2013.11.06 Day 10 V18/13

Ahoy there Shipmates, A well deserved night’s rest in the Wellington Harbour. Winds of 25 knots and some showers and rain were how the day started and as it turns out would pretty much remain. That didn’t stop Sail Master Guv from waking us up early with one of his Retro tunes for a quick early morning activity followed by breakfast. This was then followed by a snappy Staff Morning Brief, the Staffies got the Ship underway and heading up the harbour while youth crew conducted Happy Hour and helped Chef Luke prepare the finger-food lunch we would share with our guests. We berthed at Queen’s Wharf Wellington at 0930 embarked 25 guests from the Wellington Girls College to participate in the half day sail. We departed the wharf at 1020 and, despite the terrible rainy weather and winds between 20 and 30 knots we spent the next couple of hours sailing around Wellington Harbour entertaining our guests. We set fore and afts as we made our way across the Harbour west to east. We then weared-ship and commenced our westerly return journey. During the day the Youth Crew hosted the visitors, conducting tours of the Ship, involving them in setting and furling sails and generally spending time with them while they were onboard. In blustery conditions we returned alongside Queen’s Wharf to disembark our guests at 1230. Once we’d done a quick tidy-up of the Ship the Youthies headed-off in their watches to do their end-of-voyage chats facilitated by their watch leaders. When they returned it was time for the final edition of ‘Ropies’ after which we conducted a neat sea-furl of the square sails. To achieve this all of the Youth Crew proceeded aloft on the yards to stow the sails inside their UV covers. Staffies Caitlin and Jen did a great job setting this up, by laying aloft and securing the clew rings on each of the yards. Due to the weather the decision was made to keep the ship alongside Queen’s Wharf overnight and to asses the weather conditions in the morning as to whether we would head out for one final sail. The Youth Crew then completed some end-of-voyage paperwork, after which Luke treated us to a pizza night! Once that was complete all the Youthies sang a fantastic song about the voyage and then we all viewed a slide show which did a great job of depicting the voyage, which was composed primarily by “Dutchy” Corneels de Waard, with some assistance from Will Parish and Mollie Neate. It was excellent and I think everyone on board really enjoyed watching the evolution of the voyage unfold in a well put together brief presentation. We then encouraged everyone to ‘hit the sack’ after a fulfilling day! Until tomorrow evening, Carpe Diem! Yours Aye Captain Dion Curtis