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ASTO Ships Race

It started with Ocean, and ended with 2nd place. A connection between the two? Unlikely, but here’s what happened:

Early on Friday 2nd October, seven pupils, Mr Dunning and two of the non-teaching staff piled into a bus (after a wait for Ocean, who, having slept through five alarms, was late) and headed off to Hamble Marina, near Southampton. More piling and fighting for beds saw us all ensconced on Moosk, our racing-ship-to-be. A brief safety talk from Tom, the skipper, and we were on our way: powering out into the Solent.

Friday was a learning day. I hadn’t sailed for a considerable amount of time before getting back on Moosk, and so had to be told what to do a lot, as did most of us. However, soon we were back in the rhythm and on our way; sun above, calm seas below.

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A little team bonding was needed for the pupils that evening so the sleeping bags came out onto deck and the ipods were plugged in. The ships around us found themselves regaled firstly by Calvin Harris, and then through numerous other artists until eventually we found ourselves listening to the Monty Python soundtrack. At one point another crew walked past to see a big pile up of bodies and hear a voice screaming out at them, “WHAT, is your name? WHAT, is your favourite colour? And WHAT, is the capital of Assyria?!” I know I’d have moved on quickly!

The next morning we woke early: Race Day. A quick breakfast and a team talk had us psyched. Shame, really, that when it came to it, a mixture of strong tides and an oncoming tanker left us crossing the start line, oh, half an hour late? Not a good start, and thank God! Two ships collided at the first buoy, taking pieces off one another and putting them both out of the race. One large ship sailed ashore, one ship’s sail ripped; another’s sail fell off! Let’s just say that the weather wasn’t great – the sea was quite rough, the tides were strong, and the winds were verging on gale force.

So many ships had had problems, that we were now back in the race! Dodging other ships and the occasional tanker or car transporter, we made our way around the course with the weather steadily deteriorating. The girls (or some of them at least) found themselves sitting in the cockpit feeling quite the worse for wear, while some of the boys were clipped in to safety lines (I’m not joking – we needed them!) and fought against the sails to keep us going fast. One vivid memory I have is of Simon Reynolds turning to face the front of the ship as a large wave crashed over it. Almost in slow motion, Simon looked up, the wave came down, took him off his feet and carried on down the length of the ship to hit me. We both ended up thigh deep in water, but managed to turn us onto course. Maria had turned a darker shade of yellow, and Tom was looking a little worried (I think I remember him saying that these were the worst conditions he’d taken Moosk out in) but we battled on.

Five hours later we crossed the finish line, exhausted. We pulled the sails down and motored into Cowes Marina (the race HQ) where we promptly tied up and ate whatever we could lay our hands on. There was then a little time to head off into Cowes before the presentation that evening.

To our amazement, we had come 2nd in our group, and 5th overall. Not bad, considering how slow we were to start off! Tom stood up to accept our prize – a pair of binoculars – before we tucked into food and karaoke. Each crew had to sing a song, and I think we actually pulled off “I Will Survive” fairly well! Unfortunately the prize went to a slightly merry crew from London, for the efforts at “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which apparently is always a winner).

All that remained the following day was to eat a very large Full English in Cowes, motor back to Hamble and clean the boat, ready for the next Cliftonians. The whole experience was good fun and certainly challenging at times, though I don’t think I’m cut out to be a sailor!

By Caspian James (U6 MH)

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