Final Training Done.....just 2 months to go!

I figured that not sailing from early July 2011 until race start march 2012 wouldn't be such a good idea - it would be a shame to waste my well-earned reputation at Clipper (ha!) by making a fool of myself on Day 1 of the race itself. So in order to refresh my sailing skills, re-test my cold weather gear and at the same time obtain a very useful qualification, I signed up for my Day Skipper Practical (equivalent of a driving licence in the sailing world) in mid December. It involves 5 days and nights on a boat, practising the very useful skills of navigating, sailing a given course and mooring a boat in a marina. These are skills that although we learnt in theory as part of Clipper, that in reality the Skipper would always put into practice. So on the recommendation of one of my Clipper skippers, I found a small company operating in the same stretch of water in the Solent. Given the lack of demand for such cold weather sailing, it turned out it would be just me, one other student and the instructor aboard the very pleasant (despite the name) Prime Evil - a lovely 40 foot sailing yacht with a nice amount of comfort below deck.

           Prime Evil at dawn in Cowes Marina - a familiar part of the world from Clipper training.

So I packed up all my kit and headed back once again to the south coast of England. Instructor John was a very pleasant fellow who was understandably very boat-proud of his lovely Prime Evil. He showed me around and I was pleased to see that although far from identical to the Clipper 68s, that they shared enough in common for me to work out what was going on and how to sail her - one of the real fears of Clipper training is that we are being taught how to sail a specific boat for a specific race rather than "how to sail", but so far this fear has been unfounded.  The forecast was almost perfect - 25-30mph winds, clear(ish) skies and no rain. So once my sailing partner Andy arrived just 2 hours late we headed off for some sailing. This late arrival proved to be the first of many of Andy's eccentricities (is that a word?). He was around 50 and had only taken up sailing in the previous 2 years. He had roughly the same number of hours at sea as me but where as I had done it in 4 long trips, he had done it in maybe 50 short ones, so we arrived at the same point in 2 very different ways. Although in some ways he had learnt a lot, in others he had clearly learnt some fairly bad habits from the sailing club with which he sails - this is a common trait with sailing clubs that they will do things a certain way but not necessarily the right way. They say there are 2 ways to do things on a boat - the Skipper's way and the wrong way, so if you sail with the same skipper a lot you will soon believe his ways are the "right" ones even though they may not be!

Fellow student Andy attempting navigation - yes those are rollers in his moustache - enough said!

Over the next 5 days we headed off on what could be described as a very long pub crawl. We basically sailed all day in and out of various marinas on the south coast, following our plan from leaving the first marina, finding the next one and then mooring the boat before heading off again. And each night we'd pop into the local pub for a few pints before bed. It was great practice and more than just a little nerve-racking parking the boat for the first time alone. But this was all the really practical stuff we needed to learn if ever we were to realistically be able to hire or even buy a boat ourselves in the future. The sailing was a lot more pleasant (and less tiring) than a Clipper week - no heavy sails to change, no overnight sailing, no watch patterns, no competitive racing. It made for a very enjoyable but perhaps less rewarding week than I have experienced so far, though "normal" sailors probably found it more challenging than normal. But it was exactly what I had hoped for in terms of the learning and we did more sailing than I expected including over 50mph winds on the last day home - thankfully we had it behind us rather than in front!

Overall it was well worth doing - my kit stood up to the conditions extremely well, though they were nowhere near as bad as they might have been with only a little rain and not much sub-zero temperatures. I am pleased to say that I hadn't forgotten much of my sailing and that the skills transfered well to another boat. And finally I'm pleased to say that I now have my Day Skipper Licence so watch out seas, here I come! Returning home to the Festive season has been great and once we emerge into 2012 there'll be just 7 weeks to go until I head off for China. Who knows where the time has gone but I'm starting to get excited and can't wait for the race itself to begin. I'll update shortly before I go on ways to follow the race and Helen will be updating the blog while I'm away with updates from on board as and when possible.