'Atyla': Tall Ship

 by Poppy Codling

At the beginning of this summer, I was lucky enough to receive a bursary from the Sultan of Oman to embark upon the Atyla Tall Ship sailing from Ipswich to Falmouth, Cornwall. The original trip was meant to start for me in Holland, but due to COVID restrictions and isolation periods, unfortunately it wasn't possible to start there. I managed to fundraise £900 with the help of former PGS pupil Wing Chan who cut all of his hair off, which made the overall experience feel even more special! 

As soon as I arrived on the ship myself and the other new people with me were greeted by shipmates and crew from all over the world ranging from America, to Spain to the New Forest! I was put straight at ease by friendly faces. The crew consisted of 19 people and a wide age range, but there were many young people too which was really nice. Firstly, we were introduced to our bunks which were cosy, built in cabins with little lights and surprisingly comfy too, there were bathrooms and showers but there was limited water supply on board so we had to quickly adapt to using it all sparingly, something all of us don't realise we take quite for granted so much! We then had our first (of many!) sit down meal made by the on board cook which tasted delicious, while we introduced ourselves to everyone and got to know each other a little better. Every day we would have one or two lessons led by members of the permanent crew where we were taught things such as different names for each part of the boat and the sails to more practical things such as how to tie different knots, the names of different ropes and best of all, hoisting the sails! 

Everyone on the ship was split into different groups and given ‘watches’ which was when you and six or so people were given 4 hour watches which could be from 12am-4am, 4am-8am, 8am-12pm and so on. Watches consisted of learning how to steer the boat when given the direction, position checks every half hour and plotting it on the map and engine checks every hour when it was running. Although these tasks were all quite hard to learn and get to grips with, the satisfaction we g​​ot after completing them made it all so worth it. The star gazing was incredible if your watch was in the early hours of the morning/late at night especially as we were completely in the middle of the sea with no light pollution so this aspect was definitely my favourite part of the trip, it's not every night you can see the big dipper constellation quite so clearly! Another really rewarding part of this adventure was the meteor shower we got to experience on the first night watch that I did. We saw loads of shooting stars and the reflection of the full moon onto the sea was incredibly special. We also managed to see dolphins which was amazing especially as we were sailing through the English Channel.

Overall, sailing on the Atyla Tall Ship was the most enjoyable and incredible experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. If you ever are presented with the opportunity to do something like this I honestly could not urge you enough! I met some amazing people from all over the world, experienced different cultures, listened to many different types of music and best of all, made some real friends for life.