So after exams come short courses. These are pretty much teaching us all the practical stills we will need (though hopefully not all have to use) while at sea. Our main four courses include within them: Sea Survival, Fire Fighting, First Aid, Knot Tying, Abandoning Ship, Life Boat Drills and Entering an Enclosed Space. Please note most the photos have not been taken by me but either a friend, or are from WMA website.
EDH
Our first course was Efficient Deck Hand, which was 2 days long, this was mostly made up of rope work, and also looking at various pieces of equipment that we would find on a ship’s deck.
In our first morning we started by learning the different types of rope. Did not realise how many types there was. Fascinating. After that spent time learning how to splice rope. This is where you form a semi-permanent joint between two ropes or two parts of the same rope by interweaving their strands. The purpose of this can be to form a stopper at the end of a line, a loop / eye in a rope, or for joining two ropes together.
In the afternoon we went on to learning to tie knots (always exciting), most I knew, some I didn’t. My main trouble was with a bowline, I always knew the “you make a six, rabbit comes out the hole, goes round the tree and back down the hole”, like I learnt it when I did my Level 2 Power Boating course, however this didn’t seem to be working out properly. Now I consider myself a fairly bright person, I know which way my sixes go, however, when I asked our instructor how to do it, he made a ‘d’ shape… A ‘d’is a backwards 6 how did that work?!
How to tie a bowline.
Some of the knots we learnt.
Also in the afternoon we had a play on the Bosun’s Chair, and painters bench. A Bosun’s (or Boatswain’s) chair, is basically a plank and rope, on which you sit and pull yourself up side of a ship, be that the hull, the funnel or whatever and is usually used for painting and maintenance of area too high (or far below) the deck.
Like in climbing we had two people, one on the ground looking after the rope, one in the chair. Once we were so high we had to tie ourselves off so that we we hanging in the air without the support or our partner, before letting ourselves down.
The painting bench was pretty much the same, however it seated two of us, and we started up high and had to lower down, but making sure we went at the same rate.
Day two of our EDH started with a conversation about dogging and whipping, behave, its not as rude as it sounds. When you do announce over the table at pizza express with friends and their parents (one of which is a vicar) that you have been learning about whipping and dogging some explanation is needed… I’m still not exactly sure what dogging is. Whipping is taking a string and winding it around the main bit of rope to stop it unraveling. This is better then splicing the rope, as slicing makes the thickness increase, and this doesn’t, but it does take time. Due to the time element, its usually just done with tape…
The final part of the course was about mooring procedure, nothing special to say there except I heard that when group two did this part the course this week, while throwing the mooring line, in the car park, one person misjudged the throw and ended up hitting someone in the face with a monkey fist.
That’s all our EDH course done, well until phase 5 done. Don’t forget that I’m currently taking part in the RNLI’s H2Only challenge at the moment. It’s my 6th day just drinking water, and yes I really want a milshake, but other then that I’m okay with just water. You can find out more about the challenge by clicking here, and sponsor me at my Just Giving page here. You can also sponsor me by texting EPWH94 to 70070.
Thanks 🙂
Elle's Adventures 