The Watch System

In centuries past sailors would be “on watch” for four hours, then “off watch” for four hours. This is easy to understand, but very hard work as you can never have more than a few hours continuous sleep.

Darwin’s voyage on the beagle operated an innovative for the time system of three watches with four hours on, eight hours off, which is much better for sleep.

Pelican also operates a three watch system with Forward, Main, and Mizzen watch crews, and I’m in the Middle Watch. Each watch crew is on duty every third watch. A simple system of six four hour watches would divide up the work equally, but leave some unhappy people with all the 3am slots.
Instead there are seven watches each day, which means you rotate through the watches each day.

First Watch – 8pm to midnight
Night watch – midnight to 4am
Morning Watch – 4am to 8am
Forenoon Watch – 8am to 12:30pm
Afternoon Watch – 12:30pm to 4pm
First Dog Watch – 4pm to 6pm
Last Dog Watch – 6pm to 8pm

These watches only operate when at Sea, and so far I’ve done a Last Dog, a morning, and a First Dog.

Helicopter Evacuation

4am Morning Watch. 64 miles from Folkestone. A little light in the sky. Dry. Light headwind. Half an hour on starboard watch, little to see. Next duty: completing the ship’s log with position, wind speed… when suddenly:

Overnight someone on the ship has unfortunately suffered severe sea sickness, and requiring an immediate evacuation, and a helicopter and a lifeboat are on their way. We move the boom to starboard and make it fast to give space at the back of the ship for the helicopter evacuation. I don’t see the rest because the trainee crew are sent down to the mess while the professional crew take charge. However we are able to watch through the portholes as the lifeboat comes alongside and two medics come on board to assist the helicopter crew.

Watch finishes at 8am and it’s time for breakfast, followed by morning briefing. Our helicopter evacuee is safe in the hospital.

The daytime is quiet. It’s a beautiful sunny day as we pass the Isle of Wight and the Needles lighthouse. Few people are on deck, sleep is much in need. I sit and enjoy being at sea.

4pm. First dog watch. I’m back on watch, and it’s my turn to take the Helm. It’s enjoyable, focusing on the compass and the rudder direction. And then: more action: the helicopter returns with a different crew wanting to practice with us.

It’s 5:30pm and we head into to Poole for a 24 hour stopover. The captain guides the ship with regular calls to the Helmsman of “Port 5”, “Midships”, “Starboard 10”. We come alongside the mooring, and our RIB is in the water to push the bow of the Pelican so we can moor. The phrase “All hands on deck” is no longer just a metaphor as we put the mooring lines ashore and put out the gangplank. Dinner of spaghetti bolognaise goes down well. In the evening there’s shore leave and many of us enjoy a pint in Poole.

Setting out to Sea

The Pelican left Folkestone Harbour Arm about 5pm on Sunday, dinner of chicken and potatoes was at 5:20pm and then I was on the “Last Dog” watch” from 6-8pm. I was on port side lookout for a bit, keeping an eye for Bouys, ships, but didn’t see anything to tell the Mate about. Then I was helmsman for half an hour, keeping the ship on magnetic course 220 using the big rear wheel, and paying attention to the compass and rudder steer indicator. The wind was from the South West, and we were heading West, so first trip out to sea was under engine rather than sail.

After that watch it was straight to bed, because next watch is the 4-8am “Morning Watch”, with a 3:30am wake up.

Climbing the Rigging

Today we had breakfast (cereal and toast), a safety brief from the mate, then a muster drill and explanation about the lifeboats. And then it was time for climbing practice. I didn’t know in advance how I’d feel about climbing the rigging. But we all put on climbing harnesses ready to do an “up and over” on the first part of the main mast rigging that is shown here;

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about climbing the rigging: whilst you know you can trust your harness, your body may feel differently. What I found was that when you climb you’re mainly thinking about moving your clips up, and that it felt easier than e g climbing the tall ladders on Go Ape. Standing on the platform didn’t feel high up, the people on the deck just looked smaller. So it was good to have that practice done before we set out to sea.

First Day on Board

This morning I took the 9:11 train from Cambridge, arriving 11:29 in Folkestone. From there it was a mile to walk down to the harbour, where TS pelican was easily visible.

First day consisted of:

• Health questionnaire with the ships medic
• Getting on board the RIB (rigid inflatable board)
• Lunch from the galley (risotto)
• Meeting many new people – cinematographers, divers, scientists, and the full time professional crew
• “Life on board” briefing from the mate
• Rope training – how to prepare the ropes for working the sails
• Helm training – how to use the ships wheel and read the compass
• Tour of the ship – it’s highly technical
• Feeling slightly queasy until I’d had a Kwells tablet.
• Dinner – Sweet and sour pork noodles
• Unpacking my bag into my cabin
• Harbour watch from 10pm – midnight: I got a nice shift for this. You walk round the ship every half hour to look for anything out of order.
• And sleep – the bunk is quite comfortable

Following in the Footsteps of Darwin

On December 27th, 1831, a young Charles Darwin left Devonport to spend nearly five years on board the Beagle. His observations and findings from these years transformed our understanding of the natural world. For my reading during my journey I’m taking along a digital copy of “The Voyage of the Beagle”, published in 1839, to learn more about that journey. It would be another 20 years before his most known work, “On the Origin of Species”, would be published, in 1859.

In 2022, the tall ship Pelican of London will be following in Darwin’s footsteps, spending two years travelling around the world, on a mission to educate and inspire young scientists. You can learn more at: https://darwin200.com/

This year’s adventure, the Darwin 200 Summer 2021 voyage, is a small step towards that longer journey, spending a mere 13 weeks sailing clockwise around the UK. During our journey there will be scientific programme, observing ocean plastic and marine wildlife. For more information, see: https://www.seasyourfuture.org/darwin-200-summer-2021/

I’m very much looking forward to being a small part of this amazing adventure, learning to appreciate and understand the wonders of the world that we live in. I hope to share some of that excitement with you, my readers.

Fun fact: I have the same birthday as Charles Darwin.

The Packing is Done!

Packing seems like it should be easy. You gather things from around your house, and put them in a bag. But it never feels simple.

The clothing decisions are mostly straightforward: an extensive kit list has been provided and I already had the majority of the things I will need. A trip to the sailing section of Decathlon provided a sailing jacket, salopettes, sunglasses, and a hat. I’ve got a pair of waterproof shoes that don’t have quite enough arch support, but I was able to buy replacement insoles that make them fit perfectly. And wellies were also easy once I stopped trying to find the perfect pair on Amazon and just bought some cheap ones from Toolstation.

I think what makes packing slow and difficult is that every item requires choices. I’m having to make decisions that may have a big effect, and there won’t be the opportunity to revisit my choices if I make bad choices. There are many things to think about: space for personal items on board limited. It won’t be possible to buy things during the voyage. The weather could be anything from blazing heat to drenching rain. Neither of my current camera bags are suitable – one’s too small, the other’s too big. And every time I go to a part of the house to get something I see something unrelated and forget what I was there for.

But now the packing is done, and in two days’ time I’ll be able to start telling you much more exciting things about life on board.

Tracking the Pelican

There are several ways you can follow my voyage:

Like many boats (most boats? all boats?), the Pelican of London has an AIS – Automatic Identification System which provides regular updates on its position. There are many websites which use AIS data to show you where a boat is:

• https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:192423…
• https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/PELICAN-OF-LONDON…
• https://www.myshiptracking.com/?mmsi=235057366

The crew provide daily updates here:

• https://my.yb.tl/tspelican

And of course you can read this blog to find out what I personally have been up to.

Thanks for reading!

My Sailing Adventure

I’ve started this blog to write about my adventures on the tall ship Pelican of London.

I’ll be sailing for three weeks, beginning in Folkestone on 16th May, and then travelling clockwise round the UK, via the Channel Islands, Scilly Islands, as well as some UK ports, and then finishing (nominally) in Bristol around the 6th June.

The ship that I’ll be sailing on is the Pelican of London, which was originally built in 1948 as an arctic trawler. It was refitted as a sail training vessel from 1995 to 2007, and is now owned by a charity.

No sailing experience is required, which is good, because I have very little. At secondary school I went sailing on Wednesday afternoons, because it seemed greatly preferable to the alternative games afternoon options of rugby and athletics. Then at university I spent two days on an army yacht off the west coast of France, and that was the last time I went on a sailing boat.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for further updates!