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.
