Level 2

Day 1

The first day of my level 2 training has been one like no other, it is crew allocation day! This took place at the guildhall in Portsmouth, quite a spectacular building. Today we found out some key points for the race that you may have already read on my earlier blog post. The start and end of the race will be taking place at St Katharines Dock in London and the start date of the race will be the 1st of September which is a very special date for me personally. As a crew member today I was told with suspense that my skipper for the race will be Ian Wiggin which I am thrilled about. As a team we are very lucky to know which boat we will be sailing on; Team UNICEF. After lots of photos and team discussions we went to the pub for a well deserved drink with our new family. unfortunately my time in the pub was cut short as I had to be at Gossport Marina by 2130 to be ready for level 2 the next morning, what a whirlwind!

Day 2

After a short sleep on board with a snoring orchestra we had to be at Brune Park Community School for 0800 to do a Sea Survival course for the day. I had forgotten how much I hated sitting in a school class room for hours on end being killed of by power point presentations but I have now been reminded. An awful lot of information had to be taken in and I’m not sure how much stuck from the class room but the practical side was so much better. In a swimming pool we inflated a life raft and simulated what should happen if it ever got to the point of abandon ship. This course was really good fun but has made me realise I never want to get in a life raft again. Small life raft, lots of crew, on the ocean waves with no windows and minimal rations; its defiantly one way to be sea sick and create mutiny among a crew. For this reason all safety knife are to be collected and put into a bag attached to the life raft overboard. Ending on a lighter note back at the boat we met our skipper Irish Connel and Mate James who seem to be a fantastic pairing for a great week of sailing.

Day 3

After breakfast at 0700 we had a full briefing with Connel and James to refresh our memories and practice some techniques with the winches, ropes and jammers on deck before setting sail after lunch. We did a lot of tacking and gibing with full sail up today I feel as a team we were a little rusty but it was only the first sail. The Man Over Board (MOB) drill went a little wrong with the swimmer (Joanne) being lowered head first into the Solent she still managed to recover Bob successfully. This evening we anchored up for the night off the NW Isle Of Wight got the sails down and did the anchor procedure. These are racing yachts and do not have a windless button to raise or lower the anchor it is all done manually. We winched the anchor out to of the locker with a halyard (rope that pulls the sails up the rigging) and layed the chain along the deck in loops. The anchor warp line at the end of the chain was on the primary (huge winches) winches attached to the grinder stations. The anchor chain was then eased out using a sail tie (spare piece of rope) to ease the anchor and chain out in a controlled manor. Once enough chain was out the warp line was made of on a cleat and the primary winch with a few tugmans hitches (safety knot). Once the anchor had settled we had food in the sunset and went down below to have a knot tying competition for the anchor watch hour we would take turns to do throughout the night. Funnily enough I’m the fastest at tying a bowline so I got the easy hours on watch! I was on watch with Joanne, she had bruised her finger during the MOB so we found some trusty electrical tape and splinted it to her other finger (after the course we found out it was broken! so glad we taped it up).

Day 4

After anchor watch the night before there were a few weary faces at 0700 for breakfast but they all soon livened up to raise the anchor and set sail. After a fantastic sail together in the morning we were split into our watch teams ready for some around the clock sailing. The watches were called Port and Starboard (Apt) I was on the Port watch with Lorry, Tom, Dave and Josh. We were on 4hr Shifts at night and 6hr in the day and I was on galley duty for the evening meal with my galley buddy Joanne. Unfortunately Jo was badly sea sick so I was in the galley at quite an angle cooking chili on my own whilst port watch had a rest before the night sail and starboard watch were on deck. Luckily Lorry came in to lend a hand in the galley and when we had finished there wasn’t many takers to eating it. They assured me it wasn’t my cooking it was the sea sickness. Connel, James, Lorry and I and a couple of others were not affected at this point and we thought it tasted good. After cooking we were on deck for our 1st 4hr night shift and the weather was very kind. The skies were clear, the wind was no more than force 4 and the moon was out showing us the way. I was on the helm through half of the shift, you really have to use all your senses to feel the boat because you can’t see the sails or tell tales to tell you what the wind was doing. We were also night sailing with all 3 sails up and I felt we had them all under control through the tacks. After our shift our team mates Jo and Josh were still very sick so only Brian, Ina, Jayne and Carl came up for their 4hrs. Now time to try and get some sleep and be on deck in 4hrs.

Day 5 (Technically)

4hrs sleep was actually 1hr, the starboard shift headed straight into the waves and the crews bunks are all in the bow of the boat which meant every wave they hit you shot into the air in your bunk. I was in the forward most top bunk so I occasionally found the ceiling luckily you can wedge yourself by angling your bunk into the side wall stopping you from bouncing out. My body is not used to waking up at 0300 after 1hrs sleep to be working on deck for another 4hrs so it was quite a challenge. Luckily I didn’t get sea sick but Jo still wasn’t surfacing, Dave and Tom were also feeling the effects of sea sickness. We all cracked on and kept sailing doing some good tacks and watching the sunrise on deck is quite something. It came to 0700 which was our time to go back down and have a rest for 6hrs with some breakfast. Brian from the starboard watch was on breakfast duty with Tom off our watch. Brian popped his head up the companion way and said “It’s only me, the rest are down!” everyone other than Brian on the other watch were hit by sea sickness. We decided as a watch we should stay on deck until we came up with a plan. At around 0800 Skipper Connel decided to go more to inland waters where the sea state would be smoother in the hope to revive the other crew mates. By this point I was exhausted and went down for food and sleep. I slept until 1200! back on deck by 1300 I was ready to sail again. The rest of the crew had mostly got over their sea sickness too. Skipper Connel decided we would pick up a mooring buoy of the IOW Yarmouth tonight in order to have a full day of sailing tomorrow for our last day and maybe even fly the spinnaker!

Day 6

Our last day of sailing started at 0700 for breakfast and all the crew were looking well and revived for our spinnaker briefing. According to the clipper training manually we are only to start spinnaker sailing at level 3 but skipper Connel has seen we are working really well as a team and the weather is the perfect condition for a sail with the spinnaker. As we set sail I took the Bowman position (love that role) slipping the lines and looking after the foresails. Once we were under sail we hurled up the spinnaker sail in its bag and prepared to launch. attaching the tack (corner of the sail) to the bowsprit line, the head (top corner) to the halyard and the clew (last corner) to the sheets (ropes controlling the spinnaker) we were ready to hoist the sail. As the Bowman for the spinnaker launch I had to help feed the sail out of the bag manually whilst it was being hoisted. Once the sail was hoisted it looked like a link of sausages. Ever 2foot (or there about) of the sail a line of wool is tied to keep the spinnaker wrapped up when hoisting it because you really don’t want that giant to fill halfway up a mast. When you are happy and ready to fill the sail (with wind) you pull on the sheets consequently snapping the wool ties. Once the spinnaker filled Ina did a fantastic job trimming and filling it with the sheets. Dropping the spinnaker is even more interesting than launching it. You open the outhaul on the mainsail creating a gap between the foot (bottom) of the sail and the boom. You then pass the lazy spinnaker sheet through the gap and to the grinders. This creates a path for the spinnaker to be collected through the gap and then gathered in to the deck area down the companionway and below deck. Once the whole sail is below deck the wooling process can start. The head (top) of the sail goes all the way forward into the bunk area in the bow and the tack and clew (other corners) are taken to the stern either side of the boat. The Spinnaker is then gathered tightly in sections to have a strand of wool tied around it keeping the spinnaker neatly packed for it to go into its bag correctly. This is quite an epic task that needs doing every time the spinnaker is flown. As we passed the IOW Needles for the final time we had the yankee, stay sail and reef 1 in the main sail approaching on of the larger and faster clipper 70’s. We managed to pass them with a reef in, we now had a race on! We then promptly shuck the reef out giving us full sail leaving them for dust, wasn’t much of a race. After more up wind sailing we got into Gosport Marina that evening on a high after one of the best weeks training yet. Bring on level 3!