May 2007-Brightlingsea Sailing Camp

Training ready for camp.

Collecting and preparing the boats ready for camp.

4^th May-Friday.

15 Sea Scouts met up at their Groups Headquarters in Sudbury, Friday evening. They helped leaders and Explorer Scouts load up the van with all the food and Camping equipment.  We hitched the Groups safety Boat “Johnny Rescue” and the other sailing dinghies we were taking on this trip. Some boats were already in place at Brightlingsea Sailing Club; six dinghies in total.

We headed off to the camp site in Brightlingsea, which is next to the sailing club - very handy! A service crew had been on site most of the day.  Jeff and Tracy had taken their Rib over to Brightlingsea that morning.  Bill Hotchkiss, Jeff’s former Cub Leader, was invited to come along for a ride on the boat on the Friday morning. Bill an active member of the Scout Fellowship could not turn down a chance to be on camp and offered to help pitch the mess tent, so that when sea scouts arrived some of the work had already been done.

Nick Powell was also on site doing urgent repairs to one of the County Boats so that the Sea Scouts could sail with confidence.

The Sea Scouts arrived on site just after 8pm that night; they set up their sleeping tents, with the help from the Explorer Scouts and Senior Patrol.  Leaders and helpers helped finish off the rigging on the boats. The Sea Scouts were briefed on the weekend’s activities and rules for the camp site and sailing club, before turning in for the night.

11pm the leaders food arrived from the local take away and was kindly cleared up by the senior patrol leaders!

Our camp site at Brightlingsea, the boat park and sailing club can be seen behind.

5^th May-Saturday.

I was awake by 05.30 and made full use of the hot showers on the camp site. By the time I got back to the tents, we started to see signs of life from the Sea Scouts and Breakfast was not far behind; bacon and egg rolls.

Lunches were also made up for the day. Safety Boat crews moved in to position at the Park and Ride; they finished preparing the boats and then waited to be launched. Rib TC then Johnny Rescue, our third safety boat was coming from Colne Yacht Club and plan to take charge of the boat before lunch time.

Once our safety boats were afloat we gave permission to launch the sailing dinghies. With all the dinghies sailing off without any problems we sailed out of Brightlingsea Creak and crews sailing in a triangle course. To complete this course they needed to sail at all points of sailing.  We had the use of a Topaz Xenon and the lad’s from the Senior Patrol got a new experience in sailing.

We met up with the guy’s from Colne Yacht Club, and took charge of their Safety Boat Tango 2. Just after that we decided to stop for lunch, Mersea Island made an ideal spot, so we put all the boats on the beach and enjoyed our lunch break together. We had a change around with the boat crews and decided to head out to sea for the afternoon session. We made it as far as Inner -bench head before returning back to Brightlingsea.

Once all the boats had been recovered, and we had all got cleaned up for the evening we had a BBQ, Zoe and Amber came over in the afternoon and collected the BBQ food from the butchers in Brightlingsea. While the Scouts enjoyed the meal leaders and helpers refuelled the safety boats and made sure the sailing dinghies were fit to go again in the morning.

6^th May-Sunday.

We all sleep in a little bit longer than we did on the Saturday, but breakfast and lunch’s moved along quickly. We launched the boats in the same way that we did on the Saturday, we did decide to tow the sailing dinghies out of the Creak. We then sailed off Mersea Stone and headed up river towards Rowhedge. It had been 20 years since Sea Scouts sailed up and onto the Beech at Rowhedge, for me a reminder of my first sailing camp with the sea scouts when I was only ten years old, back then we camped at the Scout camp in Thorrington and sailed out of Alresford Creak.

We had our lunch on the beach before sailing back to Brightlingsea, it was great to see the sea scouts sailing so well, for those at the helm or as crews the smiles were all round.

Arriving back in Brightlingsea around 4pm we recovered all the boats and started to de-rig the boats getting them ready to be towed back on the Monday. We got showered and cleaned before having chip supper around 8pm. The chips come from the local chip shop, down on the sea front.

We were still clearing up from for tea, when one of our scouts called for help! Barney had fallen from a wall that he had been playing on; he had broken his arm in one or more places. We tried to move Barney and had planned to take him to hospital by car. This was not going to work so it was decided to call 999 and ask for an ambulance. After a long wait help arrived to take Barney off to Hospital. His parents met Barney and I at Colchester. On the Monday morning Barney had an operation on his arm and a couple of day later came home!

7^th May-Monday.

As for the rest of the camp we packed all the tents away, hitched up the boats and returned to Sudbury, It had rained most of the night so all the kit was soaked. Once we got back to Sudbury we aired all the tents and made sure all the kit was cleaned and ready to go back in the stores. The parents met the sea scouts and just after 4.30pm the camp was dismissed. Everyone had a great time, and we are looking forward to the next Sailing Camp.

I would like to thank all the skilled helpers, Leaders and Explorer Scouts, along with Brightlingsea Sailing and Colne Yacht Club that helped make this camp a great success, we also wish Barney a speedy recovery.

Rob Palmer -3^rd Sudbury Sea Scouts