A Gruelling Command

Situation at 22:00 – What a mighty job Captain Leon and his intrepid crew did yesterday. After a gruelling 26 hours in command, the Youth Crew successfully took us from Scawfell Island to Flat Top Island just three miles south of Mackay Harbour. They also completed a huge number of tasks along the way. The day began at around 0500 with that now all too familiar call of ‘Hands to Tacking Stations’. We tacked first to the north atabout 0510 and after gaining our navigational Waypoint we then tackedback to the south (0530) in order to commence our run in to the anchorage. At 0804, within 4 minutes of the prescribed time the Youth Crew had put us at our anchorage and we finished the sailing element of the Command Day.At 1030 after another fantastic set of cleaning stations and some other tasks had been completed, Captain Leon called it a dayand relinquished his temporary command back to me. It had been a hugely successful day with a great number of the tasks completed and a successful sail to Mackay. It was then time for Rope Races and a return to the cooking of Stonii. Following lunch, it was time for possibly the most important phase of the Command Day, the debrief. This important event wasconducted by XO – Paige, Navigator – Phil and Watch Officer Jarrod. They were all backed up by the various Watch Leaders. Someinteresting conversations ensued in which many lessons from the Command Day experience were explored and then transferred to real life situations. This is important, as to really gain any development from the experience, YC must be able to relate the lesson’s to theirnormal lives. It never ceases to amaze me just how well the Officer’s and Sailor’s of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) are able to conduct this type of facilitation.After completing the debrief, YC were then given some free time to try to re-cuperate from the rigours of Command Day and inorder to prepare their acts for the evening activities. This evening saw the conduct of the traditional Sod’s Opera (Ship’s Concert), each watch was required to perform one act and the staff wrote a special play. The evening was enjoyed by all and proved very successful.Finally all the YC and Staff are closed up for the evening in Anchor Watches and looking forward to a bit of extra sleep after a hard day. Tomorrow will be no less busy as we begin to look beyond the voyage and towards our entry into Mackay.Thought of the Day:’Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything counts…’ – AnonMore to Follow,Paul BarrieLEUT, RANActing Commanding Officer