Kōkōkaha – Powered by Wind

We have been grateful to be part of the "Have a go" sailing programme run by Worser Bay Boating Club. The sailing was facilitated by Yachting New Zealand qualified kaiako.

Tui: Sailing is a fun activity that involves bravery, grit and most of all having fun. On our first turn we could only get about a metre from where we started and that was when I was controlling the rudder (The turny bit). But when I was the person doing the accelerating (by pulling a rope thingy), we went much further and had a great time. So after that we were really keen on sailing but we still were nervous about going far out. So that explains why you need bravery. Why you need grit is because it’s WAY harder than it looks, especially on your first try!!!

Soma: Sailing was so fun but when you come to big waves and big gusts of wind, it wasn't pleasant. I wish we could do it more, even though I thought it was scary enough to do it once. Thank you teachers for organising this wonderful experience for us.

Amber: I used lots of character strengths to even have the strength to get onto the boat. I was very nervous before but then it turned out that I didn't need to worry at all until we started spinning and almost capsized. But that ended up being fun. Me and my partner Greer did really well!

Samuel: I felt nervous before I went sailing. While sailing it got really rough. I still felt nervous. I used Grit to get through it. I even went again for the second time. It was fun!

Olive: Sailing was kind of fun. There was a lot of yelling on our boat. Mostly because when I accidentally steered us out to deep and then we got stuck in the swell. To make things worse, my partner got hit on the head by the swinging crossbar and couldn’t control our speed, which was terrible when we started to tip over. Basically, when you start to tip, you need your partner controlling the speed to be able to slow you down. Thankfully the wind holding us up dropped and we came crashing back into the water. One little thing. WE WERE STILL STUCK IN THE SWELL!!! I called the rescue/coaching boat over and they towed us back to shore. That was our second run. Our first run was pretty much the same, except I didn’t get struck in the head by the crossbar. And we didn’t get towed back to shore. Instead of getting towed, the coaches yelled at us and we eventually got back to shore using their advice. We had to use a lot of verbal connection and perseverance to stop us from capsizing. Thankfully my partner was OK and so was I. I think we were just a little shaken up, that’s all.

Charlie: Sailing was really fun because the waves were huge. Getting in was more dramatic than it should have been, mainly because me and Luca tried to take it in and it get on being swept out so we were holding onto it for dear life and then we got 2 more people to help us and it turned into a rescue. But apart from it was quite nice. we did 360's in 1 second flat and we nearly capsized about 6 times. But thats all the exciting stuff we did.