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Well, time slips on, and I am getting behind on my weekly Home News. In fact I think I am about six weeks behind. I know I have two Challenge sails to cover.

My second New World Challenge training sail was on the 18th of February. After all the stormy weather that we have had this winter, and with me hoping for more of the same after a fairly tame first training session, high pressure settled in on Tuesday and stayed there for over a week. It hit 1047, which is the highest that I ever recall it being (I think it was the highest since 1974). Of course high pressure brought with it calm weather, and calm seas.

In retrospect it was actually a brilliant training session though. Without having to do “synchronised swimming” on the foredeck, we were able to do all the drills over and over and really concentrate on getting the right and fast. We got the large 1.8 spinnaker up and got 6 knots out of a 9 knot wind. I went to the top of the mast with the spinnaker flying, and dangled up there trying to take photos. The results are on the website (www.TheChalmers.com).

We also got to see dolphins on two occasions, I guess they were the same set of dolphins. The rode in the bow wave of the 67 footer, and included a baby of about 1m in length. They have since been identified as “Common Dolphins” after I logged the sighting with a dolphin and whale sighting organisation.

We had an enjoyable mooring at Fowey. Rather than going to the normal duck shit covered pontoon in “Duck Shit Creek”, we headed for a small (two section) pontoon up the main river. It was about 80ft in length, and was “full” with a 38ft and 26ft yacht taking up the whole length with gaps between and aft and ahead of them. I was called in to help Paul (the mate). We came alongside the 38 footer (well about 4 feet away), and we both jumped down and across to her, and then proceeded to move them both forward and closer together. That freed up about 30 foot for our 67 footer, which made for interesting mooring, especially with small fishing boats moored off the end of the pontoon, leaving only about 70 foot of gap.

Well, we made it (of course), went to the pub for a “coke” (the yachts are “dry” during training so of course we couldn’t have a beer – yea right !!).

The next morning we left early (about 07:00) and entertained the Sunday crowd who had gathered to see the Challenge yacht with a brilliant mainsail hoist, and woke the late sleepers with a loud bellow to the cockpit of “halyard made”.

We also had fun anchoring in Plymouth sound. Now being race boats they don’t have anchors on a bow roller, nor do they have ant windlasses. It is an entirely manual operation with the crew muscle substituting for any windlass. The CQR is considerably larger than that on Debanessa, I guess it weighs about 250Kg. It needed to be manoeuvred out of the sail locker (of course it was below the Genoa, Yankee 2 and the kedge anchor). It was all done using one of the spinnaker halyards, and plenty of crew muscle.

The night was spent on 1 hour anchor watches thoughout the night. I did the 04:00 to 05:00 watch, and much as the others experienced, it was boring, and the big yacht did not move a jot.

The morning weighing anchor was also a heave-ho manual operation. The 40m or so of heavy chain and the super heavy CQR were all brought back on deck, washed and then returned to the sail locker.

The weeks training was rounded off in the usual traditional way with a meal at Pasta City and then some beers (and also vodka and red bull which is a vile combination) at Jesters. The night at Jesters was actually more fun than normal. Peter (the skipper) was off to San Francisco to take over as the training skipper there, and the DJ really got into the BT Challenge theme of things, playing all the current race yachts “songs” and then some special one for Peter (“YMCA” in honour of San Francisco).

So that was the second training session done and dusted. In theory I was now full trained as a crew member for the NWC race in 2002. The training is just aimed at getting the crew up to “safe” standards. The race training (speed), comes in March 2002 in San Francisco on our race boats, in our race teams with our race skippers.

Two weeks later though, I was back on a challenge yacht, this time Challenge 36 – the prototype for the current set of 72 foot race boats. We (twelve of us) had chartered the yacht to enable us to hone our skills, to have more fun and to get the taste of the 72 footer after training on the 67’s.

Well, my bad weather desires were met this weekend. Driving snow, very lumpy English Channel and a force 7 (35kt) wind made for some interesting night sailing. The 72 is supposed to be dryer on the foredeck – well it certainly didn’t seem it. Synchronised swimming was again the order of the night.

We started off a bit ragged on the Friday night, and Saturday didn’t see us fair much better. By the evening though, we had got back into the swing of things and the night watches on Saturday night (mine were 23:00 to 02:00 and 05:00 to 08:00) were excellent. Freezing cold, wet, lumpy but excellent. Sleeping was fun too, with plenty of free falls upwards into the bunk above, and trying to sleep while holding on in order to stay in the bunk.

On the Sunday we played a “Challenge Cans” game, with points on offer for various tasks performed, and cardinals (NSEW), and fairway boys “spotted” (getting close enough to read the name without binoculars. Negative points for doing things wrong, or getting to shallow, or of course hitting anything. We ended up with 460 points, well short of the 800 record, but still feeling pretty good about ourselves. I was doing the navigating and course setting (as well as generally helping out and doing my stint of helming), and apart from getting us too shallow through the North Channel (we were never going to keep the min 5m that they wanted), we seemed to get around the chosen course without too much confusion.

The next sail is arranged. This time it is a nine day sail out of San Francisco from 30 April to 8 May. Again, it will be on a 67 and yet again it will be with Peter.

Maggie, the kids and I all did a RYA First Aid course at the RSYC. It was pretty dramatic, with one of the course participants collapsing onto Tarryn with some sort of minor Epileptic fit. He came around pretty quickly and then of course spent the rest of the course at Southampton General A&E. The course for the rest of us was pretty good. We are all pretty confident with our drills, Doctor ABC, BBC Foreign Service and WATER.

Maggie, Nicky and Tarryn have all written their Music Theory Grade 4 exams, and seem to think that they have done pretty well. The various orchestras are going pretty well, and the Violin, Flute and Cello are all getting plenty of use.

Were are also advancing our summer plans for a circumnavigation of England & Wales (going through the Caledonian Canal from Inverness to Fort William). Maggie’s initial estimates is that it will take 4-6 weeks – up the east coast and then back through the Irish Sea and around Lands End.

Keep checking out www.TheChalmers.com, I am updating it almost daily, so there is always something new to see.

Some Elephants to round things off

Q: Why did the elephant take up the saxophone?

A: She was tired of trumpeting.

Q: What goes clomp, clomp, clomp, squish; clomp, clomp, clomp, squish?

A: An elephant with one wet shoe.

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