MARINE ACADEMY REPORT

ACADEMY UPDATE As usual it has been a very busy summer with the Marine Academy running numerous courses with student activity high. The Academy continues its important focus on marine safety for both members and the public with our always important and well attended Safety Sunday which was held on 12 January.

OUT THERE SAILING In January the Marine Academy ran its first Australian Sailing ‘Out There Sailing’ program for 12-17 year olds during the school holidays with six participants over three days. Some of the kids were members’ children and others were at the Club for the first time. The course comprised learning to sail training mixed with some powerboating in CYC3 and stand-up paddle boarding. In other words, three days of mucking around in boats! The Academy received a $1000 grant from Australian Sailing for being part of the Australia wide pilot program for this set of courses. These funds were used to purchase five inflatable stand-up paddle boards which were used on the course. We also used three Ocean View College Pacer dinghies for the sail training. All the feedback has been very positive with plans for a follow-up session in the April school holidays. For more information please contact the Club on 8248 4222 or at: marine.academy@cycsa.com.au

David Royle Marine Academy Principal

Safety Sunday

DAY SKIPPER COURSE | JANUARY 2020 After two solid years of regular racing I was ready for a change of pace and looking forward to sampling the cruising life. Peter and I are keen to start enjoying some bareboat charters so that means I am going to need a Day Skipper qualification to get an ICC. (International Certificate of Competence). I had no prior experience with coastal or ocean navigation so I booked into a Marine Academy RYA Day Skipper Shore Based Course which took place over 10 weeks in September-November under the watchful eye of Andy Shipp. We covered a lot of ground from Coastal Navigation to tidal heights, tidal streams, IALA Buoyage, lights and shapes, safety measures, weather patterns, pilotage, GPS and more. The highlight of the course was the session we spent on board the lovely Pacific Hawk, an 18m catamaran, studying the extensive electronic navigation system recently installed with blue water cruising in mind – drinks and nibbles included (well, aren’t cats always the party boats?). Thirty hours of intensive learning moved very quickly and I have been hitting the books ever since to prepare for the exam. I am very glad I tackled this course first as it gave me a solid grounding for the next phase – RYA Day Skipper Five-Day Liveaboard. We jumped aboard Academy 1 on a perfect sunny January day with a light breeze to take us away across the gulf. We were six POB, being five trainee skippers under the tutelage of Marine Academy Senior Instructor, Brett Yardley - a man with definite nerves of steel, luckily a great sense of humour, handy in the galley – and all-around good bloke with extensive sailing knowledge. What more could we ask for? Day 1: We set off sailing across the gulf towards Yorke Peninsula targeting a night mooring off Stansbury. However, the wind on the day did not favour that option so we ended up pulling up a mooring ball at Black Point and enjoying the bright orange sunset and a nice dinner in good company on board. Day 2: In the morning, we pumped up the dingy and put it through its paces ferrying us to shore for a morning beach walk to check out those not so shabby shacks along Black Point Beach. This drew a few suspicious looks from the locals but we were soon planning our day’s passage and casting off the mooring to head down to Port

Vincent. We planned the passage, took compass fixes, plotted our dead reckoning, took back bearings, checked our estimated position against GPS, and generally carried on with all the nav-stuff Brett could come up with to challenge us. Thankfully we got where we intended to go. We spent the afternoon in the bay off Port Vincent picking up our seventh crew member, the hapless ‘Wilson’ who for some reason had to be repeatedly rescued from the water under power and sail using a variety of methods. Last time we take that nitwit along – we could have enjoyed beer o’clock at the Ventnor Hotel hours earlier if he hadn’t kept going MOB on us. Day 3: We woke early to a spectacular golden sunrise across the marina towards the Adelaide Hills. We had to get an early start to motor around to the town wharf at Port Vincent on the high tide. We made a solid contribution to the rural economy with lattes and bakery items from the local café making for a delicious breakfast on the seafront while chatting to the passing locals. Then it was a spring-off the wharf and straight back to the Marina Port Vincent for lots of parking practice. We did three-point turns, mooring alongside, docking backwards, docking forwards, spring-off, Med-mooring and generally spinning around the marina. Fortunately no fenders were harmed in the making of those manoeuvres and even the paintwork of Academy 1 managed to escape unscathed. Whew! It was very nerve wracking with Brett putting us through our paces all morning but everyone did a great job and it was so satisfying when we nailed it. Good job everyone! Around mid-afternoon we headed out of the marina to sail back across the gulf with a passage plan to arrive at Glenelg. We sailed towards Semaphore around sunset and narrowly missed merging with the Twilight Race fleet. We followed the lights on the ferris wheel and eventually anchored off Glenelg beach around 11pm just south of the jetty. Day 4: The start of a very hot day was superb on flat clear water at sunrise as Glenelg started to come alive with joggers, cyclists and café dwellers. We had a refreshing swim first thing then pulled up the pick and headed into civilisation at Holdfast Shores Marina. Café lattes and cakes for breakfast were becoming a habit but I didn’t hear anyone complaining. Well, as Brett said, this is a cruiser course so we felt compelled to get into the spirit of cruising life. Faced with a day of over 40 degrees we decided it would be a good time to cover the navigation part of the course so we sailed up to North Haven, safely entered the CYCSA Marina at a low 0.3m tide and I managed to park Academy 1 in front of the clubrooms – whew, parked again without any damage. The airconditioned Kinnaird Room

Lauren & Jan Klan was a welcome refuge from the heat and I think we all agreed that it was the best shower we have ever had. But the day was not over. We still had some night hours to tick off so I did a spring-off-thebow and reverse out manoeuvre and we headed up the river after dark. We decided to call in at the Squadron to check out a Bavaria 50 Cruiser Brett’s friend had just bought. As if I hadn’t parked that damn boat enough times, now I found myself pulling into a berth at the Squadron, in the dark, right alongside Brett’s mates who obviously would not have let it go if the parking went badly. I thought nothing but positive thoughts and managed to pull in without incident. Whew again! As we pulled out of the Squadron it was still very hot so we decided to anchor off North Heaven Beach (its summer name I am informed). Day 5: North Heaven did not disappoint. I woke early to a complete glass-out on the water. The air was dead-still, the sky streaked with grey clouds, the sunrise glowing gold and the water so clear you could see the bottom all around. I enjoyed my first swim with dolphins. Although they were about 20 metres away by the time I jumped in I am still inclined to claim it. Once the crew came alive we pulled up the anchor and headed in to make breakfast at Marina West. Then came another morning of – you guessed it – parking the boat. In and out of the spare berths at Marina West, without wind at first, but testing us a bit more once the wind blew up. Still no scrapes or dents in the boat – amazing! The afternoon was a case of wrapping up any loose ends in training, cleaning up the boat and retiring to the Admirals Bar for a de-brief on a week that went way too quickly. I could get used to this I thought to myself as it beats the heck out of working Monday to Friday. Overall I am very glad I did both Day Skipper Courses. I certainly learnt a lot between the two – which are very different but I believe complementary to each other. We got a chance to do all the things we don’t do in racing teams such as mooring, anchoring, docking, helming, heave-to, directing the crew, radio the coast guard, dinghy wrangling and pilotage in unfamiliar ports. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has been sailing as crew for a while and is ready to take the next step in their sailing journey.

Cate Blackman