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Field Days in the Royal Navy

Field day on the Pride of Bristol 2009

At 8 o’clock on the 8th March 2009 we arrived at Portishead Marina not knowing what the next twenty four hours had in store for us. We were shocked by the size the ship, it was much bigger than any of us had expected. One of us started off on the “wrong foot” with Tansy falling down the steps. The crew prepared us for the next day and we had a helping of soup before heading off to bed.

The following morning we were woken at some unearthly hour, however we did get to see a fantastic sunrise. After squeezing through Portishead lock, we entered into the Bristol Channel where we were hit by the extreme conditions - you may remember that it was rather windy that day – for those of you that don’t remember that far back, it was a gale force 8!!! We had a short period to take in the surroundings before setting out for our day’s duties. Our first task was to plot our course to Penarth where we were to conduct the afternoon’s activities. An hour later we were anchored outside Penarth bay for lunch – although some of us had already had breakfast twice and despite feeling a little under the weather we did give lunch a good try.

The afternoon activities that followed really were superb as we carried out some first aid training, learning about the Neil Robertson stretcher and what to do in an emergency. This was punctuated with fascinating anecdotes of past experiences where the on-board Medic helped us to see how difficult dealing with a casualty on board a boat in motion is – yes it was still windy!

Following this, we carried out some chart and navigation work, plotting our position at anchor using a three point fix and plotting our course for the following journey back to Portishead harbour. We also checked the tides at certain harbours and learnt the importance of forward planning and entering bays, so as not to run aground.

Before we left, we attempted to launch the RIB using the manual crane on board. However, the sea was too rough and although at first we didn’t realise, the sea turned out to be too dangerous and really wasn’t safe to play in. Therefore we drew anchor and returned to Portishead harbour doing some more chart work on the way including dead-reckoning and taking bearings using the GPS.

At last we arrived back in the Portishead marina where the quiet surroundings became disturbed with the roar of the now launched RIB. We were each lucky enough to be allowed to take this for a spin and by 6pm our day had unfortunately come to an end. Exhausted by the day’s events, we managed to gather together the last of our strength and clean out the rooms and tidy up.

The experience was excellent and we couldn’t have hoped for a better crew, teaching us so much as well as entertaining us. We are all so grateful and hope that we can return next year. Overall a truly terrific field day.

Thank You From Alex, Becky, Ben, Ellie, Katie, Luke, Murray, Oliver and Tansy

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