Give Sailing a go!

We were blessed with the opportunity to give Sailing a go by the wonderful St Johns Rotary Organisation. 

Room 5's fantastic parents Tema, Aly, Brown, Gabby and Karissa made it possible for us to attend by providing transport to and from the event. Many thanks, wonderful parents!


May 8th dawned bright and clear with a light breeze. Perfect conditions for our class to get out on the water and learn how to sail.

Students were paired up and sailed together. 

Please read a partner recount by 2 of the sailors. I blended their Recounts so you could feel it from both points of view.

This is a recount written by Thomas and Patience. They wrote it together. Patience is in black and Thomas is in blue. I have attached images below the writing.

A crazy day in a boat 

Tuesday was a very exciting day. My class were going to go sailing. I was feeling a bit nervous but excited at the same time.

We got to Okahu bay and the instructor showed us how to rig a boat. We needed a sail, a pole to hold the sail up, a board to push down when we got into the water, a baler to get the water out when the water is inside our boat, and most important, the courage to sail! It looked easy at first but when me and my partner tried it ourselves, it was soooo hard.

We got all the easy parts of our boat finished but we had to do our sail and ropes and the “BOOM OF DOOM” almost hit me. The instructor told us to come in but we hadn't even finished our boat. Luckily Maria came and checked all of our boats to make sure we had rigged them correctly.

Then we had to get into sailing gear. We had to wear a tight wetsuit, a rain jacket over that and a really tight life jacket. When we finished getting changed I could barely breathe. I felt like I was being choked to death.

It was time to go on the water! We had to line our boats up in a row at the edge of the water on the ramp. Soon, it was our turn. When we got on the water my partner was freaking out and I was screaming my lungs out. I felt like I was in a horror movie!

My job on the boat was taking care of the rudder and my partner, Thomas had to take care of the sail. We were working so well as a team and managed to keep up with the instructor. The other people yelled, “How are you guys going so fast?” We went fast because we were following the wind and making sure our sail was not “flappy and unhappy!” Then the wind got stronger and stronger but we did not give up! We just kept on following the wind. When we finished wandering around the sailing instructor told us to go to him.

When we went to him he grabbed a ball and threw it into the water. We had to sail and get the ball before the other boats. The first person to get the ball had to pass it to the instructor. The hard part was that you could only hold it for five seconds! After the game was finished the wind came and blew our boats and the BOOM OF DOOM! nearly hit my head and yes, my partner Patience started to scream, again!!. When the wind got heavy I was scared because we were in the deep side of the water. Even though we were all wearing life jackets I was still scared because I thought that the fish would come and bite our legs.

We sailed back to shore to have lunch and were very excited because we were going to go out again. My food was so yummy. I wanted to eat more but I knew I couldn’t because I would get a cramp. After a yummy pizza lunch bought by a parent, we all pulled our boats back into the water and sailed to the instructor, Simon. When we got there he flipped our boat over. Me and Patience had to swim and flip our boat back over the right way.  We were swimming in the water trying to help other people who were capsized and couldn't get their boat back up the right way. We helped them push their boat back to shore.

There was so much water in our boat and I was shivering. It was time to go back to shore, so we sailed back, got our trailer and brought our boats out of the water. It was time to go home. I wish we got to have a longer swim and also another chance to go sailing. It was a very interesting day. I wonder what will happen when I go sailing again?

Thomas and Patience rigging their boat