By Cadet Chris Hack

Saturday 14th March 2009
Me and PO Cadet Fitzpatrick started our journey today on a train to London I am very excited because I have never been to London before, it was a good job Lindsey knew were we are going, its very busy! When we got to Portsmouth I saw Royalist and it was massive, I am a bit scared to meet all the other cadets, but Linz was really good and helped me, we got changed into our uniform and started to work on the boat such as cleaning the brass and peeling vegetables for dinner.

Sunday 15th March 2009
It was an early start to the day, and we got a lie in from all the travelling from yesterday. After I had breakfast I had to start our busy day as we were going to sea at lunch time! We peeled vegetables for the lunch and dinner; we collected more food supplies from ashore and bought them onto the boat where we had to then put them away, as this is what we were going to eat for the week. After this I learnt more about the boat and the sails and how to stow the ropes correctly when we were at sea and so that the deck was safe to walk around because there was allot of rope. After lunch time we went to our harbour stations where we wore our caps and we left Gosport to go to Poole. It was so fun being at sea! When we go into Poole Linz, helped me pack away one of the sails it was hard because I had to climb up the rigging. But we worked as a team and we did it!

       
Me on the rigging              Learning our knots    A lovely sunset

Monday 16th March 2009
Today we set sail very early at 9am; the coxswain told me that it was because of the tide that we left early. Before we went to sea I had to do cleaning stations which was the upper deck, and for this I had to scrub the upper deck and wash it down, empty the bins and tidy the ropes away. This was very boring but it had to be done and I wanted to go to sea again! Once we got out to sea, Linz helped me fill my booklet in which I got given, asking parts of sail and the places where the fire extinguishers were. She also helped me by teaching me how to stow away the ropes correctly and reminded me the names of the different ropes. We left Poole to go to Cowes, although we didn’t have much wind we put the sails up and I had to pull on the halyard to make the sail go up. We then had a lesson on “going to sea” which was about what things you have to think about when going to sea such as clothing, weather, and tides.

Tuesday 17th march 2009
I had to do clean the brass onboard, the first thing in the morning I wasn’t sure how to do it so when Linz finished at breakfast she showed me what to do! It was easier than I thought and it was fun learning new things! After I finished there I had to go to cleaning stations where I cleaned the upper deck, then we had a lesson on fire and safety before going to harbour stations again. We went out into the Solent and I was put on watch. This meant that I sat on the starboard side and did lookout, and I was looking for other boats and objects in the water. If I saw something then I had to tell the person who was steering. I did watch until lunchtime then after that I had a lesson on steering the boat, which I was really excited about and Linz took pictures of me steering it was really fun and I enjoyed it as I didn’t think I could steer a massive boat! Later on in the afternoon we went in the sea boat which was really fun and Linz let me take her camera to take lots of pictures, I think that was the highlight of the week because we went to fast and I’ve never been that fast in a boat before. Finally we looked at navigation room and how it had big charts and radio equipment, it looked really interesting because I’ve never seen lots of equipment like that before! From Cowes we went back to Gosport to drop the captain off.

Me learning to steer !

Wednesday 18th March
This was the busiest day of them all because there was a lot of wind which was really good because we learnt about bracing stations. First we had to set the sails so I had to pull on the halyard to make the sail go up, and then I had to secure it. I had to do this twice one for the main course and one for the main topgallant. Linz had to do more work because she had three sails to do and I only had two ha-ha!!
After this we learnt about the bracing stations which is where the whole crew work together to pull the sails and yards around to either port or starboard this helps catches the wind, and helps the boat turn. We practise this for about 20 minutes and I was so tired afterwards because it was hard work and it test not only your physical strength but team work to. For lunch I was mess man so I had to deliver the meals to everyone, lay out the tables for dinner and wash up, it was not the most fun part of the week but it had to be done.
After lunch Linz asked the sailing master about Man Over Board because they had not done the exercise since before the boat went into service, we carried out this task and it lasted around half an hour and all we were doing was bracing stations, it was so hard especially in the heat but it was really fun because it was true sailing without the generator and we relied upon the wind. Linz got sunburnt! Today was hard work but it was a fantastic, super day!! We left Gosport to go to Portsmouth (Gunwharf keys)
 

Me enjoying myself

Thursday 19th March
This was the last day before we had to go home and it was a really sad but a fun day, this was because we had to finish off our booklets, which I and Linz did together by going around finding all the fire extinguishers. After this we went out into the harbour where we had to refuel by visiting the refuelling station which was really interesting of how they did it, also HMS Invisible went out so i watched it go out it’s the first time I have seen a warship! Then two men came aboard one who tested the compass so we just kept spinning around in a circle and the other man who came onboard when we went back to Gosport who climbed up the rigging to check it all. Today was the day we repacked the sails properly and we got the third main sail and put it back onto the yard, whilst some cadets were doing that me and Linz and some other cadets were restocking the ship of food for the following week! We had to take up the floor boards and everything it was so busy onboard. Finally Linz showed me around the chartroom and explained some of the bits to me and the route we had travelled and then Linz asked the engineer if we could have a tour of the engine room and we did it was awesome and I never thought during the week we would be able to it was so interesting. For the rest of the night we relaxed and took lots of pictures. We left Portsmouth and went back to the Gosport.

Friday 20th March 2009
We were all packed and ready to go, Linz had the train tickets and everything all we had to do was clean the deck again and do some more brass, but I knew exactly what to do because I had done it all week it was so fun! I was sad to leave but we all got the same train anyway to London and I’m so glad Linz knew what she was doing; even some people followed us because they didn’t know where they were going! It was a fantastic course and I really enjoyed it, I would love to go again and Linz was a great friend!

Written by Cadet Hack

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