Deakin Voyage (October 2012)

I try to be pretty quiet about which schools actually use the ship for their programs, but since Deakin University has put their logo on our new lower tops’l, it’s no surprise that they voyage with us.

As part of their Audacious Leadership course, students from Deakin voyage with us for eight days. They do the usual sail training stuff - learning proper rope handling, helming, navigation, keeping watch in the middle of the night, that sort of thing. In addition, they have a number of involved discussions with Deakin staff facilitators, who come on board but are not part of the watch system.

The crew in my watch lived up to the standard set by the earlier Deakin voyages, diving straight into the practical lessons and talking at length about the staff discussions. I remember waking from a between-watch nap to find my watch on deck, doing drills to make sure they knew how to set and strike all the sails. I’ve never seen that happen before.

This was also my first trip as a qualified coxswain, so I handled the powerboats for shore transfers under the guidance of the first mate.

I didn’t get to take many photos, but it was the first time I’ve taken my camera up the rig:

I joined in some of the facilitated discussions about leadership, and realised that the way I run a watch has become almost automatic. This is fine when things are going well, but it means that if things don’t work well it will be harder to reflect on what I do and why. The next voyage is a passenger trip, but I intend to be more deliberate during future training voyages.