YACHTMASTER – finally
Just a brief wrap up of what happened over the weekend. After the storm settled on Saturday morning, our examiner Dave, Tony and Dave from the school, tried to speak to the Marina Officials to let us out in order to do our exams. There was one snapped slime line in our part of the Marina, which “disabled” us to get out. Finally after 4 hours of discussions (Dave went through the port authority eventually), we could go out. The swell was amazing, the water was covered with plastic bags, wood, canisters, chairs and all sorts of parts that you can think of. The La Linea breakwater was washed away half (the one that separates the landing strip from the anchorage), in the distance we could see a sailboat on the rocks, in Algeciras a boat was stranded in the middle of the channel into the marina, further south was a tanker aground, and of course the new ship wreck off Europa Point. We tried our best to find some wind, but didn’t succeed really. We did a couple of manouvres, anchored – basic stuff and decided to wait for the day to come to proceed with the exams.
Sunday was much better. The swell was almost gone and the sun was shining. No real wind though. We managed three man over board, anchoring and a bit of sailing to a mooring buoy. Back in marina we did some berthing, got some fuel, went out again, wind came, which shortly enabled us to show Dave, that we are capable of putting in a reef. Well, all in all it went well and by 1500 he told us we would have passed.
I wished we could have shown him a bit more. I think the special circumstances were the reason for giving us an easy exam. Well, whatsoever, we have made it and we are now proud yachtmasters. In the end such an exam is really about to show confidence and excellence in skippering a boat. I think, that is what an examiner wants to see. We all did that….
Well, in the end we’ve all made it, and we’re all soooooooo happy. Thanks to ASA in Gibraltar.
Filed under: Yachtmaster | 1 Comment
Tags: gibraltar storm, sailing, yachtmaster exam
Hi there,
I was with my boat anchored in La Linéa during the storm and I’m now writing an article for a French sailing magazine about this experience. I’m looking for photos of the storms, causualities, the marina during high winds made by yachtmen to illustrate the article. Would you have any that you would agree to be published (with copyright at your name of course)? That’s rather urgent, thanks in advance.
Regards,
Laetitia