Tall Ships Sailing

Sailing Trip report from Mr. Mackintosh

Our pupils were fantastic on the sailing trip last week, along with the marvellous Ms Thompson. I am a very experienced off shore sailor and the conditions last week were amazing and daunting.  On Tuesday we sailed close hauled from Cowes, past The Needles, and on to Poole with all the biggest sails up hitting 11 knots – this is really fast.  The sun was out, and it was a beautiful day.  As we came into Poole Harbourt the SBS were practicing picking up motor boats from the sea with a Chinook helicopter, a photo of which was in Thursday’s Times newspaper.   Freya has a particularly good video of this.  On Wednesday we made the return trip to Yarmouth with open small sail up in driving rain, heavy seas, and wind gusting gale force seven.  For novices this would have been very scary.  Our team were great.  No one complained or moaned.  They did everything that was asked of them.  A few stayed on deck for the whole journey including Hassan Kazmi, who had been seasick.  On Thursday in Yarmouth harbour all but one climbed the mast, most to the very top.

The yacht crew thought we were great and would not have attempted the voyages outlined above with a less keen and cohesive group of young people.

The amazing students who attended were:

Kacie-Rose Woodman

Freya McClennan

Elpida Hileyesus

Ava Andrews

Isabella Coates

Gary Hudson

Abdullah Siad

Bilal Mehmood

Hassan Kazmi

Ilyas Ahmed

Thank you to Mr Mackintosh for leading another successful sailing trip and Ms Thompson for supporting this opportunity.