13/06/12 - Lord Nelson

Wednesday 13th June
I came on board last Saturday in Dartmouth to find the crew suffering from cabin fever, having spent most of the previous week at anchor sheltering from gale force winds. The evening was spent sampling local fare and downing a pint or two.
The following morning, 45 eager and slightly damp people came on board for the day sail from Dartmouth. After bacon butties and safety briefings, we cast off and motored out of picturesque Dartmouth. The weather deteriorted, but the wind picked up, so 45 enthusiastic volunteers braved the cold and the rain to set sail. 6 hours later, we returned 45 well fed, bedraggled and happy day sailors back to Dartmouth after their tall ships experience.
On Monday we set sail for Poole with a small crew of RNLI personnel, plus a few others including Mattias, who is involved with the building of an accessible tall ship in Argentina. I stowed away on board and was promoted to Cook's Assistant for the mini voyage. Our small crew of 15 were divided into three watches, and got stuck in enthusiastically to getting us from Dartmouth to Poole. We did wonder how much Marco bribed the captain to take a course close enough to land to get coverage of the England football game in the Upper Mess tv. We sailed past the Isle of Wight overnight, turned round and motored in towards Poole for a rendezvous with RNLI Poole who were called out for a mock flooding in the engine room and a casualty with a head injury. I promptly volunteered to be the casualty and "fell" down the companionway and bumped my head on the wheelchair lift (who can resist being administered to by two hunky lifeboatmen?). While two of the men dealt with the water, the other two stemmed the bloodflow, gave me oxygen, and when my condition deteriorated, decided to transfer me to the the lifeboat. They lifted me onto a board, but sadly, at that point, substituted me for Headless Fred (our rescue dummy) for the transfer to the life boat. Yah boo!
Our ship then developed engine failure (for the purpose of the drill), so the lifeboat could practise towing us to Poole harbour.
We were safely berthed by mid afternoon, and our RNLI voyage crew departed.
It was bikers' night in Poole, so a few volunteers came on board to enable us to have Open Ship for people passing by.
We now have a small band of volunteers doing various maintenance jobs during this impromptu 3 day maintenance period. We attract a lot of attention at our berth in Town Quay with people wanting to know more about the Trust and our beautiful ship. The sun came out for long enough this afternoon to us to enjoy a drink on the bridge deck after supper. I am now sat in the cosy bar enjoying the company and the very special Nellie ambience.

Kumi (stowaway and L plate cook's ass)