Ships‘ handover
In the beginning, all of us thought this second ship handover would be the longest handover of the journey. There should be four to five days of working. But in the weather forecast they said in a few days there will be hurricane wind forces. So, we had to do the handover earlier and shorter as planned. The wind was not as strong as hurricane forces, but nevertheless it was stormy. Sometimes there were eight wind forces.
First of all, I will explain: what is a ships handover?
Actually, this question is really easy to answer. A ships handover is when the ship is overhanded to the students. All the important jobs, like captain, bassoon, watch leader,… are taken over by students. But to do these jobs, you have to write a letter application, in which you say, which job you want to do, why you want to do it and why you are THE person for this job, because there are many students who want to do something. Also, you can be creative and invent a new job. In this ship overhand we had for example a weather frog, Marlene, and a baker, Felix. If all jobs were distributed, the ships overhand could begin.
At 6 pm, on the 5th of march Johannes, our captain, gave the ship in the hands of Johannes, our new captain. Yvonne gave her job to the new project leaders Johanna and Leah. This was the beginning of the second ships handover. At 00 o’clock on the 6th of march the wind turned and went away and Johannes, our new captain, collected people, who were still awake for a jibe. So, in the middle of the night, maybe 5 students, who just wanted to go to bed, walked out of the mess to take the schooner, the main and the mizzen midships. When this was done, they could go back again into the ship, the present watch had to wait till the wind comes back again, to fulfill the jibe, our first manoeuvre. The next day was a „trainee day“. The students were in charge of their positions, but the adults, which are normally doing their job, stood nearby, helped the students and showed them how to do this job. For example: My job was the job of the bosun and in the morning, I had to fix some things in the navigation room. First, I thought on myself how to do it and when I had a solution I went to Nils, our real bosun, and told him what I want to do. Then, either he said: „No this is a terrible idea, let’s do it another way!“ Or: „Yes, that’s a great idea, do it like you thought about it.“
By the way, the wind came back early and strong enough. I think we had like six wind forces.
Back to the main theme, the ships handover. On the first day Nils told me sometimes what we can do next or what would be the right thing to do now. All of this he didn’t say at the next day. On the next day we had to decide on our own, what to do next and how to do it, of course the adults stood right behind us, so we couldn’t bring ourselves in danger or the ship to sink, but if we did something wrong and it wasn’t danger, the main crew didn’t stop us.
To the end of the ships overhand we jibed a second time. The waves were just crashing against the ship and flew over it. Students shouted commands from the poop deck to the back and the ship fell off and jibed. We’ve done it. On this evening the ships handover ended and Johannes, our new captain, gave the ship back again to Johannes, our old captain.