Level 3 Sailing

So what was the sailing like on Level 3?

The training started with a very long day in the classroom going over Offshore Safety - what to do and what not to do out on the 'ocean deep' - when to launch a liferaft, which ones and how to use flares, winch safety, emergency beacons... etc. etc.    Not very inspiring but something that has to be done.  All these trainers keep telling us that the training Clipper gives us is excellent and that we are some of the best prepared crew around - so it is all worth listening too.

I arrived at the boat that evening to find that I already knew a couple of others from my Level 1 training and that there were 3 of us all in 'Team Jim' together.  Both skipper and mate were called Paul so that could either be very convenient and one just shouted 'Paul', or totally inconvenient if there was a reason to distinguish them from each other.

This boat was a Clipper 70 - only a couple of feet longer than the 68 but a different shape altogether.  The sheets (ropes) all seemed much thicker and heavier and the deck was laid out in a very different way.  Preferable, I think, as there seemed to be less clutter around and the 'snake pit', where all the ropes lead into, was closer and better connected to the cockpit.  Easier to get to and easier to communicate with.  One of the difficulties for crews new to sailing is that there are so many new words to learn.  A rope can be called many different things, all dependent on their purpose, so can change names from one hour to the next.  Very confusing!!

Sheet - pulls sails in and out
Halyard - pulls sails up and down
Line - used for something else eg. mooring line to tie the boat to the pontoon
Lazy sheets and working sheets - depending on whether there is any load on them.  The lazy one is doing nothing.


A view of the 'grinders' from the
companionway

There are also different roles for all the crew eg:

Sweater - sweats (pulls) the sails up by hand
Grinder - grinds the sails up using the 'coffee grinder' connected to the primary winch -
Mother - does all the cooking and cleaning for the day -

and so it goes on.  Totally another language and when I have sailed in the past I have heard people say - 'can you pull the thingy over there', and everything becomes a 'thingy'.  Not sure if that would be accepted on a Clipper boat though.

Sailing around the Isle of Wight
just to the south of The Needles

One of the main training elements on Level 3 was learning how to fly the asymmetric spinnaker.  These sails are enormous (330 m sq or 3,556 feet sq) and enable to boats to sail up to 30 mph going downwind in the Southern Ocean.  Unfortunately our week didn't go well in this respect.  The first time we wanted to fly it was during our circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight, but, when it came to hoisting the sail the winches got jammed so we couldn't use it.  The winch was stripped down as we bumbled along but by the time it was put back together again it was too late.






Starboard watch
Thom, Ant, Tom
Me, Mel, Dhruv

So more days were spent in the Solent - tacking and gybing.  We were split into two watches, starboard and port, and we each took it in turns to do various evolutions including changing sails, MOB (man over board) drills, hoisting and reefing etc.  Dhruv was very disappointed to discover, after he'd offered to do the MOB drill, that he wasn't going to be the casualty but the swimmer who was doing the rescue.  I think he must have fancied a 'dip' in the sea.  Instead he was dangled on the end of a rope and lowered unceremoniously down to the water to rescue 'Bob' the MOB dummy.





'Bob' the MOB dummy tied onto the stern
as we sail across the sea whipped up by the wind

With the winches fixed we headed out into the Solent and English Channel again to sail under the spinnaker.  The winds were much stronger than expected but were due to drop during the day.  We headed south east but rather than quietening down we were sailing in F7/8, a near gale - so yet again no spinnaker.  The boat crashed into the waves as we rocked from side to side, it heeled over so that the guard rail went into the water - and it was great fun.



Heeled over and heading upwind

I hadn't had a chance to helm earlier in the week, and to be honest I was waiting to drive with the spinnaker up.  My chance came, not with the spinnaker but in 30-35 knot winds and heeled right over.  I was at the helm for about 2 - 2 1/2 hours and loved every minute of it.  It was hard work, and standing could be quite a challenge when the boat was leaning right over but I think I must have had a smile on my face the whole time.  Over the past few months I have wondered if I was doing the right thing by taking off for a year to sail around the world.  At the end of this day I knew I had made the right decision.  The seas weren't as big as they are going to be in the Southern Ocean or across the North Pacific, but the feel of the wind in my face as I steered through the waves was magic.  I loved it!!



Sailing through the Solent
It's very difficult to know what's vertical/horizontal on
a boat that is always tipping from side to side.

We eventually did get the spinnaker hoisted and dropped, in the dark, on the last day but it was disappointing not to have had a chance to sail with it up for a decent amount of time.  It just means that when I go onto Level 4 in early July that there will be a gap in my knowledge, but I'm sure I will have many chances to fly it over the next year or so.  We didn't get a chance to pack the spinnaker away that evening but spent about 1 - 1 1/2 hours the following morning trying to sort it, tie it in bits of wool and re-pack it.  Not a job that I fancy doing downstairs as the boat rocks from side to side.


Just one more week of sailing training left now and then I am supposed to be able to sail off around the world.  Luckily there will be 20 other people on board so we can share the responsibility.

As I write this I still haven't exchanged contracts on the house.  Time is getting short as this time in three months I will have left the UK and will be on my way to Rio.  We will hopefully be moving in early July and I suppose that if not all boxes are unpacked before I leave then does it really matter.  It will give Tom and Rebecca something to do while I'm away and the worst that can happen is that I will have to empty boxes when I get back.

I am putting up all my photos in a flickr account and do follow this link if you would like to see them.  A bit repetitive at the moment but one day I hope to sort them out.

https://flic.kr/s/aHskcd9dWv




'Chilling out' in the snake pit, safely tied on!