Chapter 28: Sail Training

On Monday morning Rick took the girls to the sea school in Palma, close to where the yacht he skippered was moored in the marina. As he was preparing the yacht that week, he had offered to give them a lift each day to Palma and back home in the evenings. The girls were already missing their boyfriends but were excited to be doing the sailing courses.

“We must be crazy” Anna said “We just finished school and what do we do for the first two weeks of our holidays – go to another school!”.

“But I think you will find this school much more fun” Rick replied, “The first week might be a bit dry but Dave always makes it fun with his tales of how he messed things up when he started sailing”.

“Will there be an exam at the end of the week?” Erika asked, “I’ve really had enough of swotting”.

“Yes, but all you need to do is read through the notes he will give you” Rick assured her “At this stage the objective is to help you pass. It only gets tougher when you get to Yachtmaster level”.

They were now approaching the marina.

“I will show you where my yacht is first, so that you can come and find me when you have finished, then I’ll walk round to the sea school with you and introduce you to Dave” Rick said.

He parked his car and they walked into the marina and along the pontoon until they came to a very large sailing yacht.

“Here she is!” Rick said.

“Wow, it’s huge!” Anna exclaimed.

“It must be really difficult mooring her in the marina” Erika said, “There’s not much room to manoeuvre”.

“It can be a bit tricky with a cross wind” Rick replied “We don’t have time now but after you finish, I’ll give you the tour.

He then led them back out of the marina towards the sea school where he greeted Dave and introduced the girls before returning to his yacht.

“Welcome to our sea school!” Dave said with a big smile and showed them into a small classroom where a young couple in their early 20’s were already seated. Dave introduced them as Ron and Jackie and after a few pleasantries, Dave went to the front of the class to start.

“I will be teaching you the theory courses this week and Pete, one our other instructors will teach you the practical stuff on board our yacht next week. The plan is to do three courses this week. We will start with Essential Navigation and Seamanship so that you don’t wreck the boat onto a rock next week. After that we will do the Marine Radio course so that when you do wreck the boat you can call for help, followed by the First Aid course so that you can treat those you injured in the crash!” Dave explained.

The students laughed rather nervously.

By break time they had all relaxed and Dave asked them all about their sailing plans. The young couple said that they wanted to crew on her uncle’s yacht. Dave looked at Anna and Erika next.

“We both love sailing and when our boyfriends told us they would be helping deliver the yacht their Dad skippers to the Caribbean over Christmas, we decided we wanted to join them” Erika explained “He won’t take passengers, so here we are!”

“That is ambitious!” Dave remarked “but if you can get some sea time in, you could just about do it”.

They returned to their tables to continue studying chartwork and surprisingly quickly, Dave wound up for the day and the girls went back into the marina to find Rick’s yacht. They removed their shoes and Anna called out from the dockside “Permission to come aboard Captain”.