Sailing - Brian - Petersburg OEC
Today it was about 2*C with no wind at all in the morning and a change to about a force 3 in the afternoon.
It was sunny and blue skies
- Today I planned to work towards my level 3 skills & was disappointed when I saw the weather forecast for the day. Wind = 0. We arrived at Petersburg in hope that it would be windy anyway, but the lake was like glass, not a breath of wind on it.
- So I decided to make a new aim for the day, which was to get to grips with navigation and ask Brian to go through some chart work with us.
- We have been so unlucky with the weather recently. Last week I couldn't even drive my car up from Kerry because the car was blown on to the other side of the road in Force 8-9 winds and this week we can't even get a breath of wind!
When we arrived at Petersburg today, I think everybody was a little bit annoyed at the lack of sailing conditions again! However, I tried to see this as a positive & explained to everyone how we could use this time to get more navigation knowledge if Brian was able to teach us. This is especially beneficial for those of us who are planning to go for our Day Skipper in the next few weeks.
Brian said he was definitely up for going trough a bit of navigation and everybody else seemed up for it, so we made some tea and Brian went to get some charts, books and flip cards.
This made me think about if I was the sailing instructor for an older group, like ourselves, a group of people who had targets that they want to meet and were not just there to have the craic. As the instructor, Brian had to be prepared to teach us navigation skills because we asked to go through it. Even though he said this is something he hasn't done a lot of recently and he was a little bit rusty to start with, he still managed to go through some bits with us. I realised that you have to be prepared for a group like this who know what they want to get out of a session and are motivated to reaching their goals. You can't be slack on any areas when it becomes your profession.
So Brian first went through the simple things like the different colours on the map and what the colours indicate, i.e the white is deep water and the yellow is land. He then went through how to give a grid reference and explained that instead of going along the bottom and up like you do in mountaineering, you go up and along.
We then talked about what different symbols on the map meant and Brian showed us a book of all the symbols. It is an absolutely huge book! You would never remember all of the symbols, so it is important to memorize the most common symbols at least. We then went through different buoy symbols and their meanings, including port, starboard, north, east, south, west and the shapes to look for incase they have become dis-coloured over time and weathering.
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| Brian explaining charts! |
After going through the navigation and chart work we took a tea break. During the tea break, Dave & Brian walked down to the lake to see if the wind had picked up at all. Liz, Emmet, Peter & I went through these flip cards that Brian had. There was different topics in each pack, there are pictures on the cards and you have to look at the pictures and say what you think they mean, then you flip them over and see if you were right! I went through all the buoy's and the rules of the road that we had just been revising with Brian. The cards are a great way to learn and I found them a really good thing to do after the theory session because it cements the answers in your mind in a testing way. This made me think of different ways you, as an instructor, could test students after a theory session. Maybe by drawing the pictures or by having a flip chart made up with the pictures on that they have to say what they mean and you could use this over and over again with different groups then.
After the tea break, Brian decided that we should rig the boats up anyway and head out on the lake for a while, wind or no wind. If anything we would be practicing launch and recovery!!
So we went and rigged up the 2 Vibes and 1 Pico boats and then got changed into our wetsuits. Liz & I decided to go in a Vibe together, so we launched the boats. I was on helm and Liz was crew, Emmet was on helm and Dave was crew and Peter took the Pico out on his own. We all just started floating around, there was no wind to take us anywhere so we were just wagging the tillers in the water trying to make our way across the glassy lake.
Brian came over in the power boat and we were all laughing about how there wasn't even a breath of wind! We were trying to make the most of it but the conditions were just no good for sailing.
Then Liz & I noticed gusts on the water a little further away from us so we wiggled the tiller until we managed to get closer to the wind and eventually, there was wind in our sails.
It was really cool, a force 2 gusting 3 just came out of nowhere and we were finally sailing! :D Liz & I started zooming out out across the lake and Brian came over in the power boat to tell us how well we were doing! It felt absolutely awesome, we were flying across the lake in force 3 winds and we were totally in control. Brian said we should try and fly the spinnaker and then he asked if we were ok if he went back to the lads who were a bit away from us.
So Liz & I decided to fly the spinny, Liz was crew, so she pulled the sheets and I kept on course and beared away slightly to fill the spinnaker. We got it up perfectly first time and the extra speed we got from it was amazing! We were absolutely loving it! For the first time, we felt like we were in complete control and we were getting some really good sailing conditions to practice our skills in. We were hiking out and loving every second of the sailing...we then realised that we couldn't keep going in the same direction forever, even if it was the best fun sailing we had ever had! So we had to make plans to turn around and head back in to the beach!
We had to jibe because if you tack with the spinny up you will just get the spinny all caught and you will end up dragging it in the water. If the spinnaker gets soaked then it is pretty useless because the material just absorbs water and it becomes really heavy so it wont fly as well. So we prepared to jibe and when we were both ready we jibed the boat around. What we hadn't thought about was that we would be beating up wind on the way home and it is really hard to beat with the spinnaker up because the wind wont fill the sail easily. So we decided to bear away again, get the spinny down and then luff up and beat home.
We met the boys on the way back in who were shivering cold and soaking wet! They had been capsizing all afternoon while Liz and I had been flying across the lake! You can probably imagine the stick they were getting from Brian and us girls! We were dry and...well...not warm...but warmer than them!
I felt this session went really well and I think Brian, as the instructor did a great thing by taking us out when it looked like there was no wind because it ended up being one of our best sailing sessions yet!
I liked that Brian came to check on myself and Liz and felt confident enough that he could leave us on our own while he went back to the lads for a while. I think by doing that, he gave us more confidence and because we felt confident we had one of our best days sailing yet. Also, because Brian left us on our own, we had to figure out what would work well and what wouldn't on our own and in a way, this was a great way to learn.
Environmental Interest of the day:
When we went to rig up the Pico today, there was a lot of leaves and dirt in the bottom of it. We all started to clean it out and then Brian told us that it is important to not let leaves and dirt sit in the bottom of the boat for too long because as it sits there, it starts to break down and produces an algae that can be damaging to the plastic that the boats are made out of. It was interesting that Brian brought this up because Noelle was explaining the same thing to Jarlath, Louise and myself on the power boat course. Only she was talking more about making sure we cleaned off the RIBs and trailers after them being in the sea because of the algae that could ruin them too.
After the tea break, Brian decided that we should rig the boats up anyway and head out on the lake for a while, wind or no wind. If anything we would be practicing launch and recovery!!
So we went and rigged up the 2 Vibes and 1 Pico boats and then got changed into our wetsuits. Liz & I decided to go in a Vibe together, so we launched the boats. I was on helm and Liz was crew, Emmet was on helm and Dave was crew and Peter took the Pico out on his own. We all just started floating around, there was no wind to take us anywhere so we were just wagging the tillers in the water trying to make our way across the glassy lake.
Brian came over in the power boat and we were all laughing about how there wasn't even a breath of wind! We were trying to make the most of it but the conditions were just no good for sailing.
Then Liz & I noticed gusts on the water a little further away from us so we wiggled the tiller until we managed to get closer to the wind and eventually, there was wind in our sails.
It was really cool, a force 2 gusting 3 just came out of nowhere and we were finally sailing! :D Liz & I started zooming out out across the lake and Brian came over in the power boat to tell us how well we were doing! It felt absolutely awesome, we were flying across the lake in force 3 winds and we were totally in control. Brian said we should try and fly the spinnaker and then he asked if we were ok if he went back to the lads who were a bit away from us.
So Liz & I decided to fly the spinny, Liz was crew, so she pulled the sheets and I kept on course and beared away slightly to fill the spinnaker. We got it up perfectly first time and the extra speed we got from it was amazing! We were absolutely loving it! For the first time, we felt like we were in complete control and we were getting some really good sailing conditions to practice our skills in. We were hiking out and loving every second of the sailing...we then realised that we couldn't keep going in the same direction forever, even if it was the best fun sailing we had ever had! So we had to make plans to turn around and head back in to the beach!
We had to jibe because if you tack with the spinny up you will just get the spinny all caught and you will end up dragging it in the water. If the spinnaker gets soaked then it is pretty useless because the material just absorbs water and it becomes really heavy so it wont fly as well. So we prepared to jibe and when we were both ready we jibed the boat around. What we hadn't thought about was that we would be beating up wind on the way home and it is really hard to beat with the spinnaker up because the wind wont fill the sail easily. So we decided to bear away again, get the spinny down and then luff up and beat home.
We met the boys on the way back in who were shivering cold and soaking wet! They had been capsizing all afternoon while Liz and I had been flying across the lake! You can probably imagine the stick they were getting from Brian and us girls! We were dry and...well...not warm...but warmer than them!
I felt this session went really well and I think Brian, as the instructor did a great thing by taking us out when it looked like there was no wind because it ended up being one of our best sailing sessions yet!
I liked that Brian came to check on myself and Liz and felt confident enough that he could leave us on our own while he went back to the lads for a while. I think by doing that, he gave us more confidence and because we felt confident we had one of our best days sailing yet. Also, because Brian left us on our own, we had to figure out what would work well and what wouldn't on our own and in a way, this was a great way to learn.
Environmental Interest of the day:
When we went to rig up the Pico today, there was a lot of leaves and dirt in the bottom of it. We all started to clean it out and then Brian told us that it is important to not let leaves and dirt sit in the bottom of the boat for too long because as it sits there, it starts to break down and produces an algae that can be damaging to the plastic that the boats are made out of. It was interesting that Brian brought this up because Noelle was explaining the same thing to Jarlath, Louise and myself on the power boat course. Only she was talking more about making sure we cleaned off the RIBs and trailers after them being in the sea because of the algae that could ruin them too.
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