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Southern Cross
Racing Southern Cross the famous America's Cup yacht under full sail.Having celebrated my 30th only the night before, I crawled out of bed for the early morning flight to Hamilton Island, just one of many islands in WhitSundays. The cheapest accomodation on Hamilton is AUD 220 per night so being a cheap traveller I made my way to the main land and based myself at Airlie beach until I would pick up the sailing boat the next day.
Being a saturday night I decided to explore and found a great fish and chip shop and then went for a beer where there was some live music. A middle aged guy stepped up to the microphone and treated the crowd to a song entitled, "I like my women a little bit trashy!" followed by other equally talented numbers.
Arriving back the following afternoon at Hamilton Island, I was shown to what would be home for the next 6 days - a 40ft Jeanneau yacht. Left to our own devices until the briefing would take place, I began to try and work out the spaghetti formation of ropes that were lined across the deck. The other crew members didn't seem any the wiser - a helicopter pilot/skydiving instructor from NZ, a
car salesman from London and two retired Aussies from Queensland. As it was we were basically able to spend the evening socialising in a nearby bar and ponder what the week would entail.
6 people on a 40ft yacht is cramped to say the least. With only 3 cabins, 1 of which was reserved for the instructor we soon realised the maths didn't stack up. Adrian, the helicopter guy, slept on the deck and I slept in the saloon area. It was a rough night trying to balance on the small seats in the saloon only to be shown the next day that the whole thing folds down to make quite a comfy and roomy bed. As it was, I had probably landed the best bed in the house as a cool breeze came in through the main hatch whereas the others complained that the cabins had been pretty stuffy and hot.
That morning we started our full briefing and began to prepare the boat to sail. The first thing that struck me was just how much there is to do in order to prepare a ship to sail. Fuel, water, victualing (the mariner's term for getting some
Whitehaven Beach
Just popped across to this beach for a quick morning swim! It was better than the picture. food on board), engine checks, safety briefings (including lifejackets, flares, EPIRBs, life rings, etc...), explaining to the new crew what each part of the ship does and where key things are located. Then you have to do various checks before actually leaving like closing hatches, switching on the engine motor, preparing the tender, opening the mainsail bag, and setting the lines attached to the pontoon to slip. This is on top of the chart work to actually plot a route to sail once you've worked out the tidal charts, a place to moor/anchor etc...All in all we started the process at 8:30am and finally left the dock at 12:30pm. And who thought sailing was relaxing?! I would need to absorb all the above and more in the coming week so that by the second week when I was doing the Day Skipper course I could concentrate mainly on the skippering part rather than still attempting to come to grips with the basics of sailing.
We started the trip out from Hamilton Island into the main WhitSunday passage. This is where the instructor first put the crew to task and began to set some sails. He covered the basics of
Not all Plain Sailing
Fullly reefed we sailed through a Force 5 storm on our last day tacking and jibing (gybing?), the names of the ropes and their purpose, and the individual steps taken in order to set a sail correctly. I listen intently but that morning had been information overload and my brain was sore. It still looked like a bunch of spaghetti on the deck.
We anchored up just before dark and "put the boat to bed" before cracking open a couple of beers and chilling out on the aft deck. We had decided to split the crew into pairs and would each take turns to cook up a meal of our choosing. There was a bbq on the stern so we could cook and not fill the saloon (my bedroom) with lots of smoke and cooking smells which I was pleased about. First night was fish (coral trout I believe) and it was pretty tasty setting the bar high for later in the week when it would be my turn.
Each day was spent sailing from one island to another with some basic consensus although the instructor, Gregor, basically made the decisions. There's actually not a great deal to do on a sailing boat unless you are setting or reducing sail and/or
changing direction so there was plenty of time to go through what we had already been taught as well as trying to familiarise myself with the various knots required. By the time the week was over I really had had enough of where the "rabbit" (one end of the rope) went. Knot lessons used to sound not too dissimilar to a kindergarten lesson. "Ok kids, everybody take their bit of rope. Now make a loop so it looks like a hole with a tree behind it (you of course needed to have quite an imagination just to get past this first step). Now take the rabbit. The rabbit goes up the hole, around the tree and oh no, here's the farmer with his shot gun. Quick, the rabbit must go back down the hole. Now pull the rabbit and the tree. Voila". As if by magic you would have, in this case, a bowline knot. That was of course unless you were Ros, one of the retired Aussie couple.
Ros was a great character always full of cheer but not, I feared, cut out for sailing. On more than one occasion the instructor had to say "Turn left Ros....no,
Overlooking Whitehaven
A view from the lookout at Tongue Point your other left!". We could easily, without warning suddenly be heading a full 90 degrees away from the desired course then equally a few moments later be heading a full 180 degrees back in the other direction as Ros performed "corrective action"! It was never boring with Ros at the helm.
The week continued and slowly things we had been taught fell into place. No longer was the deck covered in colourful spaghetti but instead with ropes that I had a basic understanding of. We eventually arrived back at Hamilton Island Marina on the Friday afternoon leaving the Saturday free to rest before the real course began - the Day Skipper. We were all, including Ros, certified as being "competent crew".
The Day Skipper certification would allow me to charter yachts in various locations around the world and sail in sheltered waters by daylight. I met the new crew on the Sunday, 3 of which were competent crew trainees and one other girl, Jen who along with me was a day skipper trainee. I was relieved at this because it meant Jen & I could pair up initially while we were getting to grips with what skippering a
yacht involves. Julian, our instructor, let us pair up for the first day but then would make one of us skipper the morning and the other in the afternoon so that we really had the experience of what it feels like to be solely responsible for the boat and the welfare of the crew. Julian would have us prepare a route, work out the tidal effect on the boat towards our destination, identify dangers, provide ETAs, work out mooring/anchor points and observe as we prepared the boat to sail. As we sailed, Julian would then constantly ask questions such as "without using the GPS, what is our estimated position?", "Do we need to reef any sails?", "What is our estimated arrival time?", "how much chain will we need to let out when we anchor?", "who is the give way vessel?" (as another boat is approaching). Non-stop. But it was excellent and a fantastic way to learn. The intensity, whilst draining at times, was exactly what I needed to become comfortable in making quick and decisive decisions on actions to take. I was completely sold on sailing as a sport. Whilst it looks relaxing, which it is, it is also a
sport that means you have to be constantly thinking and working things out which engulfs you and means you don't think of anything else.
Towards the end of the week, once we had started to come to grips with the task of skippering, Jen & I were really put through the paces in manoevering the boat. We went in and out of marina berths against the wind, with the wind, in forwards, then backwards. We then performed numerous man overboard procedures so we could experience what it was like to pick up somebody in the water which involved not only manoevering the boat but also providing the crew with instructions in a calm but decisive way. As we did these exercises Julian would then throw in curve balls such as "Oh no, the engine has just failed" so we would suddenly have to adapt our strategy and approach the "man overboard" (a fender with a face painted on it!) under sail only. Anchoring or approaching anything under sail at a good speed and from the right direction vs. tide and wind is tricky and takes some getting used to. I was pleased however, that in the unlikely event (I
Goanas...
As Crocodile Dundee once noted..."you can eat them, but they taste like shit!" hope) that I ever find myself in a similar situation it will at least not be the first time I would have attempted the procedure.
Unlike the Competent Crew course where you would really have to try hard to fail, the nature of the Day Skipper course in that you could go anywhere in the world and be responsible for a boat and crew meant that consideration was given before we were given our certificates. Both Jen & I were given the green light and the entire crew went out to celebrate that evening.
Although learning to sail hadn't been part of my original travel plans it feels great to finish my travels with a concrete new skill. It's something I have wanted to do for some time ever since crewing on tall ships when I was younger. All I have to do now is find some crew and of course...a boat! I have a feeling Sheena may take some persuading as the last time I went out with her on an 18ft Catamaran in Belize I flipped it about 1/2 mile out at sea!
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