Today we got to school later than usual (10:30) and onto our mini bus to travel to Portsmouth and had a sing song on our expedition.

We arrived at Gunwharf Quays to sit down and meet the crew, while eating our lunch.

After lunch, we carried our luggage over to the Challenger boats, we then got given a tour of our allocated Challenger sailing boat and were shown how to move around the boat.

We leant many things about the Challenger sailing boat, such as steering, tying knots and working the winches; followed by some cooking later in the evening. The picky girls didn’t trust a cannibalistic meat eater with cutting up the chicken, but were pleasantly surprised.

Then, we went for a surprisingly relaxing shower while those left onboard washed up the dirty dishes.

We are looking forward to more adventures on the high seas tomorrow.

By the crew of Challenger 1.

Today on Challenger 1, we came out of Cowes and put the sails up to practice some gybing before meeting Challengers 2, 3 and 4 and getting sandwiches for lunch.

Afterwards, we did a bit more gybing and learnt how to use the winches and also had a go at helming.

We practiced tying some knots, such as a Reef Knot and a Clove Hitch. We then did a man overboard drill with a fender.

We went into port in Yarmouth and met up with Challenger 2. After properly packing up all the stuff on deck, we went on a six mile walk to Freshwater Bay and back, most of us went into the sea for a bit of a swim (which was quite cold!).

We got back and ate Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner, which was prepared while we were away. After dinner, we went for a shower, chatted with our friends and then went to bed for the night.

By Rowan and Jake.

Today, we woke up in Yarmouth. We had breakfast (bacon rolls) and then we did mast climbing.

We then set off to sea and headed to Poole. On the way, we put the Mainsail up and then did some tacking, having done some gybing yesterday.

There wasn’t much wind, but for some of the day there was, so we didn’t use the motor as much and actually sailed.

Near to arriving, we all took down the front sails, which felt like they practically fell on top of us and then we took down the Mainsail.

We then arrived in Poole, where we went for a quick walk to Baiter Park and Tesco (yay).

Then we came back to the boat and had sausage and mash for dinner.

We went for showers and then most of the other boat came over to our boat to chat.

Overall, it was nice sunny weather today, with a bit of breeze.

By Poppy and Grace.