17/03/13 - Day Skipper Course - Kinsale

17th March 2013 - Happy St Patrick's Day!

Day Skipper - Sovereign Sailing - Michael

4*C - F4 G5 - Sunny & Blue Skies!

Teddy on helm!

• Today my plan was to become more comfortable with the boat under power
• To hopefully do a bit of sailing and become more familiar with hoisting and reefing the main sail.
• To understand more about the theory side of sailing.

 Liz & I with our St Patrick's day Shammrocks!

This morning when we woke up, Michael went through tides with us.

When there is a half moon we are on neap tides and when we are on a full or new moon, we are on spring tides.

We learned how to do a tidal curve and how to check tide times. 

Martin munching Brownies & checking out the coastal stations!

We also learned how to work out the tide times for your area in the almanack (the almanack changes every year but the only difference is the tide times.) You check the standard port in the almanack, for example, the standard port for Kinsale is Cobh. Then you find the tides for Kinsale and you add or take away whatever it says to the time for Cobh. We spent quite a bit of time doing this today and Michael gave each of us a different one to work out in pairs. 

Doing a bit of working out with the lads - Home made brownies in the box!
Mmmm!

We then did some bearing work and Michael asked me to do Little Sovereign to Daunt Rock and then Daunt Rock to Roches point. The bearing for Little Sovereign to Daunt Rock was 062* True and 067* Course to Steer.

For the second half of the morning we did tack and gybe drills in the bay with no head sail. This was good practice because it made you think about whether or not you are doing anything with your main sail.
For a gybe, you will release the main sail and then bring it in quickly once the boom is on it’s way across the boat.

For a tack you probably wont need to do anything with the main sail because it will need to be in the same position and then you just steer your best course to windward to get it working. However, what you might do if you are tacking up wind is this... As you tack, you will see the main sheet loosen in the runner below the boom just as the boom reaches the centre of the boat. If you can tighten the main sheet as you see this section of the main sheet loosen, you can get the main sail in even tighter and hopefully pick up some speed. You will only have to do this once while tacking to get it really tight, after that it can be left alone and you can concentrate on the head sail.

Then we did more tack and gybe drills with the head sail too. This got everybody working and we soon warmed up from all the winching!

Fionan on the winch.

We then went out to Sandy Cove for a look, Martin was on helm. We turned around in Sandy Cove and went to Oyster Haven for lunch. After lunch at Oyster Haven, we worked on our pilotage for the night ahead.
Dave and Fionan did the pilotage from Oyster Haven to Daunt Rock together.

Then Martin, Liz and I did the pilotage for Daunt Rock to Roches point and into Salve Marina, Crosshaven. We planned carefully, making sure to take note of whether or not you would be able to see certain lights and markers at different distances. We also took in to consideration what we would need to look for/ how far we would need to travel in a particular direction if the weather turned and we had bad visibility conditions.

Break the journey down, step by step. What should we see first? If we don’t see it, what’s plan B? Extra helpful navigation details that might be available.

Oyster Haven - Daunt Rock 

Helm: Mia

Deck Skipper: Liz
Navigators: Fionan & Dave

Daunt Rock - Roches point - Salve Marina, Crosshaven
Helm: Dave
Deck Skipper: Liz

Navigators: Everybody

For the first part of the journey, I was on Helm with Liz as my deck skipper, this means that Liz was in charge of telling people where to go and getting the sails up etc. Fionan were navigators to they kept me informed of what to look for and what our course to steer is. I liked this role, it is more relaxed than being navigator or deck skipper because you have to wait for instruction from the navigators. On the other hand, you still have to stay tuned in because if you don’t agree with navigation instruction, you have to be able to challenge it and give reason as to why you don’t agree with what they are asking you to do.

They might give you a course to steer and your sense of direction might be telling you that that will have you heading for the headland. It is important that everybody talks and says anything that they are thinking, because it is very easy to make a wrong move at night if you’re not concentrating.

Me on helm.

We swapped over once we reached Daunt Rock and Dave went on Helm. I was now in the role of navigator with Martin, talking Dave through the pilotage that myself, Liz and Martin had written. I felt that the pressure was on here and it made me realise that night navigation is definitely something that needs to be practiced. It is a skill to tell different lights apart and even just finding some of the markers is quite difficult!
For example, looking for ‘flashing red every 5 seconds’ it is important that everybody looks for the light because sometimes you might count 5 seconds and somebody else might count 7 seconds, so it is important that everybody agrees on the flashing sequence to avoid mistakes!

Feeling the cold!

Fionán 'keeping it real' on helm!

We eventually made it in to Salve Marina, Dave brought the boat in and Martin cooked a yummy Bolegnese for dinner! Definitely a well needed dinner!!

At the end of today, Mike spoke to all about our progress so far. He spoke very negatively and didn’t make any encouraging remarks at all. He said that we havn’t even covered a third of the course content yet and that we still had an awful lot to cover. “There is only so many times I can go over things with you and everybody has different weakness’, we need to go over navigation with some people and other people are finding the practical difficult. We have a lot to cover guys and if we don’t get through everything by Wednesday 20th...well...you know, I can't pass ye..."

This really frustrated me because I had finished the day feeling very proud of myself and everything I had achieved throughout the day. I had achieved all of my goals and definitely felt that I had improved. However Mike didn't make any positive points about the day and he just put a downer on the whole day!

Liz, Martin and Mike went for a drink to wet the shammrock then but to be honest, the reason I didn't go was because Mike had really burst my bubble and all I wanted to do was climb into my sleeping bag. He had made me feel like 'why are you here, you're not good enough to pass your day skipper'.

So I climbed in to my sleeping bag.

I was dreading the next day & just wanted to go home...(on day 2!)
(Not the best teaching method by Mike).


Points of Environmental Interest...

When we woke up this morning, there was condensation all over the ceiling and dripping on to our sleeping bags, we hadn't thought to leave the windows on vent during the night so the room had just filled up with moisture!

Anyways...so we opened the window to get some air in, and there, sitting on a post on the pier was this fella looking in at us!

She is a herring gull, bright white plumage with light grey wings.

She has an orange dot on her lower bill and this is used for feeding young. When they young are in the nest, they will look for the orange dot to get their food from the mother.

Very friendly fella, definitely not afraid of humans.

Follow the link below for more information on Herring Gulls: 

http://www.birdwatchireland.ie/IrelandsBirds/GullsTerns/HerringGull/tabid/350/Default.aspx