There were two man overboard drills today on board. One was with fin the fender and the other was a surprise to demonstrate that if you’re not paying attention, you might lose someone without any one knowing until it’s too late.

We also checked the wind, waves and the currents for the next couple of days so we are ready for what the sea will throw at us!

We are all prepped ready for our night passage, tomorrow night.​

On Tuesday morning, we had a slight change of plan on the voyage. We unfortunately had to say goodbye to our Mate Hugo, as he was feeling unwell and thought it’d be best to go and rest for a while.

So we went back to Portsmouth where we swapped out Hugo with Rob, and then headed outbound to Dover. The weather conditions were wonderful and it was a very smooth journey.

When it got to nightfall (7:00pm), we introduced watches into our night passage, with Starboard watch taking the first shift (7:00pm – 10:00pm). In this time, we put down the yankee and then spent the rest of our first watch making cups of tea and coffee, having great banter, taking turns helming and keeping lookout; we also identified the International Space Station.

When it was our time to go off watch, we made cups of tea and coffee for port watch and got our heads down for a few hours to be awoken again at 1:00am. The second watch (1:00am – 4:00am) went a lot quicker as expected, as we were getting used to it.

We then went off watch until 6:30am where we were woken up to flake the main sail and get ready to moor into Dover. We then caught up on some well-needed sleep to be awoken to bacon rolls for breakfast. We tidied the deck up and then headed to the pebble beach, where we stayed for a few hours (I slipped on a boulder and it was hilarious).

After we got back to the boat, Lewis and I went to KFC, and then headed back on board where we had a pontoon picnic before rowing around in the dingy for about half an hour.

That evening, the crew made pesto pasta and vegetables for dinner. After dinner, we sat around the saloon table and had a lovely talk about what our watches had achieved so far. I’m personally feeling very empowered as after many voyages, I FINALLY learned how to put the kettle on!

By Zoe