yacht news

"The aim of Part A is to get everybody familiar with the functions of a racing yacht, bearing in mind a lot of the crew on board have never been on a boat in their lives. The first day or so was used to demonstrate how to use winches, cleats and safety on board, lots of drills tied up in the marina had to be completed before we were allowed out into the Solent.

"On our first trip out into the Solent we were greeted by 32 knots of wind, more than enough to test a novice crew! After a long day of sailing we came back into Gosport for the night, dinner was served and followed by lots of theory lectures before we could finally go to bed.

"The main sailing of Part A was an overnight sail from Gosport to Portland Harbour. We established a three-hour watch system for the sail to Portland, after a nice sail out of the Solent we got to St Catherine's point and parked for a few hours, this brought on a little bit of watch rivalry when the other team came up to take over.

"Another thing to get used to is being on mother watch, this is a watch of two people who do all the cooking and cleaning for the crew for a whole day. I stuck to simple things like sausages and mash and chicken curry, it all seemed to go down very well with the crew though.

"At the end of the week there was a full debrief with the Skipper and an exam on all the things that we had learnt in the week. For someone with sailing knowledge the exam wasn't too stressful. There was also a deep clean of the yacht, I can think of nicer things to be doing after a good night out with the crew!"