White Squall

At 0800 this morning I handed Command to Hayden Oberin and Voyage 02/01. Their day so far has been plagued by fluky winds and freak storms. We had to cancel the BAT team going ashore at Mornington and postponed it to tomorrow morning. Nevertheless they are doing well and putting up the good fight. Their mission is to sail to Port Melbourne and find some Tall Ships enroute. Everybody’s spirits are high and I think they are glad to be in control. There have been frustrations and disappointments but they are coping and taking on the challenges presented to them. I would like to mention one thing though – I thought they were all extremely brave and courageous to go aloft and furl the sails as the white squall approached us. They did it in record time and showed that they were real heroes. I needed a job done in tough conditions and they answered the call. Well done, team.Youth Crew entry by Nicole Robson, 22, Narrogin WA ��� Today is the BIG day, Command Day. It’s the moment we have all been working towards. The last 8 days have been spent learning the outlay of the ship, where the ropes for sails are, how to set and furl, clew or brail the sails and safe handling on deck. We have been challenging ourselves and forever learning new and exciting things. So, this morning we all got up and were ready and raring to go and we had no wind. We have been challenged by very difficult wind changes all day so far and it is a little frustrating but everybody on board has been terrific, all working together, putting ideas forward and it seems we are constantly changing the sails due to changes in the wind direction. We spent about an hour and a half just sitting in the bay outside of Mornington unable to go anywhere. We then decided to get the engines running and motor sail for a while. As we were getting that organised huge storm clouds began to build up and creep towards us. We received notice from the weather station at 1515 that there was a storm weather warning in our vicinity. The staff crew took over command of the ship and we gasketted the sails. At around 1530 there was dead calm and then out of nowhere BAM! The white squall hit and we had the perfect storm. It was impressive ��� we had 100km/hour winds, thunder, lightening and very intense rain. It lasted for around 20 minutes then conditions eased and we soon took control of the ship again. We are currently heading toward Melbourne and need to arrive before 7.00 tomorrow. Best of luck to all the crew overnight and Mum, Dad, Kel, Adrian and Hayley I will see you all soon. Loving every moment of this voyage. Love Nic.Stay tunedAndrew Davis