Today one of the other ships had to repair themselves so we had a slightly more chilled out day. We had our breakfast as usual and then proceeded to head out and set up the gear for out next activity: Mast climbing. For each person to go we would have three people to take them up; two people sweating them up and one person making sure the harness was securely fit. We had that going for about two hours and a little rest after, ready to go ashore for some time around the shops. We had about half an hour in the shops before we came back on board to practise tying different types of knots.  This may not sound like the best activity on earth, but it was actually kind of fun. There was the Boleyn knot, the Stopper knot, the Round turn & 2 half hitches, the Reef knot, and a few more.

After that, we then joined up with Challenger two and went to the RNLI College for a tour. This was great fun and we saw them practice escaping from a capsized boat and we went on their simulator. After this we went down to the beach for a bit, some of us messing about in the water and some of us on the beach just talking. We were there for about an hour, but some of us got bored so we decided to go and play some football on the field directly behind it. We didn’t play for long as a few people were getting bored so we started to head back to the boat and started settling down ready to shower and then head to bed.

This is day three in a short log by the tall ships crew of 2019 🙂

Today we have learnt many new things. Some of these were the points of sailing: this included the ‘No-go zone’.  This is where sailing boats cannot go directly into the wind, or on a course too close. You should be at an angle of about 40 degrees out of the way of direct wind. Whether that is to the left or to the right, it doesn’t matter. The reason for this is because the sails don’t have a strong enough breeze to help you go to a certain direction. This will cause the sails to flap around because both sides are trying to go out and help you sail also causing you to slow down. We learnt many more things about the points of sailing and what they were, but for now I’ll just leave it here.

We also covered the procedure Of ‘M.O.B’. This is what to do should somebody fall into the water. In basic steps, if you see somebody fall over, you should shout “man over board” as loud as you possibly can and keep an eye on where they landed. We then throw out the horseshoe and the damn buoy to help pinpoint the area as close as we can in case we lose sight. We will then try to help get them back as quickly as possible, but if there is something stopping us from getting to you, we send out an alert so the people in the surrounding area can try to get you out of the water.

There was also a mini photo shoot in the morning. They had a camera crew come out to take pictures from the sides of the boat, but obviously you can’t just settle for that, so they also had a drone circle us to catch as much as they could. We had to do a series of moves to entertain the cameras.

After the camera shoot, we made our way to Poole, where we spent the night. On route, we had lunch, which was pasta with grated cheese. Dinner in Poole was fish & chips.

This is a simple summary of day two from the tall ships crew of 2019 J

By Katlyn

Hello, we arrived today in Portsmouth from a long journey south, but that didn’t dampen our excitement for the forthcoming voyage. As it turns out, there are many different parts of a yacht that we didn’t know actually existed, but with the help of the crew, we got through… for now anyway. Although we got through today without any hiccups, we are sure that there are more challenges  to come our way but we look forward to learning new things and hopefully thriving in this new environment.  Mesmerising views of cyan blue skies, hardly a cloud in sight, and the golden sun casting a subtle yellow hue across the marina upon our arrival. Berthed in Cowes, well fed on sweet and sour chicken, we are excited and ready to see what’s waiting around the corner for us to learn tomorrow.

~ Port Watch 🙂