THE SPINNAKER

By Johnny Appleton

This year, the Cohasset Swim Team made a significant change: it merged with Hingham High School to form a co-op. This caused both the coaching staff and roster size to double, featuring co-head coaches and co-captains from each town. This also led to a major shift in the team’s schedule: instead of practicing three days a week for an hour in Scituate, the team would practice five days a week for an hour and a half in Weymouth.

The team has also been competing against Hingham’s Patriot League opponents rather than Cohasset’s former South Shore League opponents. This year the team will compete in Division 1 in the MIAA championship. So far, the season has been very successful with swimmers from both teams qualifying for the Sectional and State championships in the postseason.

By Maddie Campbell

What is your full name?

Nikki Dunigan

How long have you been coaching basketball for?

I started coaching when I was in college in the early 2000's. I was the assistant varsity coach at my high school's rival.

Where have you coached basketball before?

Before coaching at Cohasset, I coached at NDA for three years.

I have also coached AAU for Breakout since 2019 and Norwell town basketball.

Have you played basketball before?

Yes, I started playing in third grade. In high school, my AAU team won the NJ State Championship and I was a guard on three state championship teams at the Peddie School in NJ.

After high school, I played club basketball in college.

What other sports have you played?

Soccer, softball, tennis and golf

Why do you coach basketball?

After I stopped playing competitive sports, I was able to reflect on my experiences and realized just how influential a coach could be - both positively and negatively. I had one high school coach who focused more on breaking players down than building them up, and that experience stayed with me. I knew that if I ever had the opportunity to coach, I would strive to do the opposite - to help players grow their self-confidence and resilience in a supportive, positive environment. If I can make a meaningful difference for even one player, whether by encouraging them or helping them build confidence over the course of a season, that makes coaching incredibly rewarding for me.

Where did you go to school?

Princeton University

Do you have any kids and do they play sports?

I have three girls - Molly (16), Finley (14) and Riley (12). Molly plays tennis and basketball, Finley is a soccer goalie and also plays basketball, lacrosse and golf, and Riley runs cross country and plays basketball and lacrosse.

By Mac Reardon

Before heading out for winter break, the Accelerated Physics class had two special guests demonstrate how to change a flat tire and jumpstart a car. Officer Taylor arranged for his friend Brady at Express Towing (the company Cohasset PD calls when they need assistance with a car) to provide a hands-on lesson in the back circle. Students took turns doing the different steps to changing a flat tire with the tools they found in a car trunk. When they finally finished it took much longer than the professionals, who did it with their special equipment, but students learned how to do it themselves in case they ever had to.

Afterwards, senior Jacob Sasso was put inside the trunk of the car but made it out because every car has a hidden trunk release button, as students learned. Also hidden in the trunk are usually the spare tire and jack which not every student knew the location of in their own cars. Cars equipped with jumper cables can jump start a dead battery, and students learned the correct order the connections should be made. When reflecting on the experience, senior Ian Kondrat said, “Learning this, now I feel safer on the roads.” Overall, it was a crucial lesson for the students because as Ian continued, “We are all drivers and it could all happen to any of us at some point.”

By Keira Lynch

The Cohasset Middle High School theater group is now in the midst of preparing for its yearly musical, Freaky Friday. The show is set to open on Friday, March 6th, and perform twice more on Saturday the 7th. Freaky Friday is a funny and exciting story that follows a teenage girl Ellie Blake and her mother Katherine Blake, who magically switch bodies for a day. The musical depicts each character's struggle to live as the other in a comedic and genuine way, and shows them slowly begin to understand each other by living a day in the other's shoes. Through this magical scenario, the musical celebrates individuality, empathy, and the importance of family. This year, the cast is made up of students from both the middle and high school, bringing together a great group of talent. Running the production is Mrs. Moriarty, Ms. McCormick, Mrs. Arenstam, and Ms. Collins.

However, getting to the rehearsal stage of the production has been a long process with quite a few challenges along the way. Initially, the show was set to be Newsies, a popular musical about a news strike in New York City in the late 1890s. Students auditioned for Newsies in early November and began working a few weeks after. Unfortunately, a few weeks into rehearsals, the show had to be changed due to the size of the cast. Freaky Friday was presented as an option more suited to the group size, and the show was quickly recast. The change occurred right before winter break, and rehearsals were restarted when school came back in session. The abrupt switch took some time for the cast to get used to, but eventually things got back into routine and the production is now multiple weeks underway. With the time until the performances significantly shortened, the entire group has picked up the pace of work and is quickly moving through scenes, songs, and choreography.

Overall, Freaky Friday is sure to be a lively and entertaining show that CHS students, faculty, and parents alike will all be able to connect to. The cast, crew, and management are all excited to perform in March, and hope to see many Cohasset community members out in the audience.

By Luke Hurley

At Cohasset High School one will see a variety of drinks in the morning - from Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Marylou’s, or just something brought from home. People with Starbucks mostly drink Strawberry Açai Refreshers at $4.95 for a tall. Dunkin is popular for refreshers too, like the Pineapple mango, which is a little less expensive at $4.69. From Marylou’s many people like the Raspberry Redbull, Blue Raspberry Redbull, or a Minty-Lou. The cheapest option is to bring a drink form home - many people bring water, an energy drink of some kind, or something like an Arnold Palmer. Though there is a variety of drinks in the morning, the most popular drink, according to a survey conducted at CHS, is a pink drink (Strawberry Açai Refresher) from Starbucks.

By Sophia DeSalvo

Staying active during winter can be very difficult, especially if your sports season has ended. You may realize you want to get a little bit of movement in during these colder months, but find yourself caught up with the rush of school. One way you can keep your body active is to workout at the gym. There are many local gyms nearby, such as the South Shore Athletic Club and Baystate Fitness. Even if you don't have a lot of time on your hands, you can always run into the gym and do a short treadmill walk or use the cycling bike for some effective exercise. Another option is to workout in CHS's own weight room. Through a generous PSO grant, the room is staffed twice a week for an hour by a faculty member. Take advantage of a great free resource!

By Sophia Tam

The Housemaid, featuring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney, is a psychological thriller based on the book written by Freida Mcfadden. The movie follows a maid employed by the Winchesters in a large estate in New Jersey. In the beginning everything seems perfect, comfortable, quiet but tense. As the tension in the movie progresses, secrets unravel and the truth behind the Winchesters is revealed. The maid’s position makes her vulnerable and used against her to keep her quiet. Overall, The Housemaid is a slow unsettling thriller and shows the hidden tension inside a seemingly perfect home.

By Maryn Beggan

Route 3A Pizza and Grill - 3A is a solid and classic pick! The crust is always good and the family size square pizza is the favorite of many CHS students. The staff at 3A is always welcoming and friendly and they have so many other offerings to choose from other than their delicious pizza!

Stoked Pizza - Their wood fired pizza crust is a must try! Takeout or sit down, the food at Stoked is great! The pizza offered consists of a variety of toppings to add like honey, bacon, and ricotta. Also another CHS student and staff favorite!

Cohasset House of Pizza - Classic! Traditional pizza yet still always delicious! The staff is welcoming and super nice. The pizza is always good and the crust even stays soft until the next day. Definitely a must try!

My introduction into car ownership and maintenance was my freshman year in college, when I finally actually needed transportation. Prior to this, I walked everywhere. Sticking with family tradition, my ride would be a hand-me-down. It was in tough shape 3 or 4 years earlier when my brother got this car for well under $1000. It was 1985, and this 1975 Datsun B210 had seen its best years long ago. It had a manual transmission (Stick Shift). There was about 10 degrees of play in the steering wheel so as you drove a straight road, you had to constantly rotate the steering wheel back and forth from 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock to stay on the road. My parents bought it knowing it needed a valve job, but my father was up the task. The valve job breathed new life into the engine, which ran perfectly. The body was a different story; it was well along its way in corroding away.

By the time I got possession of the car from my brother, it would not pass inspection due to the rust holes through the body. There were rust holes through the fenders, wheel wells, and the bottom of the doors but none in the floor. It was now my turn to do some work to keep this car on the road legally. I was only 18, and the little I knew about body work on cars came from TV. I knew I would need a bunch of tools, some Bondo, sheet metal, and a method for painting a car.

I gathered the tools, metal, and Bondo to patch things up. I would figure out the painting later. I went on the hunt for sheet metal thick enough to be worthy of being a car part and thin enough that I could cut it. I passed the local school and saw that they were throwing away some old lockers. That was perfect metal for this project. Acquiring Bondo was easy, because I picked it up at KMart for under $10.

I pulled the car into the garage, and my career in auto work had begun. I sketched out what I thought would be good shapes to cover the holes along the bottom of the door onto the locker metal. I had to muster all the force my hand could produce to cut the pieces of old lockers with sheet metal scissors. It was hard work. To attach the metal cut-outs to the car, I used rivets. Rivets look like small metal mushrooms. A hole must be drilled in the two pieces to be connected. The rivet is placed in the hole till the stem of the mushroom goes through both pieces. Then, you use a rivet tool to mushroom the other end, pulling the two pieces together. Each metal attachment required about 20 and each took a few minutes, so it was a slow process.

To smooth out the transitions between the metal parts, Bondo acts like plaster but hardens like metal. It's a two-part epoxy, so you mix two liquids together and then have about 5 minutes to work it into place and shape it as best you can. If you're good at it, there is not much sanding to smooth things. I was not good at it, so I was creating more work every time I used the Bondo. I made a reasonable effort, but it surely would not get me a job in an auto body shop. Working with Bondo is a real art I wasn’t truly invested in.

The final step was painting, and I was looking forward to this because it really completes the job. Advice came from many neighbors from simple methods to the most complex. The simple ideas offered by our neighbors came from their own experience painting their family station wagon with a brush. The work van was painted with a roller. I wanted to do a better job than brush or roller, so I asked my father if he knew of anyone that had auto painting equipment. One great thing about living between a farm and a paper mill is that there are people all around with all sorts of tools that are easy to borrow. Our neighbor, the dairy farmer, had tractors for hauling and lifting, a wood splitter, welders, and cutting torches. Some of the mill workers, especially the millwrights (a term for a highly skilled mechanic for large machinery) had all sorts of tools you could not even identify.

It didn't take long to find an air compressor and painting spray tools. A guy retired from the mill had one for painting the airplane he built in his back yard. He was known for flying it over town, but I had never met him. His name was Paul, and he was missing a hand or arm. I don't recall which. It didn’t seem to be an issue to him, and he seemed to be able to do anything as anyone else. My father explained that it used to be common in paper mills for workers to lose fingers or arms in the machinery. I remember him saying, “You can always tell when you're in a town with a paper mill because there will be people missing limbs.” He also gave me the advice, “If you ever end up working in the paper mill, never wear a tie or jewelry, at least if you want to keep your limbs.” Paul gave me a quick lesson on how to connect the hoses between the air compressor and the spray nozzle. Then, he powered up the compressor and filled the small spray tank with some water and sprayed the flowers to show how it worked. That was my 10 minutes of training.

With all the painting tools set, it was time to purchase some paint at the auto body shop. This was an eye-opening experience. I had no idea there were so many varieties and colors of paint and other chemicals to go along with it. Also, I seemed to be in a parallel world I had no idea existed. These gruff guys covered in tattoos and unknown accessories were speaking English, but it was all sorts of auto body jargon and slang. They were talking about resins, polyurethane epoxies, toluene, xylene, MEK (methyl ethyl ketone), isocyanates, viscosity, stabilizers, and all sorts of what seemed like mean and nasty stuff. I could only identify a few words here and there. It was daunting but I pressed on in trying to figure out what paint I needed and how much. Though a bit intimidating in appearance, these guys were kind to me and got right to the point. They asked all the right questions and got me on my way with what I needed in short order. They also offered some ideas on how to keep the paint to the right mix with the solvents, keep the nozzle from freezing up, and how to create a good paint cover without drooping paint. I didn’t expect a chemistry lesson from these guys but there it was, and I wasn’t 100% sure I understood. Oh well, how bad of a paint job could I end up with?

I returned to the garage with bags of various cans of chemicals and got right to work. Breathing masks were not something people thought much about back then, so I tied an old t-shirt around my face. A pair of mill issue safety glasses were my other personal protection. I was now ready to paint the car but wanted one practice swipe on something. I took a short pass over the inside wall of the garage about a foot square. That test swath is still present in the garage today. I wanted something more similar to painting a car so I took the hood off of my father’s Jeep used mostly as a tractor. I propped it up on the side of the garage and painted about half that. It came out reasonably well and I felt I now had enough experience to paint an entire car. I went around the car with the spray nozzle up and down, back and forth. The reservoir had to be recharged occasionally with paint stock and solvents for the right viscosity. I went around the car twice and this took about 2 hours. I had done a good job at masking the windows and mirrors but never thought about the floor of the garage. When I pulled the car out of the garage there was a foot print of the car that looked like when police chalk out a body for a crime scene.

The car was now ready for inspection, which it passed. Of course, I took the car to a hill-town garage where we always felt they were more lenient to those with aging cars and poor funding. It passed. I had transportation to and from school and my job on the farm. The car served me for two full years of college. At that time, I had saved up about $1400 to buy my next car. This was well over twice what we sold the present car for, so I figured I was about to step up in the world of cars. Another young college student lacking funds for a better car used our old Datsun for a little over a year. One morning, he went to start the car to go to school. He turned the key and there was a great thud. The motor mounts had rusted completely through, and the motor dropped to the ground from the vibration of the starter, but it was still running perfectly. My father’s valve job on the car gave that engine life beyond the car.

My expectations of my next car were a bit higher, but I was about to learn even more about car reliability and mystery problems...

Editors: Amanda Fox and Lennox Wrixon

Website: cohassetk12.org
Location: 143 Pond Street, Cohasset, MA, USA
Phone: 781 383-6100

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