We are delighted to announce that we have now agreed a new 2020 tall ships adventure for WQSC Cadets aboard the Island Sailing Trust’s Johanna Lucretia. And now the fundraising begins in earnest!
This Saturday (16th November), the cadets will be running a sponsored bag pack at the Tavistock Tesco supermarket from 10:00am to 2:00pm. If you are tied up with the club’s Boat Park working party this Saturday, then you will get a second chance when the team do another sponsored bag pack at Morrisons on Sunday 8th December.
The Plymouth based Island Trust, has been supporting deserving young people for over 40 years and provides life-enhancing, residential and day-sailing activities for young people. They have a special focus on those with special needs, disabilities, and those experiencing hardship and deprivation.
The Trust operates three large traditionally rigged sailing boats – Moosk, Pegasus and Johanna Lucretia, each with her own distinctive style and character, and all of them perfect for sail training.
Katherine Duncan takes up the story of our search for a new tall ships adventure for the club’s cadets; “The Tall Ships team were very disappointed when we realised that Trinity were no longer taking bookings. It seems a great loss to the tall ship sailing community.
As soon as we found out, Alan set-to looking for other Tall Ship sailing experiences we could offer our very keen cadets.
After many discussions, phone calls and emails, we settled on a voyage with The Island Sailing Trust on board the Johanna Lucretia. I think you will agree it looks like a beautiful boat.
Johanna Lucretia is the latest addition to The Island Trust fleet and is the largest of their vessels. As it is currently the only UK flagged topsail schooner in sail training, it draws attention wherever it goes. The boat is 96ft long, has a beam of 18.1ft and a draught of 9.3ft. It will sleep 12 guests as well as crew. It was built in Belgium in 1945, and has quite a history. The Island Trust bought it in 2018. The Johanna Lucretia has had a few appearances on the silver screen – most notable the 1978 spy thriller The Riddle of the Sands and the 2006 film, Amazing Grace, a drama about William Wilberforce’s campaign to end the slave trade.
The Island Trust is based in Plymouth and were incredibly flexible, basically creating and planning a voyage just for our cadets. The hope is that the cadets will be able to sail further afield that on Leader – maybe making it to the Isles of Scilly or across The Channel and definitely some night sailing is planned.
The voyage is more expensive than last years but we have lots of fundraising already booked and more ideas in the pipeline. If you are available to show a friendly face when the cadets are bag packing it makes a huge difference in their moral! We are also planning another cake sale at the Bere Ferrers Community Shop – watch out for info about dates. The cadets from last year’s voyage have given several talks to organisations in the community that donated funds to help with the cost with the Trinity voyage, and have approached these with gusto! As WQSC were so supportive they have arranged to do a talk as part of your winter talk series, if anyone would like to ask the cadets any questions or find out more about their experiences please come along on the 16th March 2020.”
You can learn more about the Island Sailing Trust’s work at the website; https://www.theislandtrust.org.uk/