Monday 23 July 2012

Saturdays sailing

With the high tide in Whitehaven being relatively early, we aimed to arrive for 14:00, meaning the crew hauled themselves out of bed at 06:30, and sluggishly consumed a bowl of cereal each, with no time for a cooked breakfast. After breakfast, we all suited up and headed out on deck. After raising the anchor successfully, we motored out of Kirkcudbright Bay (off the coast of Scotland).


Once we were clear of the Bay, we checked the wind speed and decided to unfurl all three sails, before turning off the motor. After an initial gust of wind, we slowed to a tedious speed, causing some of the crew to doubt whether we’d actually ever make it to Whitehaven. With the slow rate we were travelling at, a number of us decided to play cards on deck, and some even resorted to reading!

After an hour or so of almost no movement (or that’s what it felt like anyway), the wind picked up again and we started to move at a decent speed (sustaining 5 knots comfortably, sometimes making just over 6). At this point, we even pretended we were racing two other yachts – one on either side of us.

We eventually reached Whitehaven just before 14:00 and decided to run through the man overboard drill, throwing a bucket and fender overboard as our pretend crew member (we didn’t reach a decision on who offered the least in terms of usefulness and general skill whilst on the boat).

With the drill over, we headed through the lock and moored back in the spot we held two nights before, and waited for dinner, which turned out to be a great tasting chicken stroganoff, cooked by the bow team.

No comments:

Post a Comment