With all the emails coming from Clipper with recommended dates for all the training I thought it a good idea to keep the training programme as close together as possible. A case of the ‘use it or loose it’ mentality that if I didn’t get the practice in I could forget my new found skills by the time of the next training installment. So looking at dates and diary it became possible to get a weeks training per month through April to July.
Sunday April 19th came along quickly. Left home excited and apprehensive! I knew I was out of my depth with a complete lack of knowledge. But I was looking forward to it and didn’t really know what to expect.
Got to the car park at 17.30, plenty of time for the 18.00 deadline. With a bag full of new kit and a sleeping bag I walked down to the marina onto the pontoon and towards one of the three yachts that were doing part A. 20 minutes to go and the last one to arrive! We must all have been keen to get there!
Twelve strangers as it turned out, as our skipper and first mate hadn’t met until this weekend either.
We got striaght into it. Well, the skipper was making a cup of tea, so a good start!
A lovely evening so we were sat at the cockpit and had an ‘around the table’ introduction by us all. As to be expected we were all a packet of Berty Bassetts – all sorts! With probably about a 30 year age difference between us and sailing skills at various levels.
Skipper Adam and first mate Dirk started with various ‘lectures’ that evening and we had our first on board meal prepared by a couple of mother watch volunteers for this evening as the proper watches were not due to start until tomorrow.
Then of course we had to finish off with a beer at the local. The other two training crews were there and the rivalry started!
Serica is 60′ long with 15 bunks on board and was one of the original boats that have been around the world 4 times on earlier Clipper races. That works out at about 150,000 miles under her keel just on those 4 races! Or about 70,000 miles short of getting to the moon.
There are 12 of us on board which makes things a little cosy on our sailing week so it must have been interesting to say the least when racing through the Oceans.
Not a great nights sleep even with a comfy bunk and an early start. A beautiful sunny day. Couldn’t be better.
Up on deck and looking at 11 winches and a load of rope! What the hell do they all do!!!
All the sails come out onto the pontoon, all the bilge boards get lifted and a general look about at the build of the boat. Couple of lectures on how to rig up the boat, lunch and then out onto the Solent and do some sailing! Adam and Dirk keep it simple but it still confused me! What’s a halyard? What’s a sheet? It’s all well and good reading it in the Clipper Training Manual but this is now for real. Which one does what? Then MAN OVER BOARD!!! An exercise we were to do many times through the week.
Back to Gosport and put the boat to bed – that is a lot of housework. Put the ropes away, and tidy the cockpit, flake the sails and put them away below deck, flake the mainsail and put the cover on.
More lectures in the evening and knots again and again and again. Bowline, Admiralty stopper, clove hitch and round turn with two half hitches. Practice, practice and practice again.
Another early start for Tuesday and we had a visitor with us today. Adam has applied to be a skipper for the race and he was to be assessed today. More exercises and some new ones too. Tacking, gybing, change the yankee. MOB! Drop the yankee and staysail, de-power the main, do the recovery, power the main, raise the staysail and yankee. Tack, gybe and so it goes on. And if we were lucky mother would make a cup of tea!
Wednesday was more of the same. Early rise, chat over yesterday and what we were going to do today. Out onto the Solent and head west. This time we did reefing exercises. Put one in, take one out. Put two in, take one out. Take one out, put three in. Tacking, gybing, reefing, changing the yankee, MOB …….. it is all starting to make a little sense.
Anchored in Studland Bay for the night so we had to have an anchor watch. I had been mother today with Richard and our watch was to be 4.00 to 6.00. Nice!
4.00 and fog bound. No bearings could be taken. Check this, check that read our manual with a cup of tea. Do the checks every 30 minutes and before we knew it was time to wake the next watch. Not so bad.
Cold and damp morning and the fog was stuck. Stayed at anchor and did some reefing exercises, some spinnaker pole exercises and lastly the dinghy exercise to paddle round the yacht. Two men in a boat comes to mind! Oh yes, with wet feet. It had a leak!
The fog did get burnt off so we sailed around a bit and ended up in Yarmouth for the night. Put the boat to bed in record time as Adam had booked a table in a very good fish restaurant. A beer was definitely calling tonight! And very good it was too!
Friday saw another early start. And we had spectators as we had moored by the IOW ferry terminal. We must have looked like we knew what we were doing as somewhere someone has some photos of us doing our stuff. I have to say the boat does look good when its ready to go.
Adam and Dirk decided it was either going to be over to Cherbourg or round the IOW. And they were putting on some serious kit. ‘Prepare to get wet today’ was all they told us. Looking like it’s going to get to a Force 6 as well. Lively!
We went way out to the west. Must be Cherbourg. Then turn the boat round and it was to be round the IOW to Cowes. Three of our ten were down with sea sickness and one or two didn’t feel too good but to sail the boat with a crew of 6 or 7 was just great. Both skipper and mate left us to get on with it but kept an eye on what was going on. Some good cock-ups on this trip! But that’s the way to learn. (I) Won’t be making the same mistake twice!
What a great days sailing. Some got a bit wet and we were all tired when we got to Cowes. Mother did us proud and we ate once we had berthed and tidied up. Hit our bunks at 2.00. What a day!
Saturday saw us have a race with Black Adder, one of the other Clipper training yachts which had sailed up from Dartmouth the day before.
We had to sort it all out ourselves. We had a foredeck crew, a cockpit crew, a trimmer and a watch leader. The skippers had put in a few routines for us to do at a particular point in the race.
Come the end we lost. Just stupid mistakes and a lack of communication in the first half. It all got a bit stressy! Got our act together in the second half but the damage had already been done. Let that be a lesson to us all. Communicate!!
Adam finished it off with a MOB. Last one. Lunch as we made our way back to Gosport. Berthed Serica for the last time then the housework started. Deep clean and pack the sails and make the boat tidy for the next crew.
We had paperwork (a test or you could even call it an exam) to do as well to be finished for Sunday. Then the one on one assessment with Adam. I went in with a degree of apprehension as I had been so out of my depth to start off with. But Adam knew that and come the end it was all very good.
All three crews had a table booked at the Jolly Rodger. Nice meal, nice surrounding and nice company. I don’t know why but we were definately the loudest table there. We seemed to be having more banter than the others but that was how the whole week had been.
Adam and Dirk have a great sense of humour and we all got on so well. Dirk has done Part A’s with other skippers but he told us that Adam had worked us far harder than the other skippers and we had covered more material as well.
Sunday came with breakfast in the coffee shop. Very nice too. Back to the boat to finish off stuff and pack.
Hard to believe that only a week earlier we had been 12 strangers and now we were a crew. (Dirk said we were a great crew! [Wonder if he says that to all of them?] No, he meant it!). A crew that had sailed around the IOW in a force 6.
Just as a ‘by the way’ as we were having a bit of fun going round the IoW I said to Dirk that this was another ‘nice day in the office’ and his reply was ‘the worst day at sea is still better than the best day in the office!’. With my limited but groing experience I tend to agree!
My first entry in my new RYA log book: 238 miles. Force 6.
A great week. Thanks guys and girls!
Standing back row, from the left: Dirk (1st mate), David, myself, John, Noreen, Clarissa, Graham.
Front row from the left: Amedeo, Michelle, Adam (skipper), Niall and Richard.
P.S. Adam kept on about getting ‘boat fit’.
I drove home the 100 miles on Sunday afternoon and had to have a stop and a little shut eye. I went straight to the White Horse and after acouple of beers and a catch up with Glen went to bed waking on Monday feeling physically trashed. Monday didn’t really exist! I wouldn’t have believed that going up and down stairs could be such hard work!
It took juat a few days to get over this and I did end up with muscles that I hadn’t seen for a few years! And I had lost 5 lbs – in a week!!