop of curly hair didn't say much after the launch.

He blew on a conch shell to commemorate the launch and posed for photos before he and his girlfriend motored away from the Viking International boat yard, headed toward Peanut Island. As they left, they dodged water balloons lobbed by his family, who were following them in a small inflatable boat.

"This is his love," said Wolfe's mother, Laurie Wolfe . "After 'mom' and 'dad,' his first word was' boat.'"

Wolfe's parents are avid sailors. They lived on a sailboat before they had children and took Sean sailing for the first time when he was 15 days old.

As a boy growing up in Lake Park, Wolfe often cruised Lake Worth Lagoon in a 10-foot sailing dinghy. He designed a special trailer for the boat and towed it to the sea wall at Kelsey Park behind his mountain bike.

"People would slow down and gawk all the time when they saw me going by," Wolfe said.

Maritime Academy President George Carter said he hoped Wolfe's enthusiasm for restoring the Sea Imp would inspire other students at the high school to take on similar projects.

"I can't say enough about a young man like this," Carter said, noting that Wolfe recently landed a part-time job as a boat operator for the Palm Beach Harbor Pilots Association. "Boating is going to be a career for Sean. That's what we're promoting."


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