Challenger 2 — George Green’s School
This voyage is part of our STEM and the Sea project and is being supported in part by the 1851 Trust and funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation.
*Photos included from George Green’s and Stepney Green Schools
Day 1
Monday 18th - by Hamza, Zach, Dawud, William and Areez
Today we travelled to Portsmouth from East London. The journey took about 3 hours all together. As we arrived, we were introduced to some people from Tall Ships Youth Trust, who were really friendly. We got told all about the A team (our sailing staff), and then some of us went to get some food. We then came back to the boat and dropped off our kit and unpacked.
Along with the crew from Challengers 1 and 3, we then headed over to the 1851 Trust’s building to do a STEM workshop at their tech desk. We designed boats that could hold weights, programmed little spherical robots and designed efficient wind turbine blades. We absolutely destroyed the other school in a competition where we had to generate as many volts as possible- we got 5.94 volts with the wind we had!
We then walked back to the boat and went through health and safety onboard before helping hank on sails. The sails were very heavy and when we hanked the stay sail, it made pew pew Star Wars noises. After that we made a very nice lamb curry- we chopped some onions and peppers and potatoes, and then chucked it in the cooking pot and oven respectively. We also cooked up some naan bread all from scratch (totally not from Tesco). And then after that, the other watch washed up and now we’re about to go have some showers so we don’t smell tomorrow.
Day 2
Tuesday 19th - by Ashfaq and Anwar
We woke up relatively early and ate our exquisite breakfast before we set sail to Yarmouth. We began our journey at 09:30 and put our sails in place. One crazy event was that the ship healed over and most people were asleep and scared, this caused us to stay awake and alert at all times. Anwar, Hamza and John had the responsibility of steering the boat towards our destination. Ashfaq’s team were given the job of tacking to keep the boat stable and on course, they had done this multiple times so that the people who were asleep did not fall over.
A lot of the crew were keeping themselves attached to the jackstays to prevent themselves from falling over as they completed very important tasks. We also had a break, in which we had hot chocolates and a box of biscuits. Most of the crew members loved this experience as we all overreacted to the waves.
Afterwards, we dropped our sails as we learnt about what to do in the situation of M.O.B(man overboard), before arriving at our destination. We obviously beat Stepney Green, however being nice we let them through, but could not help ourselves so we took their spot. We packed up our sails and put the fenders over the sides to help moor our ship. We were given permission to explore Yarmouth and had fun.
After we came back, we learnt how to tie different knots, including the bowline, and had our dinner.
Day 3
Wednesday 20th - by Areez and Riley
Some crew members woke up at 07:00 for a shower and then once they finished, we had an awesome breakfast of scrambled eggs and crumpets. Whilst Port watch cleaned the living areas and did the dishes, Starboard watch readied all the storm sails due to the tremendous winds of up to 30 knots!
After breakfast, we learnt about sails and wings, and how to sail the boat with the prevailing winds coming from every direction. Once we set sail for Cowes, with the wind behind us, some of us sweated the sails up while the others put away the fenders as we were out of port. As the journey continued, we saw waves that were 2 meters tall as the tide battled against the wind! Nevertheless, some of us steered through these daunting conditions!
Some of us made jacket potatoes for lunch, which we all enjoyed on deck. Then we did a man overboard drill with a buoy before we made it into Cowes. We took down the sails then looked around the port before having a scrumptious dinner of fish and chips.
In the evening, we discussed our plans for tomorrow and then had showers, finishing off with a great game of cards!