Today’s forecast was perfect for a much-needed day on the water for Bravo Team. We looked at our records and realized we hadn’t been on the water since January 4th when Townshend was hauled out for annual maintenance. And it had been since December 8th when we were last sailing.
We quickly got gear and headed down to the dock to see Townshend all shiny and bright after the maintenance work last month. Our crew rowed us out of the harbor and after some remembering how to row in sync, we sang our way upwind and off of the lee shore of Port Townsend waterfront.
We set our mizzen, foresail, and mainsail and made our way west on a beam reach before we gybed to avoid the WA State Ferry docking in front of us. On our next pass in front of town, we discussed a crew overboard drill while under sail. And then we did the drill – Bravo Team responded with safe and skillful action and we quickly struck sails and rowed to retrieve “Bob” the buoy. Debriefing the drill showed that we had done all the steps well and in a fairly quick response time.
Having struck all of our sails to retrieve “Bob” we took a vote to see what the crew wanted to do next: 1) Sail and Snack or 2) Row, anchor and Snack? It was a unanimous vote – GO SAILING!
We had our snack, Moment of Silence, and our Salish Sea Reports as we enjoyed the light southerly and peaceful scenery.
At the end of class, we discussed our environmental project based on the problem statement: “How can we as the BT work towards implementing a plastic straw ban so that we can do our part in saving the oceans?” Stay tuned for what’s in store on Earth Day in April!
Our closing reflection today was around the question, “What do you want to remember from today as though it could be captured in a time capsule to uncover in 20 years?” Some of the answers were: – best crew overboard drill ever! -a unanimous vote for sailing -having casual conversation in and out of bouts of sail handling .
Thanks for following along!