Channelm News report 5th May 2009

How to Be Sick on The Tenacity Of Bolton!!

The crew awoke early at 5:45 to be washed and kitted by 6:00. We left Glasson Dock at 7:40, with everyone having the first part of our breakfast, cereal. We went through the lock with Liam and Callum making sausage baps below, and everyone ate as we exited the marina and entered the sea.
With having a day yesterday of staying in the marina everyone was excited by the prospect of going to sea. But excitement soon changed to being cold and ill, for only three members of the crew. Unfortunately the inevitable happened. The first victim on the rough seas was Callum. We got to see what a sausage balm looks like after being regurgitated half an hour after it was eaten. The second victim was Andrew, who had the pleasure of being sick twice. Finally Adam who fortunately had a cup that he was drinking from, to be sick in. After the vomiting had finished, the morale was low.
Our aim for the day was to get to Piel Island off Barrow unfortunately because of the weather and the illness of the crew, a decision was made to stop at Fleetwood. We anchored outside Fleetwood Marina waiting to enter when the tide was high enough. Therefore there was plenty of time for Andrew and Rajan to make dinner, which was awesome pasta bolognaise. During this Rajan learnt how to triple task by stirring three tomato sauces, at once!
Shortly after dinner we pulled up anchor and made our way into the marina at 9:30. After mooring up, we went back into the boat for pudding, chocolate fondue and fruit. After the mad grab for the chocolate we cleaned up and wrote this.

Andrew & Robert

Another wild day in Glasson

We woke upto a rocking boat the wind was raging around the mast. Max wind speed on our anemometer was 38.1 knots, force 8. Breakfast was a lesuirely affair taking longer than we thought but scrambled egg was enjoyed by all. We had a morning of finding all the safety equipment on board both down below and up on deck. We also got issued our wet weather gear consisting of waterproof jacket and salopettes. On top of this we fitted our lifejacket and learnt how to use them, not by jumping in! We all looked very smart in our red suits shame our wellies aren't matching.
After lunch the press arrived to have a look around the boat and chat to us about the first year 8 trip. There were reporters from Sailing Today, M channel and Manchester Evening News. The weather was still windy and wet and it was not very pleasent on deck, thank heavens for our magic red suits. We manged to have a nice evening stroll after a Turkey Korma dinner.

First of the Year 8's!

We arrived at Glasson Dock to get on Tenacity of Bolton the boat that we will be staying on for a whole week. The first thing that we did was to find our bunks and put our stuff on them and unpack. Storage for each berth is very large if you are at the back of the boat and if there isn’t enough space to fit your whole bag in the locker they are big enough for the contents of your bag.
After unpacking we had dinner of Bangers and Mash, which was very nice and we discovered later one of the only meals that Colin and Mary (our skipper and crew) will make this week. After dinner had been served Ian(the third crew member) arrived and nicked some food off us.
Following dinner we went for a little walk around the basin and saw a boat go through the lock that we will be going through on Tuesday morning and Colin explained how it works, then we went to play football and frisbee on the local (rather overgrown) footie field.
After our walk we made hot chocolate - very nice, and then took the piccie above. Over hot chocolate we discussed our watches for the week, Port and Starboard, and how the teams take turns in scrubbing the decks, making meals and washing up etc..
Now we are off to clean our teeth and then off to bed!
Written by Adam and Alex

Weekend trip to Peil Island

We have just been out for the weekend with a group of 6 adults who all know each other through sports teams at Bolton School. Weather turned out perfect for us with the start of Saturday giving us a great sail across the Bay to Peil Island, with good views of the Barrow windfarm on the way. The wind dropped off for us in the afternoon giving us a quiet anchorage for a trip ashore and then meal on board. Time pressures from the crew led us to set off back to Glasson Dock at 8.30 for a very quiet motor back across the Bay in the sunset and later under the stars to tie up in the bottom basin at midnight.

A good weekend was had by all, lets hope as the Year 8 students start arriving over the coming weeks the weather stays as kind to us.

Nice and Sunny

A great weekend on board. Hopefully the girls have a good idea about what they have let themselves in for when they return from Oban in August. As with all of these D of E groups it is slightly worrying when the training weekend is easy and the weather is nice - there is always the tendancy for them to become complacent and think that life will be easy on board and there is also the chance that the weather will be really unkind on their assessment.

We will have to wait and see how they fair in the summer!

Gold D of E Training Weekend

So here we are again with a Gold D of E training weekend on board Tenacity. The aim of the weekend being to introduce a group of intrepid D of E students to life on board, show them the space that is available to them for living and the possibilities that might come from the galley. We will be having a go at alot of different tasks during the weekend which may include some dinghy driving, some mooring up practice, putting on lifejackets, sheeting in sails and much more... and of course there will be plenty of time to do what sutdents we do best - chilling out drinking hot chocolate.