More Historic Ships

This is yet another post about the cool stuff I saw and did during my Yacht Master trip to the UK.  Last post was about the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and "Victory" and "Mary Rose"

Continuing on from there, I went to see HMS Warrior and M32, also in the historic dockyard.

HMS Warrior has got to be my favourite  warship ever.  She was sailing at the very end of the age of sail.  She is absolutely huge and has both a steam engine and square rig sails.  19 kn under engine and 18 kn under sail.  She also has early breach loaded guns on part of her aft gun deck.  She fired modern looking explosive shells from these guns.  Basically she was the biggest baddest thing on the ocean at the time.  She was so powerful she never fired a shot in anger.  All the bad guys ran away whenever she tried to engage them, and that took some serious running!  She spent her service touring potential hot spots and reminding people that the british navy could kick their ass anytime they felt like it.  Here's some pics.

The last ship I saw at the historic dockyard was M32.  She is a monitor class from WWI  her job was to get in close to the shore or up rivers and bring the fight in close to the enemy.  She served in Galipalee during WWI.  She is painted in her Dazzle camoflage, designed to break up her outline and make her harder for submarines to spot.  Here's some pics:

More touristing in the UK

Continuing on from my previous post, after I went to the Needles I went to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.  The dockyard is space within the present day navy base that has been used to present the history of the Royal Navy.

For me the main attraction was the ships.  They have the more than 200 year old flagship of Lord Nelson, "Victory" preserved and open for tours.  This ship is up on the hard, and the top masts are down.  She is a very well loved old lady.   She is also still a serving warship as the admiral in charge of the Portsmouth navy base still has his office aboard.

There is quite a large collection of historic ships in the dockyard.  When I was there the Mary Rose Museum was open for tours, showing the preserved starboard side of the Tudor battle ship "Mary Rose" and all of the guns, equipment and the remains of the crew that have been recovered. This ship was King Henry the eighth's flag ship he watched it sink in the Battle of the Solent just off Portsmouth harbour in 1545.  Her starboard side survived buried in the mud with most of her equipment.  The Mary Rose museum has been built around her and is designed to show her hull on one side of the viewing area and the equipment that would have been on that deck on the other.

There are still two more ships to talk about, so I'll continue in my next post

Touristing in the UK

After a week of STCW, I had a week of touristing around the Isle of White.

My first day off I took the bus out to the needles historic battery and light house.  This is the fortification that defends the western end of the Solent.  I really enjoyed my walk around there.

I also went to Alum Bay, which is next door to the Needles.  This is the site of a very old glass foundary.  They have coloured sand there that has used in glass making for many years.

Here's some pics:

STCW 95

Back to my UK Yacht Master trip.

After I did the two week yacht master prep course, I moved off the boat to a nice B+B in Cowes.  I took STCW 95 for a week.  That's the commercial vessel safety course.  We did one day of life raft training, two days in a fire simulator, a day of First Aid and then finished off with Safety and Security.

Here's some pics:

Southern Straights

I sailed in Southern Straights this weekend.  Southern Straights is a yacht race in my local area.  About 50 Miles West, then back to Point Atkinson.

I sailed with the Vancouver Sailing Club aboard their Beneteau 36.7 ClaraALLEGRO.  We left friday and spent the afternoon drifting east until the wind filled in around sunset.  We had 17 knots or so upwind by the time we were headed back west.  Then another drift back into the finish.  Very challenging sailing with an interesting group of guys.

Here's some video:

Yacht Master course

My previous post was a video about the whole trip.

Here's a bit of the story of the first part of my trip, the Yachtmaster prep and exam course at Flying Fish based in the town of Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

I flew from Vancouver direct to London.  The day I landed I checked into a hotel and slept for part of the afternoon.  Dinner and then bed again.

The next day I took the train to Southampton and then the Red Jet passenger ferry into Cowes.  The Red Jet is exactly what we should have in Vancouver.  Fast, no wake, shallow draft and capable in a moderate and high sea state.  The town of Cowes was lovely.  It's the first time I have been on a UK high street.  During that two weeks we sailed to both ends of the Solent and up to Southampton.  We did a lot of crew overboard, a lot of nav, and a lot of theory prep.  We also visited some very nice pubs in the evening.

Here's some pictures: