Hey Blog! Sorry about the lack of posts for the past month, that’s because I’ve been away!
Last year in April I told how I’d been on a sail training voyage. I ended by saying I wanted to go back and do some more. Now, I have!
Please see the posts on last year’s voyage for some more information about The Island Trust, and the boat I was on – the gaff topsail schooner Johanna Lucretia (JL) – and sailing! Much of what we did then was repeated this time, so I’ll tell you mostly what was different.
The first voyage, last year, was a regular voyage. This one was special in two ways – firstly, it was a home-ed only voyage and secondly it was an ocean discoverability voyage. We were not aware of the latter until we arrived to embark, and at first I was concerned it might interfere with the sailing part of the voyage, but upon checking the forecast and seeing storms I realized it was good to have something other than sailing to keep us busy when the weather got too dangerous. Indeed, it got so bad on the Wednesday we couldn’t go out at all, and had to stay in port. However, it was mitigated by the chance to have an ice cream ashore!
The storms were most annoying. I was expecting a long sail where I would get lots of experience and overcome the persisting nervousness I had last voyage. I seem to be a bad weather talisman, or else too many people were whistling aboard ship! (This is a sailor’s superstition that whistling brings wind; if you whistle too much, you get too much of a good thing.) The surprising thing was the nervousness was mostly gone, but instead I felt a bit seasick some of the days. Thankfully I had packed the motion sickness tablets and they worked, albeit at the cost of feeling disconnected, as if I was drunk. I expect it is because both the tablets and alcohol jinx the nerves that connect the balancing mechanism in the ear to the brain. No wonder all pirates drank rum – being drunk must give you a better chance of not actually being seasick, so long as you don’t drink too much! It’s a pity nothing stronger than squash is allowed on board, especially as it was someone’s 18th birthday halfway through the week, but perhaps it’s better to sail with a crew who are in possession of all their faculties!
Talking of crew, there were 16 hands on board. Four were staff, officers, employees, teachers, skippers, mates and ocean discoverability experts – i.e. the official people who know what they’re doing; the ones who show us the ropes – literally in some cases! The remaining twelve were trainees, aged 13 to 18, and with experience varying from never sailing anything larger than a dinghy, and that only little, all the way to experienced sailors who had practiced going as staff on other voyages! As I said last year, the best way to make friends is to throw a bunch of people together on a boat for six days and keep them there while sailing around. It works. If you don’t believe me, just look up The Island Trust and sign on to a voyage to try it. Actually, don’t everyone do that – places are limited, and I want a space!
The itinerary was the same as last year’s, and the general tasks were the same. The differences were the Ocean Discoverability sessions and the places we went sailing. Among the former were learning about seaweed, and the different levels in the sea they are found; lowering a camera over the side of the ship to see the wildlife down there (we didn’t see much – a couple of crabs and some common dog whelks!) and a trip to the aquarium – a trade-off for when it’s too windy to go sailing! I had never been to an aquarium, so the whole experience was new, interesting, and showed a lot of aquatic creatures, but, like I find with many exhibits, I take a lot longer to go round and look at everything than most people who just pass through, looking quickly. Also, the star exhibit, the sea turtle, was the same species as I have swum with when we lived in the Caribbean, brushed up against in its natural habitat, so just made me reminisce about Barbados and how the weather was probably better there! To me, the most interesting bits were reading about all the science, as well as looking at some of the less-observed creatures, the small things you don’t see from land or the side of a boat.
Talking of things you see from the side of a boat, the wildlife highlight of the trip was about a minute of dolphins crossing the boat! We were on a beam reach – where the boat is heading perpendicular to the wind, and the beam, the side of the ship, is closest to the wind – and the dolphins were suddenly there, small black fins arcing out and then back in a little further off, and just a shape and a colour underwater near the boat. I’m sure they went straight underneath, and they must have been going pretty fast, as we were going the fastest I’ve ever gone in a sailing vessel – 7 knots! This was because we weren’t trying to fight the waves or wind, we were sailing along both of them, so JL was moving beautifully, without too much rocking, and very fast!
A note here about knots. They are the nautical measure of speed, one nautical mile per hour. You may think they are the domain of Tresure Island and suchlike, along with fathoms (6ft.) and pieces-of-eight. Knots, however, are still used, as are nautical miles: 1 nautical mile = about 0.87 land miles. The speed unit of knots is due to the old days when to tell you how fast you were sailing, you threw a log tied to a piece of string with knots in it over the side, and counted how many knots went through your fingers in a period of time to tell how fast you were going – this was known as streaming the log. Of course, wind or tide could move the log away from the point you threw it in, messing up the results, so dead reckoning (read: guesswork with practice) was the standard use. It’s much easier to use GPS, and not crash into things.
And talking of knots, I am somewhat of an expert. I know all the 8 knots expected for Competent Crew, the recognised qualification for general sailing ability, and could tie them asleep almost. I also know a few more that are not on the list. But the 8th knot of the list was one I have had incredible bother with, the rolling hitch. I will never forget it now, however – we had a knotting session on board, where it was explained the way to remember is to think of it as the round turn of a round turn and two half hitches, and the second turn of a clove hitch! This just reinforces my view that there are only a few knots which are unique, as the others are just combinations of the basic variations. I was able to help a few people learn some of the Competent Crew knots, and generally worked very well with ropes all the time there. One of the staff even said they would welcome me back, as I could be given a task and then do it perfectly. I expect my parents would be grateful if I could do that at home.
I really want to go back. It’s one of the best experiences ever. When one of the other trainees said they were moving to Plymouth so would probably be going sailing on JL all the time, my thought was ‘lucky sod’. I would love to be able to be out on the water all the time, as I feel a connection to it which I miss, living as I do about as central to England and as far from the sea as it is possible to be in this country. I wish I could do more sailing, perhaps some of the races that the company enters their ships in, and if not, just mile-building. Since this voyage I was finally able to get the Competent Crew qualification, I am now able to sail some more interesting voyages as I work for Watch Leader and maybe eventually Day Skipper. My sister’s husband has now earned not just Day Skipper but Costal Skipper, which is only one stage below Yachtmaster, the top three qualifications the RYA offers. And with the news The Island Trust offers adult voyages concurrently with youth voyages, we are planning a joint sailing week some time next year. Fingers crossed!
