It’s one of GSO’s oldest and most unique traditions: the boat burning. Admittedly, welcoming new students and the new academic year by burning a wooden boat might seem like an odd way to celebrate, but if you have been to one you know how special it is.
The tradition started in September of 1964. The Chowder and Marching Society – the GSO student organization – organized a picnic at the beginning of the new school year to welcome the new graduate students. One of the students, Donald Gordon, had a wooden sailboat, a Lowell 19 Townclass sloop named Osprey, that he had towed from Woods Hole, Mass. to GSO in hopes of sailing it here. But when she arrived, Don realized the boat was no longer seaworthy. He proposed burning it at the picnic because, as he said, “Not only would this solve the practical problem of getting rid of the now-derelict boat, but it would also provide an interesting spectacle.”
That first boat burning took place in the grassy area up the hill from the beach. “It was somewhat melancholy for me to watch her go up in flames because she had been such a wonderful boat, but it seemed a most fitting way to end her life since boat burnings are based on the Norse tradition of a Viking funeral,” said Don.
A photo of that first boat burning, framed in wood from the Osprey along with the boat’s name plate, can be found in a place of honor on the wall of the special collection room in GSO’s Pell Library.
Little did the students realize they were starting an enduring, beloved tradition. It’s an event attended by students, staff, faculty, alumni, and their families. The boat burning continues every September along with a cookout at the beach, not only to give a warm welcome to new students, but as a campus-wide start to the new year.
The only interruption to the longstanding tradition was in 2020, when due to the COVID pandemic the boat burning was postponed until the following June.
Back when a number of GSO students and faculty had sailboats, the boat burning was held on a Saturday and preceded by an afternoon boat race around Dutch Island. Dean John Knauss sailed his catboat for many years, often with a group of students. The boat to be burned was lit at sundown. For several decades, GSO Professor Michael Pilson gave a welcoming speech from atop the burning boat. Since he retired, a series of GSO faculty and staff have continued this time-honored tradition, though no one has spoken from right atop the burning boat as did Michael Pilson.
At the 2021 Boat Burning (the 57th Annual), celebrating GSO’s founding 60 years ago in 1961, GSO Emeritus Professor H. Thomas Rossby talked about how far we have come since GSO was founded in 1961 – then oceanographers were still using reversing thermometers, Nansen bottles, and bathythermographs (BTs) and could not measure currents and depended upon celestial navigation to know where they were and only men could go to sea. Now we have satellite remote sensing, robots of all kinds to explore the ocean interior and conductivity, temperature, and depth sensors (CTDs) and there are no gender restrictions on who can go to sea.
At the 60th Boat Burning in 2024, GSO Associate Professor Jaime Palter was the featured speaker for one of the largest boat burning crowds ever. She offered two pieces of advice to students: “First, remember your original motivation to pursue these studies and let that power you over the obstacles. Second, find the relationships that sustain you and nourish those relationships. You can rely on each other and hold each other up. It’s the people and the laughter and camaraderie that you will get you through it all and will become your most lasting memories.”
Donald (Don) Gordon M.S. ’64, will always be remembered at GSO as the graduate student who, 60 years ago, provided the first boat and came up with the idea of having a bonfire to welcome new students. He passed away on July 27, 2024, at the age of 84 after a distinguished career at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Although he passed before the that year’s boat burning, he corresponded about it and he wrote to GSO, “My fond thoughts will be with you all in early September at the 60th boat burning, a fine tradition I am pleased to have started.”