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Batchworth Sea Scout Summer Expedition 2009 In the Summer of 2009 Batchworth Sea Scouts organised two Summer Expedition offshore sailing activities - one predominantly for Scouts and one for Explorers. The first expedition's (Scouts) planned itinerary was Lymington - Poole - Weymouth - Brixham and the second expedition's planned itinerary was Brixham - St Peter Port - Lymington. The second Expedition (explorers) also involved night passages. The following is the full, unedited, log of the Summer expedition, which we hope you will enjoy and find of interest.
Monday 17th August
Dinner was followed by heaving line throwing practice in the local park, much to the amusement of the passers-by. However, we did confirm that if anyone did need rescuing from a lively patch of grass, our Scouts would be more than up to the task!
Tuesday 18th August
Following a leisurely breakfast, we popped out of Poole Harbour shortly after 10am. A couple of tacks to pass Anvil Point then gave us a lovely reach towards Weymouth again with a following tide. Before long, we were able to run into Lulworth Cove, drop the hook, put the pasties in the oven and indulge in a bit of 'halyard swinging'!
Rafting up against the harbour wall in
Weymouth also provided the crew with another experience unique to
cruising and our Scouting Ensign with RN pennant invoked lots of
interest, commendations and approvals from the surrounding vessels. The
evenings activities consisted of various knot tying exercises (very
scouty), plus a few turns on the funfair that happened to be in town
(not so scouty!).
Wednesday 19th August
Waking up to only gentle winds, we duly motor sailed down the eastern side of the Isle of Portland, keeping inshore of the races around the Bill itself. Shortly thereafter however, we were able to crack out firstly full sail and headsail and then our asymmetric spinnaker as tides and beam reaching conditions helped us fly across Lyme Bay. An approaching line of cloud gave us pre-warning to drop our spinnaker before the sun disappeared for the day and the winds came forward of the beam for the remainder of our close reach into Tor Bay and ultimately into the lovely Devon seaside resort of Brixham Harbour.
After refreshing in some of the best showers on the South Coast and waiting for dark to approach, we all headed to the end of the Brixham breakwater with charts and a torch for a touch of light recognition. Various lighthouses, cardinal buoys and lateral marks gave each of the crew a chance to interpret the seemingly random streams of numbers and letters on the charts into actual descriptions of what they were seeing and counting. With the moon set, we were also able to point out the Milky Way, North Star, circulating satellites and other consolations that you'd normally struggle to see in Rickmansworth!
Thursday 20th August
Mid-afternoon, Michael arrived with the relief crew of 4 more Explorers plus Simon Gowing. Together with the original 4 Scouts and Dave, he then headed off to a local Sea Scout campsite before spending the next 3 days wild camping up on Dartmoor, which apparently lived up to its reputation as a moor with very heavy conditions under foot.
Meanwhile, the Explorer team went through an even more thorough safety and domestic living brief in preparation for the morning's departure. For example, the various types of flares, their usages and detonation procedures were talked about, together with more practical issues such as watch patterns and how to live for long periods at a 30 degree angle (always sit down in the heads!).
Alarm call for the Starboard watch was 5am on Friday, to ensure that if we did arrive in Guernsey it would be in time to 'lock-in' to the tidal marina of St. Peter's Port. Slipping our moorings with barely a breath of wind, the sun rise turning the morning skies pink and the forecast for South-westerly F4, it felt like another perfect sailing for our attempted passage across the English Channel. Hoisting full sails as we cleared Berry Head, we set a course on a beam reach to round the southern side of Guernsey some 12 hours later.
With the wind steadily building, along with the size of the swell as we continued to get greater exposure the further south we got, several of the crew succumbed to seasickness with one person definitely regretting having two bowls of weetabix that morning! The change of watch at 8am lead to an in-depth analysis of the situation, with the conclusion being that we would need to revise our plans at the next change of watch at the latest unless either: conditions improved; the crew started to adjust to the conditions; or a further change in conditions would force an earlier decision to be called.
Bryony went below to develop our new passage plan and I took the helm as we were now just shy of a dead run towards Weymouth. We also rolled away our headsail to prevent it flogging behind our main and rigged a preventer.
Saturday 22nd August
However, even this smaller sail
together with full mail and a strong tide underneath us propelled us
along the
After failing to secure a berth in Poole by telephone for that evening (Saturdays in August in Poole..? Not a chance!), we put together a revised plan to ensure our Explorers got to experience some night sailing. Therefore, we rode at anchor until around 6pm before breaking out full sails and running in towards Bournemouth to give RFA Mounts Bay and HMS Cattistock a close inspection as they sat off the beach for the Bournemouth Air Show (which had given us the Red Arrows, a Vulcan and a Eurofighter Typhoon amongst others to entertain us whilst at anchor earlier that afternoon).
Sunday 23rd August
Cleaning was attacked with the normal
gusto you would expect from a crew of teenagers (!) but by the time our
transport arrived we were able to hand over the keys and offer many
thanks to the owner. All in all, we couldn't have hoped for a more
successful week afloat even if we didn't reach one of our original
objectives. The crews all
Batchworth Sea Scouts thanks go to Ben, Bryony, Mike and all the leaders involved in supporting and running this expedition.
We look forward to seeing you soon at Batchworth Sea Scout Group. |
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Copyright © 2006 |
2nd Rickmansworth and Chorleywood Sea Scout Group No. 2007 (Open) - Registered Charity Number 302621 - Scarf Navy Blue |
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With
the skippers travelling down the night before to complete final
navigation and boat preparation, 4 Scouts, 2 Explorer Scouts and Dave
Long were duly delivered to the marina around 10am as scheduled. After
an introduction to domestic life on-board the boat, plus a thorough
safety brief, we departed for Poole with the tide behind us. With the
winds around 18kts apparent, 2 reefs and a slightly furled headsail was
enough to propel us a quite a speed westwards. 
The
kids particularly seemed to enjoy the bounce through the Needles
overfalls, although a couple felt the effects a bit too much and were
duly put into the classic "seasick reduction position", otherwise known
as “lie down and close your eyes”! They swiftly recovered and we all
enjoyed the close hauled tack across Christchurch Bay, arriving into
Poole Town Quay marina around 5pm for showers and some tacky seaside
shopping!
After
lunch, we again continued to race towards Weymouth so each crew member
was able to complete a full Man-Overboard drill under sail alone off the
harbour entrance before we rafted up for the night. Both Bryony and I
were mightily impressed how, time and time again all the young persons
onboard were able to bring Jibe to nearly a complete stop alongside our
fender and drogue (aka Malcolm) using purely sail power.
Thursday
was our 'day-off'. However, Thursdays in Brixham are also 'Pirate
Thursdays' during the month of August, so we spent a happy hour or so
around the town socking up the Devon atmosphere and admiring the replica
Golden Hind. After our packed lunch, we headed off to the local
swimming baths to complete the swimming skills required for the Nautical
Skills badges and to generally let off steam.
Friday
21st August
Needless
to say, 10 minutes after I'd got myself fully off-watch and into my
bunk, I heard Bryony rightly call for a change of course towards
Weymouth and the abandonment of our cross-Channel exploits. As I hauled
myself back on deck to help with the gybe, Bryony explained that a gust
of 27kts had just blown through as they approached the edge of a rain
shower. Turning and running from the shower saved us not only from this
increased wind, but also more importantly from getting wet! 
With
the conditions now becoming increasingly warm, the apparent wind much
decrease and the motion also eased by the new course, most of our
seasick suffers decided life wasn't too bad after all (except for one,
who continued to hug the sick bowl in his bunk until we were within
spitting distance of the land). Our revised passage into Weymouth
proved to be rather a lengthy affair, as we were now facing foul tides
around Portland Bill, as well as having to keep well South to avoid the
races. We did need to tuck in a couple of reefs when we rounded up the
East side of Portland, as further rain showers bought in gusty
conditions once more. However, we again found ourselves rafted up in
Weymouth by late afternoon. 
Our
experiences of having to sail against the tide the previous afternoon,
together with boats inside of us on the raft wishing to depart far too
early for the average Saturday morning, lead to a 7am departure from
Weymouth towards Poole. After having to roll away our Kevlar #3 jib
when running before the wind the previous day to protect its delicate
nature, our first exercise of the day was a headsail change to our
bullet-proof Dacron #4. 
Jurassic
Coast at around 10kts over the ground! As we rounded St. Albans Head,
we even cracked open our Spinnaker and reached even faster around and up
into Christchurch Bay. A few practice gybes followed as we streaked
back and forth off Old Harry, before we dropped anchor for lunch, a swim
and a sleep in Studland Bay (unfortunately not close enough to examine
the nudist beach).
Tacking
back out again, we arrived at Needles Fairway just as darkness was fully
enveloping us. We hove-to within a rope's throw of the big red and
white buoy and held a quick briefing on the expected lit buoys, sectored
lighthouses and leading lights we'd be looking for as we ran up the
Needles Channel and into Lymington. Each crew member then took it in
turns to call out these identifiers from the chart as we bore away and
up the Channel. Finally, the extensively lit Lymington River, with all
its leading lights for the cross-Solent ferries, gave us some great
night navigation exercises before we settled alongside around 10.30pm.
With
Michael due to collect our crew around 3pm, and arguably 2 hours of
cleaning and sail changes to perform before handover back to the owner,
Sunday morning's sail consisted only of popping back out into
the Western Solent for Man-Overboard practices all round. Again, the
Explorers exhibited great precision in bringing the boat alongside our
'casualty', although I reckoned some further practise in wielding of the
boathook could have been useful after we went around again to attempt
to recover our fender for the 3rd time in a row...
showed
great seamanship at all times, handing the helm, ropes and sails without
much instruction after their initial introductions. The weather was
very kind to us and some of our tan marks are going to cause
embarrassment for a while yet! We need to check up on some of the other
criteria required, however everyone made great leaps towards their
Nautical Skills awards.