Rough weather training

Today was rough weather training. There were four to six metre waves, closely packed, coming over the breakwater. The purpose was to acquaint the trainee second coxes in using the throttles and the wheel simultaneously. The learner drivers, hanging on for dear life, were all lined up behind Christophe, who was calmly commenting what he was doing, as one hand spun the wheel furiously and the other hand constantly adjusted the revs and the flaps. Looks easy, but the slightest mistake and it is curtains for everybody aboard.

I was keeping the log, in the navigator's seat, which was a good place to be, as the seat has a hydraulic shock absorber. It made note-taking just a little bit easier. It was too rough, punching our way out of harbour, to take any photos, and anyway visibility was zero, with solid water coming over the windscreens. Pity, because the adrenalin count would have been high.

Once we turned around, out in the bay, the boat was steady enough for pictures. The first reel is us side on to the waves: I was agreeably surprised how sea-kindly the boat was, as she is pretty flat bottomed. The second reel shows us, almost without drive on the motors, surfing down the front of the waves which were catching up with us from astern. Lurch, speed up, plane madly, then slow down. Lurch, speed up, plane madly, then slow down.

"El Vomito" puked his load, as usual, but luckily he was wearing his waterproof overalls and had a bag at the ready... I don't think Charlie, who was on the cleaning detail, had to clear up too much mess afterwards, though he wouldn't have told me, even if he had had to do so. Good lad!