In addition to the four weeks training MBB receive from Clipper, there are a number of other options to increase skills. Clipper Ventures bought Hamble School of Yachting early this year. The header to this post shows the courses that the crew members have been offered.
Before I start though, I apologise for the deliberate (?) typo in the last post. The VERY LAST WORD! So much for my proof-reading. I’d be sacked if I was still working.
The latest recruit on the Clipper website is a 19 year-old student, Timothy Morgan, must be one of the youngest participants. Makes George seem old in comparison.
And to refer back to 2017/18 race, in Waitrose the other day I saw that they are still plugging it! At first I thought it was for the upcoming race but on peering closely and squinting I saw it was the last one. Didn’t buy it though.
Back to training. George has done quite a few so far and as I type is off to his Week 3 with Clipper. The plan is that I will join in on any theory ones John undertakes, so at least we can attempt to understand each other. As George is busy taking his course here’s John:
The RYA (Royal Yacht Association) has many courses, some of which are:
Essential Navigation and Seamanship, Competent Crew (which MBB already are!), Day Skipper (which George is undertaking), Coastal Skipper, Yacht Master Offshore and Yacht Master Ocean. I think that by this stage you’ll be looking to work in the discipline but I’ll bet there are always other courses. I’ve not seen one for sewing, which they may need when the sails are damaged (as invariably they seem to be).
Other than “pure” sailing courses, there’s radio (my excuse for the heading of this post), radar, diesel engine maintenance (could be useful for my car? Maybe not), weather (always useful in the UK), sea survival, world sailing and offshore safety, first aid….
As George is a St John’s Ambulance recruit he’s got some knowledge of this last topic but what you find in a high street or sports stadium is probably not the same as in the middle of the ocean! Regarding Navigation, this is an Astrolabe, used “in the olden days”. Pretty bit of kit, much more exciting than just looking at a screen. Followed by me with it for scale.
I’m looking forward to a bit of brain work, but we need to get the routine tasks out of the way first. Talking of which, must press on. Next time will possibly be about the Week 3 training unless anything happens in the interim. Or maybe a bit more about the race and how they score the points.
George and John's boating trip no longer 
Sam, I meant to mention before now, I had a drink with George in London the other week, although sadly I had another engagement that evening and could only stay for one. He and I talked about “Mum’s Blog!” 😉
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He did say he’d met someone. We must try to find each other at the May 11th event, crew allocation.
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