We have had a written exam every morning this week. Tomorrow we don’t have one thank goodness. However, Saturday I have one and Sunday two so I have to keep the pressure up with studying tonight. I would really prefer just to veg out however next to the pool….. So far I haven’t dropped below 90% Saturday’s exam I have to get 90% to pass. The class has lost 3 people so far and 50% have to retake the collision regulation exam on saturday. All a little bit hard core.

The weekend was spent studing for my course next week. I haven’t studied this much for about 9 years. I read over 250 pages and made notes on it all.

I haven’t mentioned my very generous and gracious hosts Roman and Suzie who are putting me up in Fort Lauderdale. If I was in a crew house it wouldn’t be conducive to studying. Roman is from Cuba and is an oncologist both him and his wife Suzie are very interesting people. Suzie has been testing me on everything I need to know using flash cards.

My friend Steffi who I sailed with years ago in Key West and Kenwood Cup introduced me to my hosts who like many sailors will take strangers who are sailors into their houses – it really is an amazing sport that way.

Hope you had a relaxing weekend wher ever you are.

 

The last two days of STCW95 training involved Basic Fire Fighting one day in the classroom which was a struggle and one day in the simulator. Today we were in the simulator and I just got out of a shower where I washed my hair twice as I smelt like I spent the day standing in a BBQ.

We did the following drills or evolutions at the simulator:

• search and rescue in a pitch black smoke filled room with breathing apparatus you start by feeling for the heat on the outside of the door than standing to the opposite side to the hinges you relieve any pressure, assess the situation inside, go to air, open the door and check that the deck hasn’t burnt away, go inside and drop to the floor on your knees, your partner comes in behind and keep contact with the wall while they hold onto you then you both sweep all the surfaces in the room looking for the lost crew member.
• demonstration of Co2 fire extinguisher in the engine compartment
• hot box – this is where you go into a room that gets up to over 300F at the furthest point away from the fire. There is so much heat that the metal walls start making noises as they expand. You knee in the room with your breathing apparatus and full fire fighting gear and watch a fire (made from packing crates) and how it acts with indirect, direct and combination methods of fighting it. You see how it grows, creates smoke which very quickly within 6 minutes blacks out the room so that you can’t even see the roof with the instructors flashlight. The instructor sprays the walls creating a lot of steam and a large increase in the room temperature. Then the smoke is vented from the ceiling to get the fire to do rollovers which means the smoke at ceiling level catches fire and the flames are overhead. I got a chance on the hose to do a direct hit at the fire for a few seconds it was amazing to me how quickly the fire restarted despite the large dose of water.
• egress – this is where you go into a smoke filled dark room and have to get out through a different door that you came into. They have created a labyrith in there so you are on your hands and knees keeping your hand on the wall feeling your way along. This shows how important it is to know your boat or house so that you can find your way out quickly in the event of a fire.
• hose handling and putting out a pit fire – two teams of 5 move in unison towards a large fire in a pit on the deck of the simulator. Both teams have a mist spray which protects you from the heat of the fire while you advance towards it. Then one team keeps misting while the other goes to a 45 degree spray and does a direct hit in a sweeping manouvere to put out the fire. Then you back away from the fire. Our instructor said we were the best group he had had!
• fire extinguisher handling – a galley and generator fire are simulated. You get to use the dry chemical and the Co2 extinguishers to put out each fire.

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• laying down of foam out of a fire hose – this didn’t work that well as there was something wrong with the mixing mechanism however, there was some foam.

All in all it was a really fun day I particularly liked how you took 30 minutes break after 15 minutes of working!

I don’t think I have enjoyed a first aid course and learn as much as I did today. We had three instructors who are fireman in Southern Florida Rex, Steve and Daron. They were incredibly funny and made the day go fast all the courses I have done before have dragged along.

Today’s class was a continuation of yesterday afternoon on Personal Survival and this evening from 7-9pm we were at the Hall of Fame outdoor swimming pool for abadon ship drill including:

• treading water for 15 minutes
• swimming with immersion suits
• inflating a liferaft
• righting an upturned liferaft
• the huddle and HELP positions
• jumping from a 15 foot platform into the water with a Type 1 PFD

It wasn’t as difficult as the class I took 10 years ago when I did it in full foul weather gear. We were allowed to wear shorts and tshirts so there wasn’t as much drag as last time I did the course. It was however, very useful as a refresher was needed! It was also good fun.

Below is a video I took of Anne a member of my class righting the liferaft. You can see she had a little difficulty with balance as the Co2 cartridge is slippy. You can imagine at sea it would be pretty hard.

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I am at Chicago aiport having caught a 6am flight on my way to Lauderdale yesterday was a long day and I am tired having only 2.5 hours sleep last night. Starting at 7am at San Francisco Boat Works with a propane torch and an impact driver and ending up at 8:30pm at the same boat yard trying to get a cable through a conduit with little sucess. In between was a normal Perrin day of trying to fit 10lbs of shit into a 1lbs bag!

As with all cruising boat rigs they come down very rarely (every 20 years!) so everything on the masthead had to be removed with an impact driver and heat as the stainless and aluminum had seized. I don’t think any lancote or tefgel was used to put the rig together in the first place. I didn’t have time but would have liked to do ever single screw on the rig so that if we have to replace any part in the next few years I am not up the rig with an impact driver swearing! Everything was replaced with new items – windex, vhf antennae, a new mount for the new wind instrument. All screws were well covered in tefgel and electrical tape was used to create some isolation between the stainless brackets and the aluminum rig. Another way of doing it would have been to paint on duralac and let it dry however, you can’t get that product in the US.

Then off to Marin to drop off the truck at the service center then to the new boat I am managing a Quest 33 . We went out for the Richmond YC pursuit race. Varying conditions from 0-21 knots and large wind shifts. We had 4 crew on the boat which myself and Rene had not been on the boat before and the owner is getting back into racing after a few years off. The boat performed beautifully (we definantly needed the bigger jib when there was no wind) we topped out at 15.8knots in a 20 knot gust. We ran out of track and couldn’t get the necessary height in the wind to get up around Treasure so had to do an early drop. A little crew work mistake led to a broach but the recovery was impressive – an advantage to having a furling jib was that we were able to unfurl it sheet it to weather and that brought the bow down and we got back on our feet before dousing the kite. Letterbox douses are the way to go on this boat as the bow buries easily in the bay chop so you don’t want weight on the bow or water coming down the main hatch. The disadvantage is there isn’t much room in the cockpit for everything that needs to be happening at the same time! Despite trying our hardest including 3 spinnaker hoists for only 500 yards of spinnaker work and blasting along at up to 15.8 knots the J35 got away from us in the light air upwind in a different windline. We ended up in 4th or 5th place out of about 35 or so boats.

Unfortunately the minute we hit the dock I had to rush to the service center before it closed to get my truck back and then pick up a dock box and some more materials before rushing back to the city to finish the rig job. Then my good friend Gus fed me at his house before I met with the ishares team at 10pm at StFYC to lend them my truck for the next few days. Adam from the team gave me a lift home and I packed, cleaned up my house (as my mom is staying next week) and got an off watch worth of sleep.