16 Apr Sunday 15th April – Sea Training – Brixham
The girls crew headed down to Brixham for our last salty row before braving the waters of the Atlantic in the Scillies, at the end of the month. ‘Avona’ is making her journey west and so, boatless we approached Brixham Gig Club to ask if we could borrow one of theirs and they very kindly said yes.
After a bit of customary faff getting the boat ready and into the water we were stretching out our rowing muscles in the shelter of the breakwater and pushing Brixham’s gig, ‘Henry Smardon’, out into open water.
Rounding the break water, we headed East towards Berry head. We had the wind on our nose, good timing and it felt great to be on the sea again – “what could possibly go wrong!”
What indeed!
As we neared the headland the size of the swell increased dramatically and we soon found ourselves surrounded by huge glistening waves. We had our bow straight into them and I think we all felt “Ok this is what we’ve come for – good practise”.
Often, tide rushing past headlands will kick up the surface of the water for a short period of time and with persistence you can push on through it to the calmer water on the other side but this was more sustained than that and we soon found ourselves deep in the thick of the over falls with no let-up in sight.
As the waves increased in size they started to break and white water ran down their faces. We took one wave broadside and a couple of barrow loads of salt water were deposited into the boat. It was now we realised that Steve has a terrible poker face! Various obscenities were coming out of his mouth and he shared the wisdom that “it’s not the massive ones you’ve got to watch – it’s the one behind them that’ll get you” reassuring words from our cox!
We needed to turn and head back into calmer water but the prospect of presenting the side of the boat to these monsters was not appealing. They were coming in sets with the big ones 10-12 feet and then a more manageable 6-8 behind them. If we were going to turn we needed to get our timing absolutely spot on. It was now Steve gave us his motivational spiel: “come on girls – you’re rowing like a demented spider” – ok we needed to up our game!
Sea training is not just about handling the waves, it’s also a chance to see what your crew is really made of. Can we all work as a team in the excitement and in this case fear of the situation? Well Ladies A crew – the answer is Yes!
“Bow side turn” Steve called and we went for it. He’d timed it brilliantly between two big sets and we were round in 5 strokes – amazing what a little bit of adrenaline can do! And we were surfing. The waves were picking us up and rushing us along at a rate of knots – in combination with our long and strong rowing of course!
The only downside to this new course was that we could now all see the size of the waves approaching the boat. They were well above Steve’s head and we had to be damn sure to get the blade cleanly out at the end of the stroke to avoid catching what would have been the mother of all crabs as they propelled us forwards.
We rowed into calmer water and sat there getting our breath and laughing uncontrollably at potential alternative outcomes to Clifton’s sea training: Thoughts of life boat rescues, flares being launched, swimming for shore, chucking wellies overboard were all involved! We were lucky to get away with just a good drenching! As well as seeing the funny side of it we were all reminded of how respectful we should be of the sea and how quickly things could go wrong if we got complacent.
Once the hilarity had subsided in true Clifton style we took a few selfies and pondered the merits of ditching the boat somewhere and going ashore for an ice cream or a coffee. Wisdom prevailed (aka Leiza) and we had a brisk row back into force 4 through the lobster pots and back to the shelter of the breakwater.
Brixham gallantly met us and laid mats down on the slipway, which at low tide turns into an ice rink.
2 hours of rowing, 8 and a half miles and a fabulous day!
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