Fellow seafarers, and those of you just stepping aboard,

Being part of seafaring history means more to me than any piece of paper. Seafaring history asks a bigger question: what will we hand to the people who come after us?

That question is why I started North 37 Academy, and why I am writing to invite you to help build it as a founding member.

Why a philosophical school, a navigation school, and an AI and rocket-tech school

Seafaring and philosophy have always been tangled together. The Greeks had a word, logos, for reason, for the account we give of the world. A navigator lives by logos. We take what we can observe, the sun, the stars, the log, the lead, the radar, and we reason our way to a position we cannot see. Every fix is an argument. Every passage plan is a small philosophy of risk.

So North 37 is a philosophical school, because a mariner must think clearly. It is a navigation school, because that is our craft. And it is an AI and rocket-tech school, because the tools of navigation have always been the frontier tools of their age, from the astrolabe to the chronometer to satellite positioning. Innovation is the key to North 37, and the school is built on membership.

An invitation to the founding members

The founding members of North 37 are seafarers, and the new seafarers entering the trade. I am inviting you to establish, together with me, an education system that meets the standards of the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), with the training and the assessment done aboard the vessel, the way it used to be done [1].

For generations, the ship was the classroom. A young sailor learned the rule of the road on the bridge wing, learned the engine room by standing in it, and was judged by people who had stood the same watches. North 37 aims to bring that tradition forward: a free curriculum, practical assessment aboard, and a structure designed to line up with what the Coast Guard and STCW require of us. Our curriculum is still being reviewed against those requirements, and nothing in it replaces an approved course or a Coast Guard credential. But the direction is clear, and it starts on deck.

Ships have always been places of discovery

Ships have always been laboratories of resourcefulness. One of the most famous examples is medicine. In 1747, aboard HMS Salisbury, the naval surgeon James Lind took twelve sailors suffering from scurvy, divided them into pairs, and gave each pair a different treatment. The two men given oranges and lemons recovered strikingly fast; one was fit for duty within about six days. Lind published his Treatise of the Scurvy in 1753 [2]. Historians are careful to note that Lind himself did not fully grasp what he had found, and that the Royal Navy did not issue lemon juice routinely until 1795, decades later [2][3]. That is a lesson too: discovery at sea is only the first step. Someone has to carry it ashore and make it standard practice.

I think of North 37 the same way. We are running an experiment at sea, and we owe it to the trade to test it honestly, write down what works, and share it.

Working with a team of AI agents

Here is something I did not expect. Over the past year I found a remarkable working relationship with a team of AI agents. I used that team to help build the university and to build a system that helps mariners keep track of, and work toward, the requirements for their credentials. The agents draft, research, check and organize. I decide, I correct, and I take responsibility. It has been one of the most productive partnerships of my career, and I believe it can multiply what a small crew of teachers can do for a large crew of learners.

Members paying for each other’s education

The model I want to build is simple to say: members help pay for each other’s education. The seafarer who is further along helps the one just starting, and the one just starting will one day help the next. That is a goal and a model, not a promise. A financial projection is being prepared, and when it is shared it will be a projection and not a guarantee of any return. I want everyone who joins to join for the mission first.

There is a wider conversation in the country right now about investing in young people early. Under the law that created them, Trump Accounts are a new kind of tax-advantaged account for children; the Treasury Department says it completed automatic enrollment on 1 October 2026, and the IRS lists Robinhood Securities as the brokerage provider and initial trustee [4][5]. On 19 October 2026, Elon Musk posted that next year he will give one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America, though he gave no details on how or when [6][7]. I mention these not as endorsements or financial advice, but as signs that people are thinking hard about how to give the next generation a head start. North 37 wants to do that in the currency we know best: skill, knowledge and a license earned honestly.

Transportation is going to change

Transportation will evolve within our children’s lifetimes, and I believe it will connect with the space community. Many of us already get our internet at sea from satellites in low Earth orbit. The skills of a mariner, situational awareness, discipline on watch, care with dangerous cargo, and calm in an emergency, are the same skills the space community needs. I want North 37 graduates ready for whatever kind of vessel comes next.

What North 37 means to me

When I was a kid I heard about Prince Henry the Navigator and Portugal, about Sagres and Lisbon, where so many voyages of discovery began. I found Portugal on a globe and followed the latitude line west across the Atlantic. My finger nearly hit Cape Henry, at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

The numbers hold up. Sagres sits at about 37.0 degrees north, Lisbon at about 38.7 degrees north, and Cape Henry at about 36.9 degrees north [8][9]. So Cape Henry lies very near the parallel of Sagres, a little south of Lisbon. A Henry sits at each end of that line between the Old World and the New. That is North 37.

Two more symbols keep me going. The first is Socrates, who taught that the unexamined life is not worth living, and who taught by asking questions. The second is “we see,” Seeing together is what a good bridge team does. It is what a good school does.

Who is aboard

I am the founding member and president of North 37 Academy in Lexington, Virginia. I am open to adding faculty, mariners and educators who want to teach what they know, and my AI team is helping me find solutions as we go. I write here for myself and North 37.

What I am asking of you

I am asking for two things. First, your feedback. Tell me what you wish you had been taught, what you think we are getting wrong, and what an aboard-the-vessel education should look like in your department. Second, I am asking you to become a founding member, and to help write the first chapter of this school’s history.

So I will end the way Socrates would, with a question: when the next generation of seafarers looks back, what do you want them to say we built for them?

Fair winds,

Wayne
Founding Member and President, North 37 Academy , Lexington, Virginia

Sources

[1] International Maritime Organization, “International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), 1978, as amended.” https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/HumanElement/Pages/STCW-Conv-LINK.aspx

[2] Bartholomew, M. (2002). “James Lind’s Treatise of the Scurvy (1753).” Postgraduate Medical Journal, 78(925), 695-696. doi:10.1136/pmj.78.925.695

[3] Baron, J. H. (2009). “Sailors’ scurvy before and after James Lind: a reassessment.” Nutrition Reviews, 67(6), 315-332. doi:10.1111/j.1753-4887.2009.00205.x

[4] U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Announces the Completion of Automatic Enrollment Today for Trump Accounts,” press release sb0642, 1 Oct 2026. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0642

[5] Internal Revenue Service, “Trump Accounts: Frequently asked questions” (Q10, financial agent and brokerage provider). https://www.irs.gov/faqs/trump-accounts-frequently-asked-questions

[6] Zahn, M. “Elon Musk vows to give a share of SpaceX stock to every US child.” ABC News, 19 Oct 2026. https://abcnews.com/Business/elon-musk-vows-give-share-spacex-stock-us/story?id=137374928

[7] Chapman, M. “Musk pledges to give a share of his SpaceX company to every kid in America.” Associated Press, Oct 2026. https://apnews.com/article/musk-spacex-anthropic-donation-ai-b3312da37a0e340be275295073055e00

[8] U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), “Cape Henry,” Virginia (approx. 36.93 N, 76.01 W). https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names

[9] U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, GEOnet Names Server, entries for Lisboa (approx. 38.72 N) and Sagres (approx. 37.01 N), Portugal. https://geonames.nga.mil/