The journey down to Portsmouth was rather uneventful.  After a short lunch we headed off to where the boat was docked.  As we walked down the boardwalk we sighted a presumably 20 million pound luxury yacht.  Sadly this wasn’t the boat we’d be on for the week.  We then boarded our, smaller, sailing boat and motored towards another port, Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight.  After docking and securing the yacht in Yarmouth we made dinner which consisted of fajitas.  Many tears were shed in the cutting of the onions.  After eating our fajitas we explored the sailing yacht further.  Port watch then cleaned up the mess we made.  Today was a reasonably paced first day where we all got to know each other.  We are looking forward to some proper sailing tomorrow with a cruise down to Weymouth.

Written by Starboard Watch.

The second day began with us waking up and having breakfast it was just cereal that had been prepared by port watch (with me being in starboard watch). My watch then went and cleaned the ship: afterwords the watches were given the chance to climb the mast, I just played cheat below deck with some others. After the tide turned we set sail and the mast was put up for the first time. Several people including myself went up to the front of the boat and waited for the waves to splash onto the deck and hit us. Most of us got very wet! As our speed increased the ship became angled with it tilting 30 degrees at its peak. More of us got the chance to steer the boat and they got it up to 10.5 knots. We all had to work to get the sails up when the we just tried to get to know each other better .We had a good night sleep but there was a couple loud snores , so we might need ear plugs tonight . We were almost ready to dock up but then we found out that the other boat (challenger 4) had something wrong with their boat so we had to raft up and take them to shore. At lunch time we had pasties and beans. It was delicious! Most of us had a piece of fruit on the side. We are all very tired and off to bed now.

Written by Zak , Isla and Jake

Today, we woke up by the sound of the generator being turned on and it was horrendously loud for us at 7:30 in the morning.  We then went for breakfast which was bacon baps cooked by my watch (Starboard).  After that, we all went up onto the deck to prepare it for our travels.  We sorted out all of the ropes, fenders and got the sails ready to be hoisted up later.  After deck prep we set sail at around 12:30 which was quite a bit later then our anticipated start of 10:00.  This was because of necessary work on the engine impeller pump which cools the engine.  Other parts of the cooling system were broken as well.  However this was not the end of the world as the engine started working properly and we were able to motor out of port.  We then hoisted all three sails and headed off towards Studland bay only to drop the main sail, Yankee sail and Stay sail as we reached our mooring spot which was a 15 minute RIB dingy ride away from the beach.  On deck we made a start on inflating the RIB which took a fair amount of time.  We then hoisted the engine which in itself was a struggle.  We then connected the fuel to the engine and the engine to the RIB and motored off towards Studland bay beach.  Where we had a barbeque.  We then powered away back to the sailing boat as the sun set.

Written by Starboard Watch.

Today we got up and prepared the deck for our departure from Studland Bay. After the anchor had been lifted the weather turned for the worst meaning we had to change into some wet weather gear. For most of the day it was windy and wet, as we sailed past Poole and Bournemouth on the mainland and the Needles and Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. Everyone was in action as at one point we lifted both sails at the same time. Once we entered the Solent, the winds dropped and the sea became very calm indeed. We dropped the sails and used the motor for the final stretch into Hamble, Cowes having been too busy to stop there. Before our arrival, we had a brief opportunity to learn about flares as well as do a man overboard drill. As we arrived in Hamble at around 3.15 we found that Challenger 4 had in fact ripped their main sail and were unable to use it!

We had a couple of hours to explore town before fish and chips at 6.00. Starboard watch cleared up whilst Port watch prepared for the final departure (night sail) to Portsmouth scheduled at around 10.30pm

James and Dan