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Challenger 1 — Ken Stimpson Community College

By Tall Ships - June 17th, 2021 | Posted in Voyager blogs No comments

Day 1

14/06

TODAY was the first day of our residential trip. It took us four hours on a mini bus to get to Portsmouth, where we boarded our sailing boat — Challenger 1, a 22m around-the-world racing yacht.

After we arrived we had a tour of the boat and learnt the names of various parts of it. Then we left the harbour and went across the large body of water (the Solent). Afterwards the shipmen (sailing staff) taught us how to control the main bits of the boat, such as raising the sail and using the winches. After that we then docked as part of a team effort and made and ate fajitas. 😁

Day 2

15/06

Today’s word is ‘SWAGGY’ (apparently this means ‘cool’ 😊).

Today, we got up at 0730 and ate toast and scrambled eggs. Then we got everything ready to set sail. After we set off, we hoisted our sails and we passed the Isle of Wight, which was nice.

After a bit we had been taught many things including, tying knots, tacking and helming. At some point we sat at the edge of the boat, which was quite fun and calming.

Us girls all had a go up on the mast by getting pulled up. Boys will go tomorrow of course 😁.

It was so scary as it was really wavy but trust me it was fun! All of us had a go at using the helm (wheel) it was very ‘swaggy’.

We also put up the main sail, which was very, very difficult but quite fun. We had some pasta with some sauce it was nice.

Day 3

16/06

TODAY we woke up in beautiful Studland Bay and it was very foggy.

Once we woke up we were presented with delicious pancakes, and as soon as we finished we had to clean the bathroom and our dorms [cabins].

When we finished our tasks, we packed our bags and put on our life jackets to get ready to go to the beach. We thoroughly enjoyed this especially, the ride to the beach in the rubber dingy. Due to having not enough depth in water we got off the rubber dingy near the shore and walked through knee-high water. Although, we didn’t stay for long we still had fun.

Once we got back to the boat we got ready to lift the anchor and set sail to Yarmouth bay. Halfway through the trip one of the crewmate’s hat went flying somehow and landed in the middle of the sea so, we had to turn around and try to rescue it. After a successful attempt we managed to retrieve the hat.

In the end we finally reach Yarmouth bay and docked safely. And we even chanted funny songs at challenger 3. 😁

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