So, as promised, I said my next blog would be about the Greenpeace Boat Training course that was happening on board the Arctic Sunrise. It was an intense, hard, exhausting week but worth every second!
Our trainer was a lovely guy called R.P. He has previously worked on the Greenpeace ships and now comes back as a trainer occasionally to run the courses.
We have five boats on board the Sunrise; ‘Susy Q’ – a jet boat, the Hurricane and the Parker – two larger prop boats and the two Novi’s – smaller tiller steering prop boats. We had a lot to learn!
We began by going through the safety checks that should be carried out before launching the boats and the things that needed to be checked and then, when we were ready, we worked on starting the boats and launching procedures.
The hardest thing to do on the boats is slow manoeuvring so we started by learning how to go forwards and backwards in a straight line (harder than you might think!), ‘nosing’, which is when you put the bow of the boat against an object and hold it there, coming alongside and then moving off from a stationary object. We spent a few days doing this, as each boat takes some getting used to, and we all wanted to practice and get it perfect.
The ‘Susy Q’ was the hardest for me, as a jet boat steers in a completely different way to propeller boats. I just couldn’t get the hang of going backwards but then Jono, our bosun, explained to me that you steer backwards in the same way as you would steer a vehicle to reverse with a trailer, and then it all made sense!
Once we had mastered slow manoeuvring we took the boats out onto the Markermeer; an inland freshwater lake to practice out in the elements. We then learned about driving at different speeds and the effect it has on the boat. We spent lots of time trying to estimate how fast we were going based on the way they boat behaved, and how to safely manoeuvre at each speed.
We also spent some time on navigation, making passage plans, how to navigate safely, and all about latitude and longitude. I had some experience of this previously from when we have been doing transits on the ship and doing ‘watches’ with the officers but for others it was completely new.
The last day of boat training was the best by far. We headed to the Markermeer once more, having completed a passage plan the night before and were joined by the Argus; Greenpeace Netherlands little ship and the baby of the Greenpeace fleet with her two Captain’s – Jakob and Theo. Having the Argus there gave us an opportunity to practice coming alongside a moving vessel, and holding the boat there, which is essential for doing actions and getting campaigners and crew on and off the boats. It was a brilliant day, very wet, very cold but so much fun!
We ended the day and the course on a high, everyone feeling much more confident in the boats, in our skills at handling them and being able to use our most important tool fort actions effectively. Now all we want to do is put our new found boat driving skills to good use so…where is that oil rig?!
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