We arrived at 10:00 and headed out onto the pontoon where we found the challenger yachts moored, we crossed from the pontoon over one yacht to get to our yacht Challenger 5.

Although two of our group members had not yet arrived we headed aboard and went down into the saloon where we got a short briefing which explained the boat and the altered plan for the day due to the extreme winds which would arrive as Storm Austen came rolling in during the afternoon before picking up our bags and then going to select our berth and stow our belongings away.

Then we went back into the saloon to be introduced to each other, the skipper, the first mate, and our watch leader. Here we had some juice and biscuits, while we were told a bit about what we would be doing for the next few days.

After the introductions we got a tour of the boat and were shown the different purposes and types of room in the boat. Such as the sail locker, saloon, galley, berths, heads, and more. Then we sat down for a lunch of sausage rolls and beans, while we were eating, we eagerly watched the wind speed displayed in the navigation area, seeing what the strongest gust was, as of now the record is 57 knots.

After tidying up lunch and doing the washing up, we had some free time in which we played cards and UNO, this was followed by a series of round robin activities for which we were split into three groups. The activities in the round robin where very interesting and important as we learnt about navigation and the importance of being able to navigate on paper. Another round robin activity was radar where we were taught about how radar works; what it shows; its different use, and the disadvantages of it. Finally we did a session on what life jackets do and how to adjust ours properly.

After this we headed up onto the deck to learn how to use the winches on the boat. This is important as it is what we will use to control the sails while at sea and it was really fun to learn about and then to carry out the process of using a winch ourselves. Then we headed back below and relaxed for a bit before supper.

After having a bit of free time we were split into two groups one to go and shower onshore, and the other to chop up the vegetables for our supper of bolgenese and pasta.

After those showering returned, we finished the final preparations for supper and then sat down to eat the bolgenese which was very tasty. Then we cleared up after supper and began a game of monopoly before heading to bed and ending our first day on the boat.

So far it has been great fun and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, we are hoping that tomorrow we will be able to leave port and begin some real sailing since the storm winds which have been around 10 on the Beaufort scale will have calmed down and the conditions will be safer to set off in.

Challenger 5 Blog Saturday 24th October 2026

We started off early, 7 o’ clock, to our skipper bellowing through the yacht, “wake up! Everyone up! Now!”. So we did. After our breakfast (some toast, jam, and some Weetabix), we went up and started preparing for what will be a long day ahead.

We had already had a brief intro to the winches and the rope and so we weren’t completely lost. We started rigging at about 8. Loading rope in the snake pit, fumbling around in the cockpit and loading up the sails in the bow.

We left about 7:45 and we got to sail. We sailed out of the harbour after we got prepared and we were out. There were loads of jobs on the deck. We were hanking up the sails and we later finished. We got the opportunity to steer and tack. We were at sea for about till 11:30 and later we packed up are sailing equipment and now all we did was sit back and had a warm mug of hot chocolate.