Voyage 6/13 Day 7 – Sea to Port Stephens

Ahoy there Shipmates,Overnight the ship continued to beat to windward against the 20-25 knot southerlies and into the 2-3 metre southerly swell. We eagerly awaited the forecast easing of the wind speed to 10 knots however when this hadn’t occurred by 0200 it was necessary for the White Watch to brail the Mainsail and furl the Fore and Main Staysails to enable us to motor directly south. The purpose of this was to position ourselves to be able to conduct Captain’s Setting and Furling in the lee of the approaches to Port Stephens. Blue Watch’s Wakey Wakey song is attached below.We held Morning brief at 0900, attended by ‘Salty’, who explained the nautical origin of the expression ‘to be a loose cannon’ and ‘Nana’, who once again had found a pile of clothing left lying around the sleeping quarters. She also added the song ‘Knife, Fork, Spoon – Spatula’ to our repertoire. The watches were then given some time for setting and furling practice. At 1030 I commenced Captain’s Setting and Furling Drills, which enable me to evaluate each watch’s ability to safely set and furl sails, without staff present. This is a requirement before progressing to Command Day. All three watches passed the assessment.While they were still on a high after their success in the morning assessment, I gave the youth crew my Captain’s challenge, which was to set all the fore-and-aft sails, without any input from staff, within one hour. This they easily completed safely and competently in half an hour!We then headed in to Port Stephens, anchoring again off the marina. Watch Leaders then took the opportunity to give the watches some more climbing practice before I briefed the youth crew on the aims and requirements of Command Day, which is planned to occur between 1pm tomorrow (Mon 22) and 1pm Tue 23. They were then given 45 min to conduct their Command Day elections, the results of which are as follows:Captain: Emelie RossSail Master: Matt CourtNavigator: Mitch ScottWatch Leaders: Beau Zourlos, Patrick Levitzke and Maddy PiconeWatch Officers: Jack Bateman, Nellie Metcalfe and Caitlyn ConwayChefs: Lachlan Fairbank, Tess Power and Katelin MogfordCongratulations to all members of the Youth Crew for what they have achieved in the Voyage so far and to those successful office holders for Command Day.After dinner we screened the film ‘Around Cape Horn’, which details the adventures of Captain Irving Johnson when he sailed as an ordinary seaman through storms around Cape Horn onboard the massive bark ‘Peking’.The intention is to remain in our current anchorage overnight and conduct the handover of the Ship to the Youth Crew at 1300 tomorrow. That will begin the adventure and challenge that is Command Day in Young Endeavour.Until tomorrow evening when we will also hear from Youth Captain Emelie.Yours AyeCaptain Mike BLUE WATCH WAKEY WAKEY SONGSUNDAY 21 APR 13A little bit of Shano makes us smile,haven’t seen the sun in a little while.Sayos and shapes go pretty quick,a meal from Squiz will do the trick.Nana comes to clean up the ship,checks our rooms and collects our shit!Dave’s got a smile like a Cheshire cat,Doug makes us laugh with his safety hat,Got some new lingo from the Salty dog,Everyone’s enjoying the Captain’s log,When we aren’t feeling up to scratch,Tilly kindly gives us a patch.Tim looks like a Swiss lumberjack,so why would he give navigation a crack?Fire the canons, come on Guv,It’ll be something we’ll all love.Sick of being stuck out at sea,A little bit of land is what we need! “