Today our school had taken us on a voyage trip in order to learn about sailing and the like. We were all highly excited about this trip and it had, wonderfully so, lived up to the expectations (mine anyway). To begin, we learnt how to exit the dock, over the next few hours of sailing we also learnt how to use the winches, pass the correct equipment to the others below, work better as a team and the crew/instructors were brilliant as well. They made sure that all of our needs were taken care of as well as prioritising our wellbeing so many thanks to Sophie, Mark, Ben and Jeremy.

Highlights:

• Steering the wheel
• Cooking
• The games that were played: Uno and Spoons

We got the sail up and it felt like a massive achievement. Whenever we do the deck prep, its so much fun as everyone is doing a job and focusing on that and that job only.

Challenges:

The rain was tough yesterday, as we just got the sail up and very strong winds came along with it and caused the boat to tilt.  Getting the sail up is a challenging task as we were in strong winds and rain. The most challenging thing that we had to get used to would be the tilting to the boat, as I don’t think many of us had experienced something like that before.

Highlights:

• Packing up the boat
• Climbing up the mast
• Free time and being able to wind down for a bit.

Today was an eventful day, we got to have free time, and we had a “Man Overboard” drill which was hard, but we did it. At the start of the day, people got to climb up the mast.

Challenges:

We had to get the boat into harbour backwards as the little bit of wind we had was being awkward.

Best moments
Chib: Climbing the mast twice to flake the sail and doing it comfortably whilst doing jobs and pulling, also not dying was a good part
Ari: Steering the boat
Inga Amber and Danny: Coming into Portsmouth harbour, feels relieved

Challenging moments
Chib and Amber: Having to continuously re-pack the sail
Arin: Putting the main sail down
Inga and Danny: Putting up the main sail

Highlights of the day
Inga’s highlight of the day was taking pictures of the spinnaker tower which was lit up by purple and blue LED lights.
Amber’s highlight of the day was being able to have time to pack up, knowing she was ready for the next day.
Chib’s highlight of the day was getting chip shop chips with crispy fish AND curry sauce.