Another Challenge Melbourne Training

It’s been far too long since I updated you guys about what’s been happening recently so I thought I’d get it all down in one. As the Rolex Sydney Hobart project has now been announced, we can all talk about it freely which is great as it was all a bit of hush hush leading up to the launch. The project has been a long time in the planning and it’s been fantastic to see it come together bit by bit, right from the outset back in the middle of last year.

The crew got together for a week long shake down prior to the launch which was great, as we wanted to see how the crew would gel, and what level we are at with our technical ability. Will, Pete and I arrived in Melbourne late Monday evening, with totally messed up body clocks and pretty starving too. We met up with Jess and Chris who very kindly drove us to our place and we immediately set out to hunt for some food. Our stomachs sure were very unhappy to see that everywhere was shut, and so, we raided the vending machine!! 20bucks later we were much happier!

Most unusually for Pete and I being typical students, we woke up at 6am bright and wide awake. Our body clocks were slowly adjusting... That day we took a trip around Melbourne to get our bearings and the rest of the crew arrived and it was fantastic to meet them all. A super bunch!

The next two days were straight into sailing, but with a very relaxed approach. Some of the crew hadn’t done much yacht sailing having come from small performance boats and so it was a great relaxed learning curve. I was sure pleased to see everyone gel naturally into some positions. These two days were all about just being together as a crew, going through some manoeuvres, and making those manoeuvres a little more smoother. Also, getting a bit of a tan!

The yacht we have for the Sydney Hobart is a very well looked after Sydney 38. The yacht, appropriately named another Challenge is pretty similar to a Farr 40 from the outset, but when you look at her closer, she’s nowhere near as stripped out. There’s cushions! It’s a brilliant yacht though despite the cushions, as it is a one design which means that we have to carry the same equipment everyone else does. For example, everyone has to carry their cushions so it is a very fair class.

Our third day of training was at Deloitte. We spent the whole day talking about teamwork and just how key it is. We’ve got to be able to rely and trust each other completely to reach our full potential as a team. I learnt a lot that day and I was really impressed with a lot of what Chris and Jonno had to say.

The next few days before we headed offshore, we had a really in-depth look at the yacht in detail to see what improvements we could make long term and also what we needed to do short term before we headed offshore for a night. We also continued sailing with our lovely and pretty determined coaches Chris and Jonno working on some finer points of boat speed and practicing loads of safety manoeuvres. Always a good idea!
 

Our last two days of training crept on us far too quickly in my opinion, but I was truly most excited for our night offshore where we were hopefully going to be able to get out of the heads and see a bit of action! For one of the crew Alex, who had never been offshore overnight this was going to be a total first for her. For some of the other crew who hadn’t done much night sailing, it was going to be interesting to see how everyone faired when sleep deprived and also sailing on a pretty dark night (there wasn’t much moon).

We set off just after lunch and sailed due south with a frustratingly diminishing wind. By the time we arrived at the heads, the wind was all but gone with a very glassy sea and so we slowly drifted out/ sailed out at around 1 to 2 knots as night started to arrive. We were working on 3 hour watches and so that gave a really nice amount of rest and also made sure that everyone got 6 hours sleep minimum! The night went without too many hitches and was a great success for the crew.

After a good afternoon chilling out we all packed up ready for the launch the next day. I made sure to get a good nights sleep as it was a super bright and early start to fly to Sydney. The launch went off superbly and we spent a great afternoon and evening in Sydney before Pete, Will and I flew off back home to the UK the day after.

To summarise mine and the crews training in Sydney, we all loved it! The crew bonded really well and towards the end of the week there was a good amount of banter being continually shared which was great to see. I’m already really looking forward to going back out to Aus at the end of the year to continue our training.

Since my time out in Australia, I’ve kept busy back here in the UK with university and also continually plugging away for sponsorship for my flight around the world next year. This week I’ve had some really key meetings which have gone well I’m pleased to say and hopefully soon enough I’ll be able to release some more good news about progressing on with my flying trip!

Mike