A glorious week spent doing my Day Skipper Practical with Elite Sailing who are based at Chatham Maritime Marina.
There were two of us on Spitfire, a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 35, along with Tony the instructor. Amy was doing her Coastal Skipper practical which is the next step along from Day Skipper. With only two of us to share taking turns at boat handling we had lots of time to practice. Tony was very calm and patient, even when we had an engine failure in the middle of the Medway shipping channel when there was almost no wind.
Tying up to a ship’s mooring buoy was quite an experience. We were rescued by Brian who came out from Chatham on Spirit, another training boat. We had to rig up a boat to boat tow, something that we had practiced on Clipper Level 4 training. It was very interesting to have to do it for real.
The other highlight of the week (apart from the fabulous weather) was sailing in thick fog on Tuesday while on the way along the coast to Ramsgate. It was quite scary, especially when a vessel showed up on radar, heading directly towards us at high speed.
It was a good week with nice company, but not quite the sailing practice I had envisaged as we had almost no wind for most of the time. I enjoyed the boat handling but it is something that needs to be practiced to gain more confidence (and competence).
Clipper News
Welcome to Yorkshire came 7th on the race from Rio to Cape Town and won a point for the Ocean Sprint on the race as well. This puts us currently in 4th place overall.
The next race starts on Wednesday – to Geraldton, Western Australia, where I will be joining the boat.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance
Just a reminder to anyone who would like to donate to the Welcome to Yorkshire boat charity that you can do so via Virgin Money Giving here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=ClipperWelcomeToYorkshire
And the link is also on the right hand side of this blog.
Wow, not so long to go now is it! Exciting times ahead, enjoy.
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