Level 2 Clipper Training
Level 2
Day 1: Abandonment
After a week spent learning how to rescue a man over board, we started this week with a day long exercise in figuring how to stuff the panic and get onto a life raft in case our boat has an accident. You know, if there's a fire, we crash into an ice berg or another boat, or the mast decides to part ways with us and we have to abandon the boat. A very sunny and happy day indeed.
A morning classroom session was followed up by two hours in the local school swimming pool, learning how to step off the boat into the water, with our life jackets on, swim using just our arms, rescue an injured mate, inflate a life raft, and get into it from off a boat or after jumping into the water, alone and with all the crew. That was rounded off with an introduction to the new skipper and first mate. This time we have Andy for Skipper and Carl as First Mate. Carl’s grandfather worked with the Indian railways in Calcutta!
Quite a waste of a beautiful summer day that could have been spent sailing and which followed a lovely, warm yesterday. I had the day off and after a long, lazy morning in bed, and breakfast at 11, I roused myself out of the warm, cozy attic room I had rented.
The neighbourhood was hosting a feast of absolutely fantastic flowers bursting out of every space they could find. Fish and chips watching the gulls over Gosport and then a walk around the harbour made for a perfect British day.
It was great to come back to the boat though. Felt like coming home especially as a lot of my newly acquired friends are also on the same Level, in the same boat. Got myself a lower bunk this time so I don't have to hoist myself into bed like in Level 1. Though the storage space is limited as the boat is narrower at that level. Safety checks on board and below deck helped for a quick review of Level 1 learning.
Once again we have been paired off to cook each meal and divided into groups for all other tasks. The new things this time will be sailing out to sea for 2-3 days at a stretch (have to remind the skipper to get wet wipes - they're a great alternative to bum showers for one) and rotating four hour watches.
Ended the day with a toasty sunset and off to an early night as we plan to sail out for the rest of this training session.
Day 2: Be careful what you wish for!
The morning was spent reviewing Level 1 learnings as we waited for the level 4 boats to come back so we could get hold of some foulies – the wet weather gear we wear over everything. Did a MOB while we waited. Poor Bob must feel the strain.
At 0400 we had reviewed everything, put up the sails and were ready. Motored out and we're immediately into 20 knots of wind and a rocky ride. We were on our way to France. Within the next couple of hours most of us were going green. Serious sea sickness on the boat knocked out half the crew and all the Chinese.
But we were all on watches now so the Port and Starboard teams took turns to do 3 hour watches starting 8pm.
The SS effect meant half our team was on deck for presence only. That left K, a German crew mate and me to manage the deck and keep each other awake. I've never counted the hours like I did on these watches. Especially the 2am watch when we had to tack the Stay sail and the Yankee between the three of us, including Carl our first mate. With the boat at 9 knots and the wind at 20, we dropped the Stay sail and tacked the Main and the Yankee. I was frozen, worried about falling over board and queasy after watching my mates retching over the side. And my alter ego saying, haha you asked for it. Anyways, job done the watch was over and I was ready to drop.
Day 3: Short & sweet
Today really started for me at 1600, when I was woken up from my last watch to help drop the anchor for the night. We had done several watches, I lost track of time and 24 hours later we were anchored off Alderney in the Channel Islands.
Waiting for dinner as I write. None of us have eaten since last night.
Day 4: Mother watch
We had a rolling anchor watch with everyone of us on watch for an hour but overlapping the previous person’s watch by half an hour. And when each of us came on deck, we had to manually check 5 points on shore to confirm we were still in the same place and not drifting onto the rocks that the tide was so determined to introduce us to. My watch? 0100 to 0200.
Woke up at 0630 for breakfast. Everyone had a good appetite now as we had slept well, considering the relatively decent sleep we had managed. No showers though, so a quick brush and a few wet wipes later, we were ready to leave.
Kitchen, or galley as it's called on a boat, duties - the Mother watch, still got people feeling nauseous though, so I landed up making both lunch and dinner. Cooking while sailing is a delicate balancing act. The boat is never flat on the surface so everything, including the stove is at an angle, varying from 10 to 30 degrees. Perhaps more when racing. You land up using your arms to chop, stir and hold the vessel and almost every other part of your body to balance yourself and avoid toppling over. Believe me, I have bruises all over as proof, besides burns from lurching on the oven edges of an ecstatic boat.
It was also my turn to learn to navigate and maintain the boat’s log book. It's an hourly record of the boat’s speed, location and status, recording details like weather changes and crew information. Also figuring all the gizmos at the Nav Desk and using the navigation charts to plot our location.
The weather was totally awesome and the sea quite tame and friendly. So..we got the Spinnaker out. It also called a kite. The mother of all sails, it lends speed to the boat and how! We gybed and tacked and made our merry way back to England.
And stopped just short of it off the Isle of Wight. Night watches were spent tacking off the coast of the Isle under a gorgeous, star lit sky. I learnt to helm using the moon for a a guide, steering the boat across the moonlit waters and blessing my stars for an amazing life!
Day 6: Rescuing Bob
The one eyed person is king in the land of the blind – as was I on a boat with poor or reluctant cooks. The crew enjoyed my cooking enough to wait for me to wake up at 0800 to requests for pancakes. Thanks to Alok’s taste for pancakes, I can make quite decent ones, and the crew seemed to agree. Quite flattering I must say.
As usual, crew briefing after breakfast and we were all sprawled on the deck, relishing the glorious sunshine, when a mate screamed man over board. I was terror struck, literally. Frozen with worry, I took several long seconds to drag myself to the saloon in the boat to get into the wet suit. In slow motion, I watched as my mates put me into a wet suit, hooked me securely onto a halyard and lowered me into the water. It was my job today to ‘wear the pants’ and be ready to deal with an MOB situation. Bob had decided to take a swim but we managed to convince him otherwise and got him safely back on board. In the sheer relief of having completed the exercise safely, my mates forgot all about me, so I stumbled my way back to get out of the wet suit.
Some more sailing later, we gave up and started motoring as the winds died down, and got back in to Gosport in time for dinner. Our Chinese mates took us out for the yummiest meal to a incongruously named Chinese restaurant in Portsmouth, TinTin.
Day 6: What, we're done!?
An early breakfast and then the usual boat deep clean. Seasoned after Level 1, we finished in a record 4 hours and disbanded around noon.
That allowed for a long, leisurely lunch. Kay, my German crew mate was taking the evening ferry to France and I was in no hurry to leave the marina. So we enjoyed beer and scampi over conversation that ranged from Brexit, Trump, demonetisation to travels in Tibet, Spain and Nepal. Having satisfactorily dissected the world, we called it a day over a cup of coffee and headed off. Kay on his motorbike, with the intention of sailing to France and then biking across to Lisboa, Portugal for a holiday with his wife; me the ferry and a short bus ride to my BnB.
Day 1: Abandonment
After a week spent learning how to rescue a man over board, we started this week with a day long exercise in figuring how to stuff the panic and get onto a life raft in case our boat has an accident. You know, if there's a fire, we crash into an ice berg or another boat, or the mast decides to part ways with us and we have to abandon the boat. A very sunny and happy day indeed.
A morning classroom session was followed up by two hours in the local school swimming pool, learning how to step off the boat into the water, with our life jackets on, swim using just our arms, rescue an injured mate, inflate a life raft, and get into it from off a boat or after jumping into the water, alone and with all the crew. That was rounded off with an introduction to the new skipper and first mate. This time we have Andy for Skipper and Carl as First Mate. Carl’s grandfather worked with the Indian railways in Calcutta!
Quite a waste of a beautiful summer day that could have been spent sailing and which followed a lovely, warm yesterday. I had the day off and after a long, lazy morning in bed, and breakfast at 11, I roused myself out of the warm, cozy attic room I had rented.
The neighbourhood was hosting a feast of absolutely fantastic flowers bursting out of every space they could find. Fish and chips watching the gulls over Gosport and then a walk around the harbour made for a perfect British day.
It was great to come back to the boat though. Felt like coming home especially as a lot of my newly acquired friends are also on the same Level, in the same boat. Got myself a lower bunk this time so I don't have to hoist myself into bed like in Level 1. Though the storage space is limited as the boat is narrower at that level. Safety checks on board and below deck helped for a quick review of Level 1 learning.
Once again we have been paired off to cook each meal and divided into groups for all other tasks. The new things this time will be sailing out to sea for 2-3 days at a stretch (have to remind the skipper to get wet wipes - they're a great alternative to bum showers for one) and rotating four hour watches.
Ended the day with a toasty sunset and off to an early night as we plan to sail out for the rest of this training session.
Day 2: Be careful what you wish for!
The morning was spent reviewing Level 1 learnings as we waited for the level 4 boats to come back so we could get hold of some foulies – the wet weather gear we wear over everything. Did a MOB while we waited. Poor Bob must feel the strain.
At 0400 we had reviewed everything, put up the sails and were ready. Motored out and we're immediately into 20 knots of wind and a rocky ride. We were on our way to France. Within the next couple of hours most of us were going green. Serious sea sickness on the boat knocked out half the crew and all the Chinese.
But we were all on watches now so the Port and Starboard teams took turns to do 3 hour watches starting 8pm.
Day 3: Short & sweet
Waiting for dinner as I write. None of us have eaten since last night.
Day 4: Mother watch
We had a rolling anchor watch with everyone of us on watch for an hour but overlapping the previous person’s watch by half an hour. And when each of us came on deck, we had to manually check 5 points on shore to confirm we were still in the same place and not drifting onto the rocks that the tide was so determined to introduce us to. My watch? 0100 to 0200.
Woke up at 0630 for breakfast. Everyone had a good appetite now as we had slept well, considering the relatively decent sleep we had managed. No showers though, so a quick brush and a few wet wipes later, we were ready to leave.
Kitchen, or galley as it's called on a boat, duties - the Mother watch, still got people feeling nauseous though, so I landed up making both lunch and dinner. Cooking while sailing is a delicate balancing act. The boat is never flat on the surface so everything, including the stove is at an angle, varying from 10 to 30 degrees. Perhaps more when racing. You land up using your arms to chop, stir and hold the vessel and almost every other part of your body to balance yourself and avoid toppling over. Believe me, I have bruises all over as proof, besides burns from lurching on the oven edges of an ecstatic boat.
It was also my turn to learn to navigate and maintain the boat’s log book. It's an hourly record of the boat’s speed, location and status, recording details like weather changes and crew information. Also figuring all the gizmos at the Nav Desk and using the navigation charts to plot our location.
The weather was totally awesome and the sea quite tame and friendly. So..we got the Spinnaker out. It also called a kite. The mother of all sails, it lends speed to the boat and how! We gybed and tacked and made our merry way back to England.
And stopped just short of it off the Isle of Wight. Night watches were spent tacking off the coast of the Isle under a gorgeous, star lit sky. I learnt to helm using the moon for a a guide, steering the boat across the moonlit waters and blessing my stars for an amazing life!
Day 6: Rescuing Bob
The one eyed person is king in the land of the blind – as was I on a boat with poor or reluctant cooks. The crew enjoyed my cooking enough to wait for me to wake up at 0800 to requests for pancakes. Thanks to Alok’s taste for pancakes, I can make quite decent ones, and the crew seemed to agree. Quite flattering I must say.
As usual, crew briefing after breakfast and we were all sprawled on the deck, relishing the glorious sunshine, when a mate screamed man over board. I was terror struck, literally. Frozen with worry, I took several long seconds to drag myself to the saloon in the boat to get into the wet suit. In slow motion, I watched as my mates put me into a wet suit, hooked me securely onto a halyard and lowered me into the water. It was my job today to ‘wear the pants’ and be ready to deal with an MOB situation. Bob had decided to take a swim but we managed to convince him otherwise and got him safely back on board. In the sheer relief of having completed the exercise safely, my mates forgot all about me, so I stumbled my way back to get out of the wet suit.
Some more sailing later, we gave up and started motoring as the winds died down, and got back in to Gosport in time for dinner. Our Chinese mates took us out for the yummiest meal to a incongruously named Chinese restaurant in Portsmouth, TinTin.
Day 6: What, we're done!?
An early breakfast and then the usual boat deep clean. Seasoned after Level 1, we finished in a record 4 hours and disbanded around noon.
That allowed for a long, leisurely lunch. Kay, my German crew mate was taking the evening ferry to France and I was in no hurry to leave the marina. So we enjoyed beer and scampi over conversation that ranged from Brexit, Trump, demonetisation to travels in Tibet, Spain and Nepal. Having satisfactorily dissected the world, we called it a day over a cup of coffee and headed off. Kay on his motorbike, with the intention of sailing to France and then biking across to Lisboa, Portugal for a holiday with his wife; me the ferry and a short bus ride to my BnB.
Wow, you make it sound so easy. Bloody crazy sister.....love you.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy and super fun too!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have discovered your sea-legs nicely. The fun starts now!
ReplyDeleteCheers!
DeleteFull speed astern!
ReplyDeleteHow do you manage to write so much while cooking, cleaning, and doing everything else, including dissecting the world and struggling to get out of your swimsuit? What an experience...
ReplyDelete