Halcyon Memories
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More Memories Of A Cadet - 'Jaybee', Classic Boat Forum Posting
Monday 13th March 2006
'As one of two senior leading cadets I was privileged to bunk in the lazarette, which was basically a stores space with no headroom, right aft near the mizzen. The rest of the cadet crew lived in the foc'sle, - pretty spartan, just pipe cots and a table for meals.
Every crew member was assigned a station for "on the wind" and "off the wind". During a gybe ("off the wind") my job was to change over the running backstays on their huge highfield levers. Coming up from the heads in a rush I once managed to let go the old weather backstay prematurely, a mistake that had contributed on an earlier occasion to a dismasting - not me on that occasion! I don't think these incidents improved Captain Stewart's stomach problems.
Halcyon carried two boats in conventional davits - a pulling/sailing boat to starboard and a small launch with a Stuart Turner petrol engine (1-2 hp) on the port side. Approaching our mooring on the Hamble my job was to get the launch over the side and run lines to the buoy. All great fun.
Apart from general seamanship, the main role for the ship was navigation training and this included sextant work and sight reduction using 5 figure logarithms and the Marc St Hilaire method, which was standard in the MN of that time.
It's great to know that Halcyon is living on, in a world that would be unrecognisable to those who built and first sailed in her.'