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26/06/2014

I broke my long journey from Cornwall by spending the night at my house in Gloucestershire and set off for the North West Boating Centre at Crosby just after lunch on Wednesday. The offshore wind turbines were revolving slowly and it was immediately clear that conditions were going to be challenging and cadets would have to work hard to build their miles.  Luckily there were lots of cadets from four different units and, after a short ceremony to present a CSC Commendation to City of Liverpool Unit, we soon had 14 dinghies and four windsurfers out on the water, clocking up the miles.  Despite the light winds, which sometimes died away altogether, everyone completed at least two laps of the mile-long course, while most boats managed three, for a total of 77 cadet miles achieved - a great result given the difficult conditions!  Everyone had a brilliant time and there was a terrific turn-out of volunteers from across the area.

Thank you to everyone at Crosby for hosting this event - I really enjoyed it and it ran really smoothly.  My next blog will come from Scotland where I will be visiting Grangemouth Unit.

25/06/2014

Today Sea Cadets is 158 years old and to celebrate we are encouraging our volunteers and cadets to bake a cake and have a party at their unit. Since 1856, Sea Cadets have provided hundreds of thousands of young people the chance to experience the exhilaration of an offshore voyage, gain qualifications to boost their careers, learn a musical instrument and the opportunity to row, sail, canoe and kayak every weekend! Make a donation to Sea Cadets to ensure that we can carry on supporting young people, here! 

25/06/2014

Yesterday I set off from Weymouth for a the long drive to Cornwall Boating Station on Stithians lake near Redruth, to take part in Sail the UK with Falmouth and Penryn Sea Cadets!  I was watching all the wind turbines anxiously as I drove - would the wind be as feeble as it had been on Monday evening?  I needn't have worried as I arrived at the boat station to find ideal conditions; bright sunshine and a good breeze!  A team of cadets from Falmouth and Penryn were just coming ashore for lunch so once they had eaten they were eager to get back out on the water and POC Charlie was kind enough to take me out in a Laser 2000.  A half-mile long course had been marked with buoys and we had great fun tacking up the lake and then hoisting the spinnaker and running back down.  By the time we stopped at around 3.30pm a total of 170 miles had been sailed. A great effort!  The end of the day was marked by me presenting the CO of Falmouth and Penryn Sea Cadets with the unit's Burgee for 2014 - well done to all!

Tomorrow I’ll be at the North West Area Boat Station at Crosby. Keep up to date with Sail the UK here

24/06/2014

Sea Cadets, the UK's largest nautical youth charity, are joining forces with UKSA (UK Sail Academy), a leading maritime youth  development charity to offer life changing training to 14,000 young people across the UK. Working together Sea Cadets can access work experience, courses, qualifications and careers in yachting and watersports with UKSA.

The partnership enables Sea Cadets to benefit from 100% funded BTEC courses in watersports, week long taster courses in watersports, and super yacht industries, plus three month watersports instructor courses in dinghy sailing, windsurfing and kayaking. The partnership also enables UKSA to use Sea Cadets training centres and boat stations to broaden their nationwide youth development programme to reach out to more young people.

Read more here.

24/06/2014

After an excellent day at Sheppey on Sunday I headed south to Woking unit to take part in their Sail the UK event with them! On the way, I represented the Corps at the memorial service for Captain Andrew Thomson CBE RN who sadly died last week, he was Captain Sea Cadets from 1985 to 1992.

On arrival at Woking it was clear that the wind was going to be a lot gentler than on Sunday, but this didn't deter an intrepid team who manned two Picos and a Bosun on the lake, conveniently located near Woking Sea Cadets' new unit.  It was hard work in the very light winds, that sometimes died completely and it took us an hour to do a mile each, but it was a beautiful evening and everyone enjoyed themselves, despite the relatively modest distance covered. Thank you to RMC Corporal Zoe for captaining the Bosun I was sailing in.