Oceans Apart

China Club Cup Report

 

Whilst trying to find out more about China’s yachting events has in the past seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack, China has been playing a quick game of catch-up in recent years, with a number of events and locations vying for position of dop dog on the yachting ladder. Although slightly overshadowed by the heavily funded China Cup, the China Club Cup in Xiamen has grown succesfully beyond its J24 roots with the arrival three years ago of Hip Trader, the Flying Tiger builders, also based in Xiamen. The “Club Cup” continues to attract interest from teams from all over China, which in effect represent a large proportion of the sailing community,

 

Hosted by the Wu Yuan Wan Sailing Club, and organised by Iron Rock Sailing, the Club
Cup now has a well established venue, and with a recent expansion of mooring facilities, including a number of deep water swinging moorings and pontoon access to temporary and visitor berths, it seems likely that yachting in Xiamen will continue to attract further investment and interest.

 

At its inception, the Club Cup was little more than a challenge between two local clubs, using the only boats available at the time, a pair of J24s, which had seen better days. I always found it a bit of a puzzle why they felt the need to base the event on the America’s Cup format, but if you look at the past, with only two boats to play with, the choice actually begins to make sense. Unfortunately that is where all similarities end, and if, by some force of circumstance, the Club Cup final round is actually won by an outsider, the America’s Cup concept is hardly likely to continue to apply.

 

From the point of view of an outsider attending an event in China for the first time, the organisers were both welcoming and gracious, and did their best to accommodate all our needs. The Bejing Ocean Sailing Club Team, or the Beijing Team, as it then became know as, was a last minute collaboration between myself, as skipper, and a group of raw recruits, contacted via out-door activity internet forums, with little or no sailing experience. Therefore this account is partly based on our own experiences.

 

Xiamen really is a jewel on the south-east China coast, for years the rumours abounded of a university town where the university gates opened on to the beach, but such a wonderous place seemed far from the grey-existence of most urban dwellers in China, and without putting fact to fiction, the image remained unsubstantiated in the recesses of my mind for many years. A brief trip to Fujian in 2006 confirmed the existence of such a rare jewel, but the short time available left much to be desired, and the desire to return to Xiamen had been strong in my mind ever since.

 

The news that the entry list for teams for the Club Cup was still open came as a shock to my system, I felt as if someone had just emptied a bucket of cold water over my head. The honest truth is, that although I had known about the Club Cup since its first year, I had not realised that it had developed beyond its original roots. Now I was faced with pulling together a team of 8 including myself, to sail a Flying Tiger, without a doubt the most important sailing craft being manufactured in China at the present.

The Flying Tiger is a high performance sports-yacht as opposed to sports-boat, although where one begins and the other ends is debatable. Generally one thinks of sports-boats in terms of low crew-numbers, possibly in the 4-5 person range, whereas the Flying Tiger really requires a crew of 8 just in terms of providing ballast on the rail to keep the boat upright during racing. The boat was designed to a specific width allowing it to fit into a shipping container for export abroad, and this has resulted in a restricted beam making crew weight an important factor in sailing the boat effectively.

 

From the point of view of a novice team, with an average body weight not exceeding 60 kilos (the 650 kilo maximum weight limit was a distant goal) limited training opportunities and numbers fluctuating between 5 and 8, the objectives were obvious, keep the boat upright as much as possible, try to avoid complex manouevres, and be on the start line at the start!

 

Although the event is heavily sponsored by a number of organisations (who?), the fact that it is held over the National Day holiday (10^th October) results in a hike in other prices, both for flights and accomodation over the event. My choice to leave early by train, whilst aimed at relieving some of these costs, did not take into consideration the poor condition of the line serving the Beijing to Xiamen train service, which winds through what is admittedly impressive sub-tropical mountain scenery at hardly more than a snails pace for 36 hours, arriving in Xiamen early evening.

 

Warnings of Typhoon hipagrip kept reaching me, the crew were getting twitchy, could planes leave? could they arrive? what were the prospects for the event, would it be delayed? The first of the crew to arrive was on the 28^th with Da Feng, a canoeist and paraglider from Shenzhen, who had been “seduced” by my glittering description of life aboard a sailing yacht. With Hipagrip just creeping up the east coast of Taiwan, the forecast was looking iffy, and the afternoon saw some pretty strong winds, even within the artificial confines of the Wu Yuan Bay. Teaming up with Guo Qingbin, his beautiful wife Mu Maren, and a posse of slightly inebriated northerners, a few quick tacks had them moaning in pain, and the subsequent near collapse of one of them resulted in an early return to the shore. Da Feng took it all in his stride, a slight smirk briefly revealing a man with few expectations but great strength of will.

 

Unfortunately we would have to wait for more crew to arrive before we would be able to make a dent in what I had assumed would be our training sessions. With the arrival of three more the next day, we now had the makings of a crew, and it was time to get on the water under our own steam. Linda and her friend Selina, both from Shenzhen, had basic dinghy sailing skills, and I was hoping they would work well as a team. David from Nanjing insisted that he had done some catamaran sailing in Canada, and who was I to argue with him?

 

After a slight delay, we eventually got on the water on the 29^th, our training was limited to a number of tacks and gybes, and a fairly leisurely start to proceedings. I could already foresee that we were probably going to have our work cut out for us during the actual racing, however as the wind dropped off, I decided for a brief attempt with the spinnaker. With Da Feng on the halyard, and Linda briefly on the helm, we popped the kite and gave it a brief airing, before being ordered back in. A somewhat fraught spinnaker drop, with Da Feng letting go the tack-line first rather than the halyard, left me hoarse, soaked in sweat and decided against the use of the kite, certainly for the practice race the following day, for which there would still only be five of us.

 

The 30^th saw us all back at the Iron Rock Sailing Club for a morning briefing and boat draw. It was only during the skippers briefing that it was discovered that due to there being a larger number of teams than boats (a fact that I hadn’t realised previously) that the practice race would be conducted in two groups. We drew the second group, so had more time to relax, and we were then able to observe the first group out on the water. The course seemed to have been set very short, and was quite close in shore. With a fairly stiff breeze the boats had completed two laps of the course within a very short time, and it was soon to be our turn on the water.

 

Returning to the dock, it seemed to take an age to get our team motivated, most other teams had already switched boats and departed before our group were even on board, and this was a characteristic that would last the rest of the week. Eventually our rather light weight crew were on board, and after slight confusion amongst the crew, we eventually approached the startline with only a few minutes to go. As with many aspects of our entry, the pre-start timing sequence was yet another “first” for the crew, and whilst I had a good idea about the flat sequences, none of the crew understood how to time the start, and without a digital timing device, I was left with guestimating the time to the final gun. With other boats swooping down on us from all directions as we made a quick survey of the line, a gybe and a quick tack, whilst leaving the cew somewhat disorientated, placed us in a reasonable position to hold back until the the rest of the boats had finished jockeying for positions. Giving us a reasonable start, regardless of the lack of proper timing. The rapid progress of the race left little room for adjustment, and the crew were already stretched to the limit in getting the jib wound in after every tack, the most notable thing about the course was the effect of the ebb tide, which seemed to be streaming at about 2 to 3 knots. Although the umpire boat seemed to have been able to succesfully set the upwind and downwind marks, the start line was not only skewed, but also slight offset, with the result that the leeward mark was on a line from the upwind mark to the committee boat, with the flood tide under us, our inept tacking left us having to bear away to get inside the committee boat, as the start line was a gate on the upwind leg. On the whole we had the cobwebs blown out of us, and I imagine we were all hoping for a better showing with our full crew (of seven rather than eight) the next day.

 

Race Day 1 at last saw the arrival of our full crew compliment. Nikki had arrived the night before, hot from the walkways of Milan and the hustle and bustle of the Hong Kong metropolis still echoing from her wooden heeled pumps, as she slid exquisitely out from the back of a very seedy taxi that had conveyed her from the airport. A brisk demand for liquid refreshment by what would subequently prove to be a very forthright woman was followed by a meandering taxi ride, as Linda provided what were apparantly useless directions to a location she swore she could be found at and at which said alcoholic beverages might still be available. The next morning saw a very early arrival of Greyhound Annie, named not thus for her sleek lines and athletic gait but for her ignominious arrival in Xiamen by long-distance overnight sleeper bus! Nor were we forewarned of the extended entourage that would be accompanying her, seeming to consist of a distant cousin and her young daughter “Precious” and a young gentleman who appeared to play the role of either chaperone or pimp, but who we subsequently discovered was an acquaintance simply “along for the ride”. As we manouevred this little troop’s equipage in to the foyer of my hotel room, something told me that our team’s fortunes were at last looking up, and boosted by new blood, which had been sadly lacking at the dinner table the night before where we were all but ignored by the other teams toasting each others health on what appeared to be instant recognition, and from which we had slipped away almost totally unoticed, our existance could at last expect some level of acknowledgement.

 

As we gradually wound ourselves up for action, it became apparent to me that key members of my crew were failing to communicate in terms that I would usually associate with yacht racing crews. I had hoped that we would have an opportunity to outline some type of crew strategy, that would somehow allow us to get the kit out of the bag, and I had been relying on Nikki to some extent for having had kite handling experience. A brief discussion about the boat, with which she was not familiar left me with the impression that I might have been misguided in my understanding of her ability.

 

The afternoon saw fairly breezy conditions, but with our extra weight, I was expecting us to be at least more competitive in a straight line than we were the day before. However before we had even reached the start, a rapid tack to put us in a better position on the line found half the crew being caught on the wrong side of the deck when the lazy jib sheet was not released on time and we were caught in a gust, Ann was probably the least well prepared, as slid under the bottom lifeline and was immersed upto the waiste, in addition to losing her shoes; however the main culprits seem to have been Da Feng and David, who had apparently ended up on top of her and Nikki after not holding on to something. In some respects it was moments such as this that made what were essentially a very lacklustre crew more interesting, as when I mentioned that Nikki had actually bought two pairs of shoes with her, I received a sharp rebuff, at which stage I was reassurred by both Nikki and Ann that is was OK to share boyfriends, but not shoes!

 

After a reasonable start considering the conditions, we were able to sail in to third place by virtue of the fact that one of the other teams had managed to hook their kite on the windward mark, although how this would be possible is unimaginable, whilst another team had also wrapped their kite in a fashion requiring their return to the dock.

 

Back at the start for the second race, we again managed to squeeze out a couple of our competitors, with a good start that would have put us third at the windward mark. With the second boat coming across our bows on starboard I decided to push us in close to try to get an overlap at the mark, little did I expect the umpire boat which must have been about 100 metres astern of me to then call me up on a port starboard infringement that had never even been protested by the other boat, especially as they were positioned in a way that they could not possibly have seen the distance between us. As we completed our first 360, and continued in preparation for the second turn, Linda pointed out that the outhaul on the main appeared to be loose. We had had a number of problems with the cleat for the outhaul, but it then turned out that either the outhaul had parted or the knot come undone. We had little choice but to retire, which was unfortunate considering our excellent placing with rising wind strengths, which would have tested other crews kite handling abilities even further. With the outboard going we dropped the main, allowing me to have a proper look at problem, fortunately the reefing line was rigged properly, and we were able to switch this over as a temporary outhaul. We were already making our way gradually back towards the starboard side of the course, but the tide had taken us up to the windward mark, and a rather agitated umpire boat suddenly rolled up to demand to know what we were doing. Evidently a third race was planned, and we were summoned somewhat ignominiously back to the start line. By this stage our crew was beginning to feel the strain. Lagging back slightly at the start, our poor tacking continued to hamper us, and my introduction of a rapid hardening up round the leeward mark followed shortly by a tack in order not to overshoot the committee boat end of the line was misinterpretted on the first of many occassions as “sheet in and then let everything go”. Regardless of this, we were still happy to have got back into the running dispite our mishap in the second race, and with one team still off the water, a fourth was better than last!

 

That evening as we sat gobbling greedily on Old Liang’s Barbecued Fish whilst consuming copious quantities of Tsingtao, the ignominities of the afternoon’s proceedings were far forgotten and the only downturn was Ann’s absence due to her sequestration by the entourage that it turned out was not for her benefit, but for that of the baby “Precious”, of as yet undeterminate origin.

 

Originally, when organising the crew, everyone had been expecting to sail on four race days, as would normally have been the case; overall results from a series would provide a final result, with possibly two discards of one’s worst results. However with the adjustment of the time table to allow teams to race in separate groups, a final result based on overall positions would be impossible to formulate, and as such the fourth and final race day would consist of a final series between the top three boats from each group. From my point of view, introducing a novice team to racing, the more time on the water the better, and with the realisation that time on the water had been cut by as much as half due to splitting in to two groups, my intentions of trying to teach anything to my crew were now meaningless. The best I could hope for is that the crew would be able to familiarise themselves with most of the manouevres they would encounter on a racing yacht, and master tacking and gybing to the best of their abilities.

 

Day two on the water saw us slightly more organised, and the arrival of a fill-in provided by a rival crew had my hopes raised slightly. David was due to disappear off back to Zhejiang the next day, and the fill-in Mr.Zhao was expected shortly. Our early start had us all twitchy, the boat wasn’t set up, I was searching for Ann, who was searching for Zhao, Nikki was searching for a cappucino that never quite appeared, and the other elements of the crew who I would have considered as being the “cement” obviously considered themselves more in the roll of the “elastic”. When eventually we found ourselves onboard, it turned out that the jib had been rigged with the spinnaker halyard, and Mr.Zhao was still nowhere to be seen. Eventually a face appeared in the distance just as we were about to cast off the lines, Zhao at last! To add problems to the day’s proceedings, it transpired that having switched boats, we were now on a boat with self tailing winches, something that none of the crew had come across previously. In addition, Mr.Zhao who had obviously crewed on a flying tiger previously, had decided to cross-winch the jib sheets, so not only were the crew responsible for trimming faced with the problem of self-tailing winches, but they were going to have to cross-winch them also. As we approached the start line, Mr.Zhao was still chatting calmly on his cell phone, raising more than just a few eyebrows. After the first tack of the race it became evident that there was a certain amount of confusion amongst the crew. Nikki for some reason had switched to giving instructions on how they were going to handle tacking in cantonese, and in between “discussions”, the crew seemed to have their minds more on watching the other boats, Mr.Zhao’s chatty disposition and laid back approach fuelled this somewhat, and I found myself having to jolly the crew in to action well in advance of any anticipated action. With Nikki pressurizing me to goose wing the runs, which for some reason was being re-translated from some unknown language into English as “butterfly”, in addition to insisting that moving the jib cars forward manually would assist in setting the jib on the run, a fact that may or may not have been true, but which proved a bone of contention in that she eventually accused me of not allowing the crew to demonstrate their own skills, at which point I unwisely retorted that so far I hadn’t actually noticed that she had any skills, leading to a string of expletives that left me somewhat shocked and the rest of the crew speechless. Although we again managed to hold our own in a straightline, our tacking was dismal, and with yet further repeated errors rounding the leeward mark, with the jib being let fly before the tack was called, we yet again found ourselves last.

 

At the start of the second race we found ourselves running along the line too fast, with two boats to leward also trying not to be over, at the gun everybody luffed, unfortunately our main was still eased too far, and with a gust, our boom was extremely close to touching the gunwhale of the downwind boat, earning us an extremely unfortunate penalty; what would have otherwise have been an excellent start was completely wasted, and by the time we had finished completing the penalties we were yet again in the un-enviable position of being last yet again.

 

That evening the atmosphere at the dining table was somewhat subdued, Mr. Zhao was nowhere to be seen, having invited us to Go Dutch at lunchtime and at this stage it was suspected that his presence in Xiamen may have had ulterior motives. David was due to leave the next day, and there was a slight sadness about the occasion, enlivened by alcoholic raids from other tables which seemed to concentrate more on our as yet unoppened bottle of “bamboo green”; when eventually the bottle came out, I discovered that this was a beverage much to my taste, and realised the source of merriment that seemed to have mysteriously overcome other tables. As our party headed for the door, Nikki neatly ear-tagged another David, a local guailou, whose father was also involved in one of the teams competing. Whether or not this was a cool move is hard to say, David promptly jumped into a taxi, shouting his mobile number at me, intimating that we should follow if we wanted to have a good time. Later that evening as we sat on a broadwalk by the shore listening to 80s classics played by a seedy Philippino trio David’s true forte was discovered as he mimed and strutted his way through a number of 70s classics; with his grateful dead t-shirt, baggy pants and unkempt shock of sandy hair, he potrayed an image more suited to the hippy-trail of the late 60s than 21^st century Xiamen. It had been mentioned a number of times that Selina was a champion salsa dancer, and eventually she was persuaded to take the floor with David, who immediately switched to smooch mode. Whilst obviously flattered by the attention, it was clear that Selina was an easy match for the “little wooly lamb” as she later referred to him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day three dawned with the realisation that we were definitely going to be knocked out of the competition, that we wouldn’t be sailing on the fourth day was not something that I had envisaged, having imagined our gradual improvement over the week with perhaps a more favourable result by the last day. However this was not to be, and that afternoon, having resolved ourselves to the fact that we were out of the competition unless a miracle occurred, we were as usual reasonably placed on the start line and at the top mark, but were yet again rolled over by boats who could handle their kites better, a nifty line to the downwind mark put us inside boats that had gone further right with their kites, but our dismal leeward mark roundings continued to leave us vulnerable. The second race was merely a re-run of the first with the distinction that as this was the last race, with little left to lose, it was decided to get the kite out on the last leg, the last team had left the kite rigged and down the forward hatch, so essentially with the boat on the right gybe, we would have a simple job of hoisting it, whilst Mr.Zhao took the helm. All went smoothly, including a gybe to put us on the approach to the mark, but the drop saw us overshoot the mark considerably, and as we hardened up we discovered that the spinnaker had been dropped on top of the jib sheets, and a struggle ensued to clear the kite in order to shut the hatch. By this point my shorts were beginning to slip, whilst the umpire boat following us watched our antics with delight.

 

 

Later that evening as we sat overlooking the exquisite Bin Hu lakes from the third floor balcony of a rather luxurious café, the real reason for coming to Xiamen suddenly danwed on me. This really was one of the most beautiful cities in China, surrounded by sea, as yet not completely overdeveloped, there were still corners which time had forgotten…

 

The Teams

 

Beijing Ocean Sailing Club Team

 

Shanghai Boat And Yacht Club Team

 

Shanghai Saimeng Team

 

Shanghai Fisherman’s Team

 

Xiamen Wuyuanwan Team

 

Guangzhou Longtai Team

 

Shenzhen Microlab Team

 

Shenzhen Ye Lang Team

 

Hong Kong Tornado Team

 

Xiamen Iron Rock Team

Ramsgate Week 2006 at the Royal Temple Yacht Club - Day 3

12-18 August 2006
By Ashley Taylor, 06:42 16 August 2006

 

Round the Goodwins

Day three of Ramsgate week is the classic race around the Goodwin Sands for the Famous Noot Cup. Torrential rain greeted the starters and did not let up until the boats were on the way home. This year the course was set clockwise around the sands.

In class one Assassin had the best start with Old Mother Gun (Hunphreys 40' P Ferrands) and Ricochet 3 (Grand Soleil 40 Glenn Stone) having a close battle behind. The Geek recovered from a poor start and chased hard.

On the return past Deal, Old Mother Gun closed on Assassin but were unable to pass while the building breeze necessitated several headsail changes. The Geek is the smallest of the class one boats and was hanging in on handicap. At the finish it was Assassin who took line honours from Old Mother Gun but on corrected time Assassin had to share victory tying with The Geek.

 

Ramsgate Week 2006 at the Royal Temple Yacht Club - Day 4

12-18 August 2006
By Ashley Taylor, 18:30 16 August 2006

这个星期1到5我回到家，正好附近的还边小城市进行一个星期的帆船比赛。

Ramsgate Week 是英国东南部的主要赛事，不过今年来参加比赛的帆船有所

减少，今年有可能是因为今年是两年隔一次进行爱尔兰的Cork Week。

 

Ramsgate 的帆船比赛历史还算远， Royal Temple Yacht Club 帆船俱乐部多年前

被当代国王参与比赛被赞美，改名"Royal". Ramsgate 也是因为站地理位置重要就

有发展游艇码头和各种技术服务。因为这个地区有不同的比赛框架，这次Regatta收到不同

影响，而它的组成包括奥运Upwind/Downwind路线和短途海岸路线， 比如 The Round the Goodwins 比赛，

就是绕Goodwins 沙坝， 另外有名的有Elizabeth II 杯和Gold Cup （金杯）。

 

我参加这个比赛第一次在2003年，今年回来 Ramsgate 是跟几年前认识的船主 Peter Jackson， 他也算是我

今年玩龙骨帆船的起源，他是一个经验丰富的，集合长期的经验的老手。 Assassin 就是他大概6年还是7年操作

的 J39帆船， 他的Masthead Rig 跟今年流行的Fractional Rig有所区别加上重叠前帆 (Overlapping headsail)，

给Assassin 一个轻风优势。

 

总的来说Assassin 算是一个比较有技术性的帆船，桅杆调节和升降索拉紧比较重要，在不同情况会起到不同作用的。

 

每次跟Peter Jackson 参加比赛还是需要一个磨合过程，现在的Carbon Fibre (碳纤维) 帆跟以前的不太一样，因为我

会掌握不同操作，也有的时候需要掌握主桅帆操纵索有的时候要掌握船头帆的操作索，我可以配合其他人临时参加。

 

简单的说 Assassin 需要下面的操作站位：

 

Bowman: 船首员：主要操作升降索和三角帆杆和操作索，非常重要，操作三角帆属于赢输的割断

 

Pit: 指挥操作升降索与球帆杆角度和升降， 在Gybe过程与Bowman协调操作非常重要。

 

Halyards: 负责提供拉力

 

Trimming: 三角（船首）帆的操作索调节，两位，包括准备球帆操作索

 

Main: 主帆操作索

 

Helmsman: 舵手

 

Checkstays: 从船尾的两条调节索，与桅杆中间部分联合，起到固定桅杆的作用，换方向需要换右舷左舷。

 

Navigation: 所有的路线现在都用 GPS 卫星导航， 接合穿上其他技术系统可以提供不同的数据和复数。

 

当然帆船的调节措施不限与这个，Assassin 上还有至少另外8个调节方法，不过我现在还不知道中文的正确名字。

 

 

 

总数 9位，如果少一位，就是最后两个可疑结合一个站位，不过比较难。我们赢得金杯时候就是8位组合。不过

风大也可以带11位或者12位。

 

比赛过程我就无法描述，不过我可以说我们星期一取代两位外来船员之后，胜利无比！另外可以看英文比赛结果简要。

 

 

因为现在光看我的空间的朋友已经比较多，我觉得这部分消息可以多加一点内容了。。。

 

2006-8月

 

终于考试完了，今天下午回Chatham, 就结束了。

 

考试过程一天半，四个人轮着开。星期六上午看天气预报，报下午8及风。正好是我们刚开始考试了。

因为天气不方便，我们考试有所简化了。没有天黑做联系。考试前4天有两天带黑天联系，难度比较高，

包括天天夜里1点以后才睡觉。

 

在8及风考试，不能完成所有不同的联系，不过我们开到没有折风的地方，在近海进入考试过程。

轮到我的两个小时就是开回附近的码头找合适地方过夜因为风速已经太高了。 在一个鱼船旁边过夜，整

夜在听风的疯叫， 幸亏我们没有再出去。第二天早上，裁判好象已经满意我们的技术，稍微做一些回答问题，

然后回去就结束了。裁判高兴的说都通过考试了。

 

好累。。。。。。。。。

 

2008-8月

 

说实话，在那个星期的经历，考试不是最有难度的。确实我们培训中心的老总， David就是看着我们不顺眼。因为学校的船，一条Bavaria 46, 两个星期在航行中已经掉舵了，无法继续使用，而换了一条租来的Beneteau 40.7。我们回到Rochester时候只好，继续用40.7为了完成考试和考前高级培训。

 

David 是很有经验的高级教练，而且对我们的海域非常了解。Medway 本来是一条复杂的海河，包括很多淤泥滩，有一些导航比较难的小港，低潮时候几乎都是干的。

我们的培训包括准备用最好的方法测定在没有明确浮标的小港进行领港联系。

 

David 另外喜欢给我们加倍的联系是夜间导航。RYA课程里面一通不允许用GPS导航。所有的课程和考试都不让用。必须手画在图纸。在夜间完全用这种方式做导航比较复杂，特别是在泰晤士河河口，运船平准次数在5分钟一条，让大家感觉比较累。 不过大家后来对罗盘方位比较熟练。

 

David另外喜欢加倍的联系是在帆力下锚和收锚，平时Bavaria 46 有个电动辘轳，但是40.7没有，只靠人力收回。这个联系每次用两个人手拉锚，我们4个人都要指挥两次，这样每个人至少要拉锚4次，实在受不了，我们全体要求不再练习了。

 

考试过程有一些可以加以说明，有一些练习要没有动力时候去做，其中一个是回去和离开系泊浮筒在帆力下，其实在培训过程有很多不同条件要做出这个练习，比如说顺风顺潮，逆风顺潮，逆风逆潮，顺风逆潮，等等，这些我们都有了所需要的准备，但是在最高3级风条件。这次是6级风在增加。第一个练习的，船头抓浮标的手受伤了，第二次我指挥的，我派的人没有吧绳子穿过浮标的环够快的，差点失手了，结果需要第二个人帮助吧绳子从船头下面拉回来，因为风的作用已经要吧船吹到浮标上，第三次，旁边的人也是抓不住，我帮忙的时候手也被绳子压到船头上，几乎拉不回来。现在有一些模糊了，虽然是两年前的事，但是确实那天做的都超出我们培训范围很远的。 下无我们截止做救人联系和一些其他导航联系， 但是风速已经达到8级，部分夜里该做的联系就取消了。舵归我了，然后逆风顺着海岸潜水去回去。我们已经Reef 到三，留着大概5分之1的前帆，河口短短的小浪一个一个被吹进来，我们四个学生连教练David和主考Steve, 看到太阳一通大乐。虽然我在导航联系过程因为地滑，要跑下来看海图 而滑下所有的梯子，并头跟着屁股腿从身下飞出来甩过整个船舱，我只后背有少许擦伤，只好夜里要睡觉前擦红花油自理了，受伤更严重的是舱口旁边的望远镜木头架子，正好给我做吧手，但是架子跟着我飞走了。

 

好像主考看着我们做的联系也已经精疲力尽了，大家喝玩酒，吃完David非常和谐表现做出来的热餐后，就个归个船位，在风骚声和浪轻轻的泼溅立刻入睡。

到了第二天我们听到主考吩咐我们准备笔试时候，就大叹一口气了。

 

就这样顺利通过了。。。。

 

 

Rather a retrospective I am afraid to say, we saw little of the race they call the Eirish, our activities being restricted to those of the nautical, domestic and ingesting kind, the scenery was fantastic, rocky outcrops bedraped with gannets nests and puffins havens, safe from the rages of the North Atlantic swell.

 

The west of Ireland seemed in some ways like the edge of the known world, a weird and wonderful landscape falling into the sea, broken in places by huge cliffs, wide bays and deep inlets. Islands abound, some rough and barren, some verdant and fecund. Life is dominated by the sea, sea life abounds to an unprecedented extent, flocks of seabirds resting amidst the waves are never far between, unruffled by the elements, unlike ourselves thrust from side to side in a constant dance.

 

......