Saturday 19 March 2011

Gold D of E training

Friday (18/03/11):

We departed straight after school, after much faffing and rearranging of luggage (mainly food), in the cars of two of the parents of the expeditionees. It was only a 50 minute journey to our destination, Glasson Dock near Lancaster(ish).

After arrival we boarded the boat, a first for all of us - bar Connor; who actually helped to construct the vessel (so we had someone to blame if anything broke!). Our first impression - from the outside was, unanimously, that the boat would be painfully small. We were wondering how on earth 8 of us and 3 crew would all stay inside for the next 2 days. We were, however, shocked to find that opposed to living in a lunchbox like we had presumed the boat was actually fairly spacious inside (apart from the girls room which we all agreed was like 4 conjoined coffins. After arguing about sleeping arrangements we began to prepare a small fraction the veritable mountain of food we had brought. Dinner was pizza and garlic bread, awesome but burnt (we blame Connor), and played card games until lights out so we could sleep, ready for a full day of sailing.

Saturday (19/03/11):

The boys were sleeping in the kitchen so the girls who had woken from the coffin room had to wait for them to wake up and prepare breakfast. The girls entered to a pyramid of cereal boxes and a table which was perfectly set, they were slightly taken aback. Expectations were for a blazing oven, burnt toast and a flooded kitchen.

After breakfast we got kitted up to go sailing and learnt first how to operate and ensure the condition of the life jackets. This started with a crash course in tying knots. We learnt how, with varying degrees of success, to tie Bowline and a round turn and two half hitches to secure the boat to the jetty and to attach fenders to the sides of the boat.

Finally after lunch it was time for our first trip. We simply went a mere 100m to get fuel but even that involved a lot of work as we had to untie the boat form the jetty, prepare the ropes to attach to the next jetty and then after we arrived, get people to jump onto the new jetty and attach the ropes to re-secure the boat. Our first attempt was, against all odds, actually passable under the eyes of the skippers. We then did this manoeuvre 3 more times, getting better each time and some of us even got to steer!

That was it for day 2 and right now we are midway through preparing dinner of pasta & sauce, here’s hoping the final day goes as well as today :)

Read more about Sail Training on board Tenacity of Bolton at http://www.bsspatterdalehall.com/

No comments:

Post a Comment