The Asgard

It was a cold January day when my Dad arrived home with a copy of the Irish Times under his arm. "Sarah", he called, "there is something I want you to read in this". "Oh no", I thought as he handed it to me, "not another article about education or the points system". He pointed out a large article about something called the Asgard II. I later discovered that this is an Irish Tall Ship that sails around Ireland and other places teaching young people with no sailing experience about the boat and how to sail it. The next day I rang up about the course and was sent an application form. One month after the form was returned I received a letter saying that I had been accepted to go on the course from the 21st of March to the 28th. I was to leave Arklow and board the Asgard II in Cork Harbour. I was so excited.

On the 21st of March I arrived at the ship and stood with a large group of silent teenagers. Everyone was looking at the ground trying to avoid eye contact. The ship looked magnificent. It was painted a racing green with gold lettering. There were two large masts with lots of sails tucked in neatly. The whole ship was made of wood with a figure of a woman carved on the bow. It was spectacular.

After a while a young blond woman sprightly hopped off the boat. She introduced herself as Fin and then allocated us our bunks. Everyone struggled to bring their gear aboard. Quickly we put our stuff on our bunks and headed back on deck. Fin told us that we had to climb to the first yard (where the first sail on the front mast hangs from) and down the other side. Most people went pale and wondered whatever had possessed them to come on this trip. This was when the ice was broken. Ben, one of the leaders, came over and asked us where we came from and if we had ever been on the Asgard before. Anyway we began our ascent up the ladder. It was very scary as the ladder was really wobbly.

Some of the trainees on the Yards.
That's me in the middle with my thumbs up.
After we all recovered we met the captain. I think most of the girls hoped he would be like Captain Birds Eye but unfortunately he was in his late forties with graying hair and a very loud voice with a strong Cork accent. He told us all the rules and that we would not sail until tomorrow. He told us that everyday there would be three people on Galley duty and guess who was first on the list. That's right, me! I was to work with a girl called Ceire and a lad called Kieran. Ceire was from Finglas and was as mad as a hatter. Kieran was from Cork and it was so obvious that he had never worked in a kitchen before in his life. We got on very well together and successfully completed our kitchen duties (taking a good few short cuts) just on time to go out with the others.

Donal, Ruairi and Ronan working hard in the Galley!
The next day after we were dragged out of bed at 7:00 am we set sail. The weather was beautiful and the sea was so calm. As the day progressed we learned a few knots and some of the basics of setting sails and taking them back down again. That evening my group went to bed early because we had to do a 'watch' (act as look-out) at 4:00 am. That night the wind really picked up. It went from very calm to force seven off the Fastnet Rock. So when I hopped out of bed at 4:15 am did I feel seasick? I ran up on deck and joined the queue to get sick over the side of the boat. I have never been so sick in my entire life and I wasn't the only one, all the trainees except Laura, Marie, Ronan and Ben puked their guts up. It went on like this for the rest of the day. You should have seen the colour of people's faces when Claire, the chef, brought up the plates of homemade pizza. Laura was so good to me she ordered me into bed and I felt so much better after that.

That night we docked at Castletownbere. It was so funny getting off the boat with everyone swaying from side to side! When we came back we were all given our seasickness tablets and were let off night watch. The next day at sea we saw about five or six Killer Whales. That was so cool. Later that day we passed Kinsale Gasworks and a huge naval vessel. When the girls heard the words "naval vessel", boy did we run!

That night we moored In Schull. We played our own variations of Scrabble, Blackboard Jungle and Charades. That night was so much fun. Over the next few days we learned to set the sails properly, we also started to get used to climbing up onto the yards and tying the gaskets on the sails. We stopped in other places such as Cobh and Kinsale. Everywhere we went we were treated like royalty. People lined up on the quays waving to us and looking in awe as we climbed up to the topsail yard (the highest of the three yards).

On our last day we had a huge breakfast with all of the permanent crew. It was delicious. We had cereal, toast, rashers, sausages, eggs, and pancakes with chocolate spread, fruit, brown bread and orange juice. I thought we would have to be rolled off the boat. After breakfast the tears flowed and everyone was hugging and kissing each other. That was one brilliant week.

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