See the webpage listing all Training Events for further details.

If you are interested in taking a RYA practical course, I can now teach Comp Crew, Day Skipper, Coastal & YM prep course so read on…

I’ve had a Yachtmaster Offshore qualification for almost 20 years now but 5 years ago I agreed to get involved with formal RYA training for BTOSC.  Since your membership subscriptions have supported me in this I thought you might be interested in my experiences as an instructor so far.

The Cruising Instructor Course

The first stage in becoming an instructor, after becoming a Yachtmaster & sailing 10,000nm, is to take a 5 day Cruising Instructor (CI) course which is part assessment and part learning.  I remember learning lots and correcting some thoughts I had held for many years.  As a CI you can teach Competent Crew & Day Skipper practical courses.  Over the past 5 years I’ve run 1 or 2 courses a year for BTOSC depending on demand.

The Cruising Instructor qualification has to be renewed every 5 years to ensure you are still up to date with the current thinking and your skills are OK.  At this point you also have the option to progress to Yachtmaster Instructor (YMI) which also qualifies you to teach Coastal Skipper, Yachtmaster Prep weeks and shore based theory courses.

The Yachtmaster Instructor Course

Well I like a challenge. Last week I took the YMI course and passed.  So the good news is I will now try to organise a Coastal Skipper/Comp Crew course later this year.  If you have been waiting to do your Coastal Skipper practical course this could be the time!

The YMI course was pretty much like any other RYA course in that it started on Sunday evening and ran till Friday with 4 students and an instructor. I met some great people and had good fun on the water.  The instructor was a YM examiner/professional skipper with 250,000nm sea miles and 20 years of teaching YMs.

There were introductions on the first night with an overview of the week.  The main difference to other courses was that a lot of exercises were run by the students with a general review at the end of each exercise.  The exercises started being pitched at Comp Crew and progressed to Day Skipper, Coastal and then Yachtmaster Offshore.  The course covered most things in the RYA syllabus but also included teaching techniques and, for me, new ways to run some of the lessons.

During the week the instructor was constantly assessing us and on Wednesday evening gave us a frank assessment of our suitability to become YMIs.  I was happy with my progress but the following morning one of the students jumped ship as he realised it was not for him.

Thursday then focused on our weaknesses.   Thursday evening brought more debriefs and then our instructor left the boat so that another instructor could join us on Friday.  The new instructor felt like an examiner, but his role was simply to ensure standards are maintained across instructors.  The new instructor set us exercises but also gave advice.

I was asked to give a 10 minute lesson on stability and then asked to sail the boat into the river Hamble and berth her all under sail.  With wind and tide together I was able to use the main & headsail until lines & fenders were ready and then I sailed alongside the pontoon and tied up.  It all felt good but I was then asked about my teaching method?  What teaching method? I didn’t hear him ask me to do it as an instructor!!  Not a problem, do it again but this time as a lesson.  So I sailed off the pontoon and taught a lesson involving the use of a mid-ships lasso led back to the genoa winch to assist with berthing in such circumstances.

So, with my new found knowledge and skills I am looking to run 2 courses this year.  In April I would like to run a Day Skipper/Competent Crew course and then later in October a Coastal Skipper/Comp Crew course.  So if you are interested in getting started or furthering your qualifications get in touch.  As you know the club’s prices are very competitive as the aim is to help BTOSC club members to progress their sailing.

Yours,

Chris Price

Chris.2.price@o2.co.uk

07802 232776

If you are a member please see the list of forthcoming events.  Because the yachts have to be chartered it is essential to book ahead.  These days it is also possible to arrange 3 days for the price of 2 but to do this we need members to sign up early and have that conversation.

To reserve a berth on any event or for more information about the event you need to contact our Cruising Secretary Hazel Bagnall by email on btosccrew@gmail.com or preferably the relevant Event Manager where this is specifically identified.

To contact other members of the committee please refer to  Club Officers.

All berths have been allocated for the 2012 race. This remains a big event on the Solent sailing calendar and last year there were nearly 2,000 entries. It is a fantastic experience sailing alongside over 1500 other boats round the Isle of Wight.

If you are interested in participating in next years’ race , please get in touch. Don’t worry if you don’t have much racing experience – we will try and spread the experience across the boats.

More information can be found here:

http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk

Cost: £340 per berth [this event is a little more expensive to cover race entry/insurance]

If you would like to take part in this or any other events on the programme, please let Hazell know at btosccrew@gmail.com

• First Aid
• VHF
• Radar

If you are thinking of doing one of these this is a good opportunity to save some money.

See http://tallships.org/qualifications/rya-shorebased-courses/

You will also be helping the Trust at the same time!

Chris Price

For those that don’t know, the Blue Cup is a cunning initiative by local yacht hire firm Vernicos to put 42 boats on the water at the very end of their season by arranging their own regatta. So – good for Vernicos, but also great for us – part racing, part holiday (and part alcoholic binge – but let’s gloss over this). The racing took us from port to port moving south around the Saronic, with a couple of days free sailing to return to Alimos Marina (a 45 min bus ride out of Athens International Airport).

We were quite lucky with the weather, sunshine most days, no rain, no storms. OK, the wind was too light on a couple of days, and it was coolish (especially in the evenings), but it would be petty to complain about this. I’ve got sunburn on my nose, and we saw some great sunsets. And, as Peter pointed out, a bright moon was floating over our evenings in the classic manner.

Our boat was an Oceanis 40, named “Alexandra”. Our crew, left to right in picture: Mark Gaastra (tactics), Hazel Bagnall, Peter Kinsella, Roy Cullers, Mike Griffiths (skipper), John Kelly (myself).

The icing on the cake (honey on the kadaifi?) was that we came first in one race (within class A), and 11th out of 42 boats overall. A good effort for a scratch crew, we thought. It has to be said that our performance was patchy: great speed off the wind, but decidedly indifferent upwind, and our ranking race by race depended a lot on the course set. But still a good result. Races on the first 2 days were timed out due to light winds (ie, the fleet drifts for 6 hours, then race is abandoned and no-one gets a result). But on the third day the course had 2 legs, and the Vernicos race team managed to fit in 2 races on the 4th (last) day, so we all had 4 results in total.

The other 41 boats were from all over, although mainly European. Worth mentioning is the huge Norwegian contingent; mainly from the Stavanger area. They evidently have some local organisation, and have decided to put the Blue Cup on their racing calendar. We believe it to be a Norwegian boat that flew an inflatable sheep amongst its flags, and it was certainly the Norwegians that provided the most extravagant partying.

We visited some lovely ports around the Saronic. Most of these would be packed with holidaymakers (many Athenians, with or without boats) in the high season, but we had them largely to ourselves. Some of the tavernas etc had shut up, but there were quite enough still open to give us all the choice we needed.

The Blue Cup results can be viewed at http://bareboat.vernicos.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=177:results-2009&catid=60:blue-cup&Itemid=152.

My photos of the week can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/johndavidkelly/sets/72157627971236305/

Mark has placed our track for the whole week (as recorded on GPS) onto a map (google); this is included in my photo set.

There follows a brief day by day account.

Saturday 29th, fly into Athens and are bussed to the marina.

Sunday 30 Oct. Free sailing from Alimos Marina to Epidavros. Wind N F4. Fast reach, 1 reef in the main for part of the trip. The fleet moors up around 3 sides of wide jetty. Whole fleet eat in large and characterless restaurant up behind the front; food, wine, Greek dancing etc.

Monday 31 Oct Palea Epidavros – Methana. The first race starts in light NW, which quickly falls to nothing. Whole fleet is drifting, some in circles.  We while away the time with discussions on laminar flow (very serious) and uphill sailing (slightly less so). Roy clarifies the semantics of “zoom” – it’s a relative term, and can be defined as “twice the speed of the person uttering the term”. So, eg, a boat creeping by at 0.2 knots can correctly be said to be zooming if at the time we are only doing 0.1 knots (which we were).

The race eventually times out while we are south of Angistri. Motor in. Stern to on long quay. Town welcome committee offer free ouzo on the quay, things become a little blurry after this. It might have been this evening that Hazel was heard, soco voco, “let me just crawl over to the gin”. (Perhaps less incriminating than might appear at first – the gin was stashed in a locker in front of which we had piled our sailing bags, so crawling was the only practical option – short of giving up on the gin and cracking another can of Mythos instead).

Methana is pretty little town with long beach. There’s a volcano behind it, and a whiff of sulphur in the air.

Tuesday 1 Nov Methana –Poros. Again race starts in light winds which then fall light. Alternative course 2 has been set – out to Platia, then back around west side of Poros. Roy educates us on “making tacks” (none of them do, in this day’s racing), and notes at one point that we are at least “drifting in the right direction”.

We seem to improve as we approach Platia, and the proximity of other boats gets us concentrating – we overtake several boats. Then the race times out, and we motor into Poros.

Bows to into other boats on quay (NW end of quay). Poros is nice town, bigger than others we have been to, but with good feel to it.

Wednesday 2 Nov Poros – Souplia – Ermioni. Start in lightish winds, but it comes up 3-4 for the race. We make a good start, leading for most of the way, overtaken only by boat 10. Once through the gate at Soupia, 10 looses it, and we pull away from all. Only overtaken by a handful of boats from faster classes towards the end.

Ermoni is un pre-processing village, but we walk over short hill to the other side of the promontory on which it is built, and it is prettier here. Have drinks overlooking the sea, and check out a possible restaurant for dinner. Walk around the promontory on the way back. In evening all go to fleet meeting, and Mike picks up our prize. Then buffet food is offered, so we stay for this.

Thursday 3 Nov Ermoni – Porto Heli. Weather again starts light but wind builds to 3-4. Committee boat sets a short triangular course in the morning. Beat to the first mark close under the cliffs at Ak. Thermisi. Gusts at this mark caused most of us problems. Then run to Dokos island, and beat back to the line. With two beats, our weakness upwind was exposed and we came in well down in the fleet.

After a short break (lunch on the run), there was an abrupt start sequence (leaving us 200m off the start when the gun went), then a largely downwind course to Porto Heli. We pulled out well in front of the fleet until the last mile or so, when we came around the corner and had to beat into Porto Heli: we lost several places on the beat.

Porto Heli is a largish and sprawling town, not particularly attractive, but surrounded by expensive Athenian real estate. Prize giving dinner in town, with everyone getting their 15 seconds of fame. Much drunken cavorting from the Norwegians.

Fri 4 Nov Porto Heli – Perdika (Egina). Free sailing day. Set out earlyish (8:30) from Porto Heli. With northerly 3 (occasionally 4) blowing, we opted to motor most of the way. We sailed for an hour or so in the afternoon, taking the opportunity to try to improve our upwind sailing. But though we pulled and pushed on every available control, nothing made any noticeable improvement in our pointing angle or speed, so we have no earth shattering breakthroughs to report.

Perdika, on SW side of Egina, was a delightful small and quiet village, with just us and a few locals in the cafes watching the sun go down. Dinner in taverna close to the boat. There was fresh fish on offer so we stuffed ourselves, to the gills one might say, but also with the gills, in the case of the smaller fish, eaten whole. At one point the owner went down to the quay to meet an incoming fishing boat, a returned with a bulging plastic bag: presumably re-filling the fridge for tomorrow’s diners.

I rose early next morning, walked around the bay and knocked off a quick watercolour view of the place. But on later inspection it not only fails to look like Perdika, it fails to look like much at all. Too much wet in wet. I blame the unhealthy influence of JW Turner.

Sat 5 Nov Perdika (Egina) -  Alimos. Full breakfast in cafe overlooking the harbour. The motor round to Egina town, noted for its pistachios. Then back to Alimos.

Sun 6 Nov. Athens and home. After hand over of boat in morning, we had several hours spare so took the tram into Athens and did the Parthenon, in true tourist style. Then back to the beach restaurant by the marina where half of Athens were treating their elderly relatives to Sunday lunch, all tailored leather jackets and Jackie Onassis sun glasses. Then on to the airport and home.

 We soon found out it was POETs day in the Cowes marina as at 21:30 we could not raise anyone on VHF or mobile, so we sneaked in under the cover of darkness and found ourselves a berth.  This is a good idea as you can choose your berth and not suffer being allocated that impossible berth which all marina staff like watching you make a mess of.  In fact it was POETs day everywhere in Cowes as even the chippy was closed. So dinner was eaten sat on a window ledge in a dodgy kebab shop. Food all weekend was a bone of contention as I had forgotten the lettuce and was not allowed to forget it.

Saturday saw us awake in Cowes to sun and a southerly wind.  We chose to sail across to the Beaulieu River where we entered under sail and edged up the channel.  Here we decided to practice picking up a mooring buoy.  Afterwards we motored up to Bucklers Hard and then returned to the Solent edging out over the Beaulieu spit with the depth alarm sounding. Clearing the spit we sailed for Gosport with an approach to Wotton Creek built-in.  Blonde moment 2 occurred in Gosport when yours truly thought it would be a good idea to remove the spring line which was taking the strain against the pontoon. Dinner was in the Castle Inn.

Sunday started with a freshening wind as we set out from Gosport heading back to the central Solent and the Medina River where we planned to lunch out of the weather.  Leaving Portsmouth Harbour the wind was still from the South but very gusty and the sea was confused.  With 2 reefs in, the helmsman had some difficulty controlling the boat. We added a 3rd reef, changed the point of sail and had a much better ride into the Medina.  We motored up the river to East Cowes where we practiced some pontoon bashing and Andy demonstrated excellently ferry gliding. After lunch we set out back into the Solent for a final sail and our return to Hamble Point.   Around the Brambles Bank our 3rd blonde moment occurred when Ghengis got his left & right and port & starboard confused whilst throwing in some wind direction for good measure, regarding right of way. He is most definitely mellowing as his only comment was “good point” when his confusion was subtly pointed out.

Overall an enjoyable weekend, some good sailing and a lot of learning points thrown in, with some good weather for the last weekends sail before the Christmas Jolly.

Ian Davis

Crew: Andy Shrimpton, Ian Davis, Dave Fordham, Colin Ray, Dave Watson, and Peter Scott.

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