> Cool for me, anyway, so I wanted to share. As of next Sunday (July 22) I will be spending twenty days crewing on a square rigger sailing around the coast of New Zealand!
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> "Spirit of New Zealand" is a sail training ship run by a trust, which takes 40 teenagers (15-19)at a time on "youth development"-type ten-day voyages during which time they learn to sail the ship, do stuff ashore like hiking and abseiling and other outdoor pursuits, and that sort of thing. Besides these 40 trainees, there are about 12 crew members and I'm going to be one of them.
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> I'm on for two consecutive ten-day voyages. The first one leaves from Tauranga (about three hours' drive from here; we'll go down there on Sunday morning) and arrives back in Auckland on August 1 at 7a.m. Then I have until 3pm the same day to go home and do laundry and stuff, and get back to the ship to leave again on the next trip. The second trip gets back to Auckland on August 11 but I don't know yet where it goes in between.
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> This is what I'm told the daily routine will involve, very roughly. Up at 6 a.m. for ten minutes of exercise and warmup on deck. (It's winter. The 6 a.m temperatures in Auckland lately have been around 2C/35F, so yikes.) Followed by a SWIM. Compulsory. A freaking swim in the sea at 6 a.m in winter. Oh well, it's better than being stinky, because there can't possibly be enough fresh water in the showers for more than 50 people for ten days. Breakfast at 7, clean up, a briefing at 8, lectures or whatever from 9 to 10.30, then the morning's activities, whatever those might be. They could be ashore or on the ship. Lunch, afternoon activities, dinner, evening activities, and lights out by 10.30 p.m. unless you're on night watch, which goes in two hour shifts throughout the night.
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> You would not BELIEVE how much I'm looking forward to this. "Spirit of New Zealand" is one of the prettiest boats in the entire world, and learning how to sail a square rigger is going to be incredible, let alone doing whatever other stuff they make me do in the "activities".
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> It's not a paid position -- there are only four paid permanent crew positions on board and the rest are volunteer, because it's a charitable trust -- but the big deal is that these two voyages will give me 160 hours of commercial seatime. At the moment I need 418 more hours towards my basic license, so that's a BIG jump towards it.
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> So that's where I'll be while the RinkUnion is going on, freezing my butt off sailing a square rigger up the east coast. Between now and then, I still have to finish another week of work at my temp job, so I'll be around here a bit in the evenings when I can, but I haven't been able to get online very much.
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> Brunnen-"this is going to be so amazing"G

It's a great looking ship.
Who are all of those people hanging from the rigging? Scary!
What really blows my mind is a square rigger with bowthrusters! That's combining old and new technology.
Howard