Volunteering at Pioneer Sailing Trust

Volunteering at Pioneer Sailing Trust

By: Gemma Bailey & Jasmine von Kaenel

During the half term of the New Year, Gemma and I had the pleasure to go and see what goes on behind the scenes and take part  at  the Pioneer  Sailing Trust.  During the last week of October Gemma and I had an immense experience aboard the Pioneer herself.  

In the New Year Gemma and I decided to do some volunteering at Pioneer since we had such an amazing time before. When we do anything with Pioneer, we are always looked after and are guaranteed to have a super time. This year we worked in the workshop, preparing Pioneer for the sailing season.

I did a whole week and Gemma did three days, but even with such limited time it was a brilliant experience.  We worked hard and everyone made us feel welcome!  On Monday, I worked on the blocks, sanding them down getting ready for the top coat.  After lunch, we got the rudder from the Pioneer and started to scrape away the old paint ready to apply the wood preserver.  Tuesday was very much of a continuation of Monday, but still was quite fun.  

Then finally on Wednesday, Gemma started and we both got the job to sand down some gig oars.  Then, after lunch we had the privilege to tape boards of plywood and then cut them with the jigsaw (which was pretty cool). After that we decided to do “A more fun job?” says Gemma, so we got to do some planing and sharpening of blades, which kind of ended up as a completion  between one another, “ Who’s Planing board looked the best?”.

The next day on Thursday, we started to sand down some other oars and clean them in white spirit.  After we did that a few times we took them into another room to start  varnishing them (this was                                                a Zen moment).

 

Then, on our last day, Friday, we got some sand paper and removed any bumps or dips, to create the perfect finish.  Afterwards  we had to put some more coats of varnish on the oars to get a glossy look. Then after our tea and coffee break we got on to making this blog, hoping to share our experience and to influence other younger people to do something as great as the Pioneer Sailng Trust. This has definitely been a once in a life time experience creating a new path and an interesting future.