100% PASS

Everyone of this years Commercial Yachtmaster trainees passed their final assessment and are now qualificed Yachtmasters. Congratulations.

6 New customers have booked in to the 2008 / 2009 course so far.

If you are looking at payment options, one of our trainees has managed to get a student loan and won't have to start paying it back untill he is earning - a brilliant option.

Tall Ships are excited about us chartering one of their 72 foot Challengers, but not nearly as excited as our trainees are about sailing her - she is a really super addition to the training experience building.

I will keep you posted on new cllients booking on and activities a the centre over the summer, so keep an eye on us here.

All the best

Gail

Jessy comes home

Well we made it home. Jessy arrived back to her berth in Adrigole last night at 1900 UT. We had a great sail back accross the bay of Biscay with about 20 knots of wind from the east pretty much all the time. The swell was a little bit sloppy being from the east (shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth) but Jessy flew along at a constant 7.5 to 8 knots all the way home. Michael was skipper for the first part of the trip and although terribly sea sick for the first part he soldiered on regardless and by the end of the trip was eating pasta carbonara down below and playing sudoku. We were all very proud of him. Gerry from Adrigole Arts skippered the second leg of the trip and took to the job in hand organising watches and keeping everyone busy.

We did most of jessy's cleaning heading up bantry bay into the swell so we had very little to do when we arrived in the blissfully peaceful Adrigole harbour, with welcome comitee waving from the balcony. A quick shower and a bee line for the pub was in order to share tales with the other groub who have had fantastic adventures sailing round Dursey into Kenmare bay in the Keelboats this last week.

The very serious business of yachtmaster prep begins in earnest next week with dilligence, early mornings,late night passages,blind navigation, pontoon bashing, and picking up m o bs being the order of the week.

All for now will keep posted about the ym prep next week.

Niall

Heading for home

The starter motor arrived and they are on their way. Niall rang from the Sat phone today and all is well on board, with a good breeze and great speed. If things continue as they are then they should be passing Mizen Head by lunch time on Friday. Will keep you posted on their progress.
Gail

La Coruna Still - very Still!!

Well they were all ready to leave on Tuesday and the starter motor decided to keep turning and burn out. If you thought it was difficult to get anything done in a hurry in Ireland or France, then northern Spain will amaze you. The mechanic came straight after lunch on Wednesday - 16.30pm. The part was ordered and on Friday we discovered it is lost in transit.
Here is a lovely picture of Gerry chilling out on deck as the crew patiently wait for the part to arrive - hopefully tomorrow now!!

They could be in a worse place though. The sun is shining and Niall wishes he had packed some shorts.
Gail

Photos at last.

Sues adventure to the Top of the Mast
La Coruna Boulevard, and Arrival Sunset

Bay of Biscay and France - Here we come

Hi all

Well David has left this morning and handed the boat over to me and after a good clean and sort through we moved her to the outer marina to fuel up and get her ready for her Biscay crossing. Sue has been up the mast checking the rig and we took some picies of her which I hope to have up soon.

The weather has been calming down since my arrival and is now quite balmy with a fresh breeze from the south west dying as I write. The winches have been stripped the fuel filter drained and the heater got working after patrick and I sucking diesel through the tiny pump to prime it. So all is well and the plan is to leave La coruna after lunch as the wind will be a bit calmer and still blowing from the south west. An anticyclone is building over biscay so we may even get to put the spinnie up which would be fab.

The town of La courna are still cellebrating the festival of begining of lent, all week end and yesterday the whole town has been partying with fire works and dancing on the streets. It seems it is important to dress up in costume as everybody from babys to grannys were in fancy dress. Streamers fillled the streets at night and different bands and singers provided loads of entertainment for all on the narrow avenues.

Gerry from Adrigole Arts has joined the crew for the last leg back home and he has fitted in with the rest of the guys and was busy stripping a winch as I left. Gerry is taging along to build up some more miles and will be taking the Yacht master exam with the others in March.

Will sign off for now and will re contact again in Camaret Sur Mer. Vive La France and Biscay here we come.


Niall

Not that I'm superstitious!

Well we can safely say that sailing is an unpredictable activity!
After the forestay was fixed on Monday we had some engine trouble that evening when getting ready to leave Cascais. So Tuesday was spent getting that fixed as we really need an engine, especially since all the weather forecasts we had said that there would be no wind and lovely sunny weather! Michael headed home on Wednesday morning and we, David, Patrick, Phil and myself headed off for our trip to La Coruna in Spain that was not going to be very exciting as we were not going to be able to sail much and would have to use the engine because of no wind!!
Fat chance!! We got to the headland at the corner of Portugal and a really strong wind (gusting up to 30 knots) whipped around the headland at us. So we had a very bumpy ride with strong winds and a huge swell the whole way up.
We had to duck into a sheltered marina in Novara at 6am on Thursday morning to do some repairs to the boom.
Ever since the cork from the bottle of champagne that was used to launch Jessy fell off the wall there´s been nothing but little (and some big) things to fix on her. Not that we´re superstitious or anything but the first thing we made Niall do on his arrival was stick it back on!!!
We arrived very tired and wet in La Coruna at about 8pm on Saturday evening. Niall and Gerry joined us on Sunday afternoon, to our surprise as we were expecting him on Monday!
We´ve spent the last 2 days waiting out the storm and preparing Jessy so we can cross the Bay of Biscay to Brest in France. We leave today after lunch, again with a lovely light wind and sunny weather!!!! fingers crossed!!!
Sorry no pics today, forgot to bring camera with me to the Internet cafe. You´ll have to wait for pictures of me at the top of the mast this morning!!!
Next stop France!!!!
Sue

Held up in Portugal

Hi all,
Well Friday didn't go quite as planned. It has been decided that we should get the forestay fixed as the one we replaced in Lanzarote was a couple of cm too long. So after a good clean of the boat we had the weekend off. We went to Lisbon on Saturday for the day, it's only 30 minutes by train. We did one of those open top tour buses around the city. We stopped off at the aquarium, it's fantastic. The most amazing fish from all over the world. I was going to send some of the pics and claim we went diving but honesty got the better of me (and the fact that some of you would know you can't see all those fish in one place!!). Some of the most beautiful and some very strange looking fish, like Sunfish, Sea Dragons, a Manta Ray and the the cutest Sea Otters! All in all a nice day trip that tired us out so it was dinner and a movie for us Saturday night (thanks to the wonder of modern technology, the laptop).
Yesterday, Sunday, was a day of rest, I spent the afternoon sitting on the prom reading my book and soaking up the sun!! Apologies for that one if you're in rainy Ireland!!
So the forestay is being fixed this morning and we should be heading off this afternoon. Fingers crossed. We'll be sailing up the Portuguese coast and hopefully arriving in La Coruna, Spain in time for David & Michael's flight on Thursday. That should give us enough time to have the boat pristine clean for Niall's arrival and to find a pub to watch the first 6 nations match on Saturday!!!
All the best,
Sue