Windy end to our first year 8 group

The forecasts on Thursday night led us to believe that the wind would drop during the night leading to an almost guaranteed sail back to Glasson. Unfortunately as happened every day during this week the wind continued to blow, and in fact got stronger and reached our weekly high during the Thursday night of 39.1 knots so our plans had to be changed once more. We stayed on in Fleetwood, missing the tide slot that would have led us to get back to Glasson and cleaned and packed the boat up at Fleetwood, rearranging our pickup backto school.

Before the boys left they wrote in the crewbook about their experiences on board and included some advice for future groups:

• For those lucky enough to sleep in the stern remember your midnight snack!
• For those in the bow bring a crash helmet
• Never go below deck at sea - its horrible!
• Unfortunately we had terrible weather and didn't get to sail but we still had a great time

Good Luck and Enjoy!

From:

Rajan Bharaj, Alex Boulos, Adam Greenhalgh, Andrew Keat, Max Whitwam, Robert Stanton, Liam Jenkins, Callum Smart, Peter Harland.

Lots of knots, of wind and rope!

This is our last full day on board Tenacity. We are still in Fleetwood marina as the weather still isn’t good enough for us to sail. Today we had knot tying competitions, Adam is the champion as he has thrown over 200 figure of eights knots. Rajan is the fastest at tying a clove hitch, round turn and 2 half hitches and a bowline in 22 seconds. We went for a walk to see where we were anchored on Tuesday. We looked out to sea and could see lots of big white waves. We had ice cream and played skimming stones and Max won with 10 skims. We made rice crispy cakes with Mary and Peter won the extra cake by playing, rock paper scissors.

Storm bound in windy Fleetwood

Woke 9am - Peter and Robert made bacon butties for breakfast.

10am - We split into 3 groups to learn about the Genoa and Mizzen sail and the dinghy. There are lots of different ropes to loosen and tighten, main sheet, kicking strap and furling line. We all drove the dinghy in gale 7/8. Some of us bumped into the jetty but it was ok.

Lunch - Jacket potatoes with cheesy beans and bacon cooked by Andrew and Rajan. NO Spillages!!!

After lunch - We did more sail and dinghy handling.

5.30pm - Ian taught us all how to throw a figure of 8 knot. Max was the champ with 64 in a row!

7.30 - Alex, Adam and Max cooked stir fry veg and pork chops with special sauce. Yummy! We all made our own pancakes for pud and Liam's went a bit wrong and he threw it all over himself and the floor.

9pm - Colin broke us the bad news that there was no sailing tomorrow because gale force 9 is forecast!!!

10pm - played cards and then went to bed.

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