Öckerö gymnasium

An exciting night watch

At half past eleven in the middle of the the night we got woken up as usual during the twelve to four watch. Because the last night had been pretty cold and I didn’t want to freeze I put on a lot of clothes. After we had watch change on quarterdeck our watch leader informed us that during the watch we would do a ”kovändning”. A ”kovändning” is basically a jibe.

Our watch had only done a jibe on Gunilla one time before during our current trip but that was during the day with only a light breeze but now it was stronger winds and pitch black. The reason why we would need to do a jibe was because our course was heading against the coasts of Scotland and we where starting to get too close. But before we could to the jibe we needed to do some preparations. We started by taking down the staysails because we needed to switch the sheet of the staysails from Portside to starboard and we can’t do that when the sails are up. Then we also reefed the Fock sail because it would make the hauling to turn around the yards of the square sails easier when we would do the jibe. After that we released all of the buntlines of the square sails on portside because it is essential for hauling around the yards of the top sails. When we had done all the necessary preparations and where ready to jibe there suddenly was a fishing boat on our portside which was blocking us from doing the jibe. But lucky for us the night fika was ready so we got inside and started eating some freshly baked scones with butter and marmalade. But in the middle of the fika our watch leader interrupted us and told us that the fishing boat was now out of our way so we hurried out on deck, some us still with a scone in their hand. The helmsman then started to steer around at the same time we hauled the yards around to match the wind direction from our new course. We did the hauling on both masts at the same time because we didn’t want to lose any speed because it weakens the steering power. Then we put up the staysails and the fock and did some fine tuning on the sails and then we where done and the jibe worked out great for us even though it was pitch black!

As I’m writing this the clock is half past seven in the evening and we just arrived in the harbor of Ullapool, Scotland. The landscape surrounding the town Ullapool is incredible with mountains and green beautiful terrain. We are not allowed to leave Gunilla today but tomorrow we are going to explore Ullapool and experience one of the most beautiful places of Scotland.

Sammie Strömblad Larsson, Styrbord

Publicerad:

Öckerö seglande gymnasieskola
Björnhuvudsvägen 45
475 31 Öckerö

Telefon: 031-97 62 00
e-post: kommun@ockero.se