Day 8 – Command Day Part 1…Farewell Batemans Bay!
Ahoy shipmates…Day 8…Command Day, and Captain Kenny has left the building (temporarily!)…over to Captain Will and his merry bunch!
Ahoy there shipmates and other readers, Youthie Captain Will here! We are in to our very exciting eighth day of the voyage, it’s command day today, and we will have control of the ship for the next 24 hours!! We started our day off with a 0630 wake-up call and a game of “knights, cavaliers, and mounts†after a few laps of the deck. After the deck game we went on to have a delicious barbeque brekky of bacon and egg rolls cooked by Marcus and his assisting chefs. We then moved on to our regularly scheduled morning brief with visits from our favorite characters, Harry gave the rough plan until handover, Jerome read the weather and told us about Black Rock, Tracey gave a riveting performance about the ship’s Cat, and Captain K gave us some inspirational quotes to steel our minds for the challenges ahead. After setting the main staysail and bracing the yards, we moved onto the beloved and happiest hour of the day…. Cleaning the ship. Following this snappy happy hour the newly elected command team had a brief and informative chat with our staffie equivalents getting some much needed advice. Then the almighty and feared moment came, Captain Kenny handed over his Cocked Hat and Telescope of Challenge, and command of this fine brigantine to the youthies. Following this ceremony the newly appointed command team began to put in motion a sail plan, but with little to no wind the Young Endeavor was becalmed like an upside down turtle. However, thanks to our new captain’s amazing skills of negotiation we were given permission to use one of the two engines to help us make up for lost time and lack of wind.
It took a few hours for the wind to eventually pickup, but once it did we were quick to set our sails and get moving. Once the engines were cut off we were achieving 4 knots of speed from sails alone. At around 1400 the wind freshen to 16 knots allowing us to make good speed south and pass within 3 of our 5 waypoints. With our current speed, our ETA is around 0100 on Monday the 25th. After we built up a steady pace, Thalia than ran all three watches through a knot tying class followed by an indulgent Italian themed dinner at 1715. This was cooked entirely by our three command day chefs Thalia, Baz, and Arie. Following dinner all three watches gathered on deck at mid-ships for an afternoon brief and began one of our command day tasks, wrapping up at about 1900. Overall it was a big day for all youth crew members as taking command of the ship has proven both exciting and challenging, putting to test all the knowledge we have obtained on our voyage so far. It has the command team appreciate how much work really goes into organising a crew and sailing a tall ship. Hopefully we will be able to continue improving our own skills and knowledge over the last 3 days of this voyage.
Latitude/Longitude:
Conditions:
Wind: NE at 16 knots Weather: Overcast Sea: Moderate Course: 160 Speed: 5 knots Location: NE of Merimbula