I was the first one who got there at 8 o’clock (thanks grandad) and I helped prepare the boat for the other people then me and Dara went and brought lunch for everyone.  When the other people got to the boat at 1 o’clock we started off by learning about the different parts of the boat the stern then by the time it goes to half past two it was time to leave the port so we detached the stern line and we were off by the time you could blink we completed a full 360 and was off to Cowes. on route we did knot tying practise and then we trimmed the sails but by the time we got to Cowes I went through  3 cartons of orange juice and had a barrels of laughs and we was there.

Alfie Cowell

Hi, my name is damian, today I sailed with the rest of the crew from cowes to Studlnd bay. There were big waves. And lots of water. It was an entertaining journey. This morning I went to the town in search of the tackiest item I could find. I learnt what the coulered bouys meant, we also did man overboard practice where I was the ‘ pointer’ so I stood there and pointed to the bouy, oscar. This morning I was told about, wobble (water, oil, battery, belt, bilge, leak, electric) Today was fun, I hope it will be in the morrow.

Today we had bacon butties for breakfast, I had veggie bacon, and then we got dressed and put on our lifejackets. After that, we went on the dingy and we each had a go at driving it around. And Alfie “killed” Allegra in the game the boat murder we were playing. It also meant he had to kill himself, because he was Allegra’s kill. We did tacking and gybing just off the needles. We each had a go at it and we learnt that tacking is when you turn the bow into the wind and gybing is where you turn the stern into the wind. After that we each took turns to put up and take down the main and head sails, I had to tell people how to put down the main sail. We had some warm sandwiches for lunch and some fruit, then we cleared everything away and got all the dishes washed up. We put on our swimming costumes or trunks and went out onto the deck. David was in the dingy to help us back into the boat. And there were fenders floating in the water if we travelled too far down. Damian jumped off the bow first, then Allegra and me, Alfie and then Kieran into 17.5-degree water. We all underestimated how cold it would be. Alfie and Kieran got out straight away but the rest of us swam about for a little bit. Then, we dried off and got dressed ready to sail into Poole. We took it at turns to go at the helm and I steered the boat through the channel. When we got into Poole, we docked about 3 or 4 times because we kept being moved about. After that, we had to tidy and clean the whole boat because otherwise the skipper wouldn’t give us the passwords for the showers or the Wi-Fi. We are having fish / pizza for dinner. The boat is looking neat and tidy for the photographer tomorrow and all our damp clothes are drying outside.

By Gabby

Thursday 25^th October day 4. We woke up all enthusiastic for the day ahead. A photographer joined The Tenacity of Bolton at 08:45am. We set sail, we followed the Poole channel out into Poole Bay were we got ready for our photoshoot. 11:46am, The Crew hoisted the main sail as the photographer took pictures from a power boat, soon after we winched out the head sail (also known as the jib). As soon as we were ready to sail we cut the engine and showed off our amazing skills to the photographer. 13:06pm we went back to Poole to more up and have lunch, we had sausage butties. 13:45pm the photographer left as we had stunning photo of the crew all on the side of the boat. 15:15pm we set sail on our voyage for a night sail on the Solent heading back for Portsmouth to more up for the night.

By Ciaran Handforth