Sailing

I've been in Airlie Beach for almost 2 weeks now sailing around the Whitsundays. My first trip out was on the Enid (http://www.ozsailing.com.au/vessel.php?sailing=Enid), a 2 masted tall ship. My second trip which lasted a week was on the Double O Seven, a 38 foot monohull. The week I spent on the 007 was to get what they call a "Compident Crew" qualification whichs means that I am now recognized by Yachting Australia as being qualified to crew a sailing yacht.

The training was actually extremely intense because we had really bad weather the entire time we were out. We had 30 knot winds on average and were in up to 3 meter swells and it rained extremenly hard at times causing white our conditions. We managed to break 1 of the runners for the rigging, and put minor rips in 2 of the sails and we also had most of our electronics die on us so we really had to learn what we were doing. It was probably actually a good thing it was such bad weather because I learned far more this way. I can put in and take out reefs in bad weather and I can drop the sails easily in emergency conditions. I'm not quite ready to race the Sydney to Hobart but I learned a ton.

I'm going to be going back out on tuesday to work as a crew member on the Hammer (http://www.ozsailing.com.au/vessel.php?sailing=Hammer), which is a racing maxi. I'm not getting paid but my room and board is covered while I'm on the boat and I was actually talking to the owned of the charter company and he told me I could actually just sleep on a couple of the boats while they are back in harbour, I'm hoping if I do a couple runs as volunteer crew and everything goes well I will be able to get on as a deck hand.