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Mountaineering / Offshore Sailing, 'Dragon Mountain Tack', UK: Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis, Jun 2011, ID 1156

101 Fs Bn REME

101 Force Support Battalion REME were set the challenge by the CO of conquering the Three Peaks and travelling to each peak by sail and bike – ‘The Original 3 Peaks Challenge’.

The first task was to drive to Largs to collect Sirius, sourced from the RAF, and sail her back to Caernarfon. The crew consisted of Mr Kirkham (Skipper), WO2 Betts (Mate), Sgt Grundy, Cpl Barwood, Pte Pritchard and Cfn Morgan. After receiving an in-depth safety brief we were ready to set sail in the calm, blue waters off the Scottish coast.

The following day at 0600hrs we slipped the lines and set sail for Port Patrick but before arriving we had a few teething problems, namely a rather inconvenient water leak. The hot water tank was the culprit - once identified and remedied we continued on our way, having built up extra muscle power by the amount of bailing out! Sailing certainly brings new meaning to learning on the job as we awoke the following morning to find the horizon slightly askew, only to find that we had tied the lines too tight, but thanks to the quick thinking of the skipper, disaster was averted...another lesson learned and understood!

Next port of call was Bangor, Northern Ireland. Due to the unusual calm conditions of the Irish Sea we had to use the engine to get us to Bangor and again on the onward journey to the Isle of Man. Leaving the Island the following morning could not have been any more removed from the previous day. We woke up to a force seven gale with the waves bashing off the boat and facing into the winds made steering very difficult. It was at this juncture that we saw what appeared to be sharp uncharted rocks and we were getting blown towards them. This was rather nerve racking for the inexperienced among us: however, it transpired that the sharp rocks turned out to be moving with fins...darum...darum...darum. Yes, indeed we were in the company of a shoal of basking sharks, the second largest living fish, slow moving and relatively harmless thankfully. It was an awesome experience to see them up close but very disappointing not to be able to photograph them in their natural habitat.

From Port Peel, Isle of Man, we travelled on to Holyhead where we had the opportunity to implement all the new sailing skills in excellent conditions, travelling at a steady speed of seven knots.

All change! It’s at this point the leg two crew (Three Peaks) take over. They consisted of Maj Jennings (Skipper), Capt Naylor (Mate), Lt Col Lang, WO1 (RSM) Fields, Pte Pritchard and Cfn Morgan. The admin team was SSgt Curtis and Sgt Grundy.

Let the challenge commence! Saturday morning saw the start of the real work. We travelled from Holyhead by minibus and climbed Snowdon: time up via the Pig Track, 1:40 hr and the time down via the Railway Track 1:25 hr. We then cycled from the Railway Station to Caernarfon, a distance of 10 kilometres in 30 minutes. We then returned to Sirius to night sail for Whitehaven which tested our stamina as we had to be on watch for three hours on and three hours off before cycling to and from Scafell Pike, the second of the Three Peaks. This part of the challenge took thirteen hours from leaving the boat and returning, and turned out to be the toughest day of the whole challenge.

For the final part of the challenge we sailed to Fort William with a brief stop at the Mull of Kintyre to recharge our batteries before scaling Ben Nevis. The weather conditions were really clear until we had almost reached the summit at which point we were enclosed in fog with snow on the ground and visibility was disappointingly poor. Overall the climb and descent took 5:45 hrs.

Feeling quite satisfied with our achievement whilst relaxing at the foot of Ben Nevis drinking the local brew, we reflected as a group on our expedition. Many things came out during reflections, probably the most beneficial was the due to the limited living space on the boat it was important that we all dealt with issues as they arose, nothing was left to fester and although there were no major incidents of upset it did bring the crew closer together. As well as developing our sailing skills and testing our fitness, we are more conscious of the needs of others when working in a team. It taught us to be more pro-active that reactive in decision making and we felt that spending time on the boat was a great leveller. As the journey progressed and everyone shared responsibility for the menial tasks, it was difficult to differentiate between officer and soldier which made the team much, much stronger.

OCdt Paul Morgan

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Dragon Mountain Tack/We head out from Largs into the Firth of Clyde Dragon Mountain Tack/The crew from  the first week Dragon Mountain Tack/Learning the ropes Dragon Mountain Tack/Ski goggles proved very useful in the rain! Dragon Mountain Tack/The galley slave learning his place!! Dragon Mountain Tack/Scot and Tony  as we sail past the Skerries approaching Holyhead Dragon Mountain Tack/The beginning of Snowdon Dragon Mountain Tack/The top of Snowdon Dragon Mountain Tack/Snow up Ben Nevis in June!!