We enjoyed beautiful weather again as we sailed up to Aalborg – sun, clear blue skies and a little bit of wind which was, yet again, not in our favour.

Ruth and I relaxed on the bowsprit net for a while, enjoying listening to the water rush beneath us and looking at the scenery. We would quite easily have fallen asleep up there but the wind was a bit too cool. However, as Martijn said, we really looked as if we were “suffering” as we stretched out in the sun. It’s a hard life!

Our afternoon watch was quite uneventful, again, calm waters, no sail setting sadly and the wind all wrong for us. Stavros S Niarchos appeared at various times – we will be visiting Aalborg together.

After a lovely night tucked up in bed, we were on watch again from 0800 to 1230. The weather was completely different – wet, squally, windy and therefore it felt a lot colder. However! We set sails, braced and also learnt how to wear and tack, after a quick lesson from Richard. Everyone was pleased to be pulling bits of string and playing with the sails for a bit.

The Stavros S Niarchos then appeared on the starboard beam – as Captain said, they are the ENEMY, as we will be playing tug of war and having a rowing race against them in Aalborg. We then motored up the fjord to Aalborg, Stavros S Niarchos tailing us.

It was the Danish trainees’ turn to cook dinner; one trainee was seen talking to their mother on the phone, asking how she makes the dessert, whilst scribbling notes on a whiteboard! It was delicious – meatballs, mash and cabbage, then a sweet apple and cherry crumble with vanilla cream.

Afterwards Sebastien taught us a bit of the Haka to scare the tug of war team from Stavros and then we went straight into tug of war. We lost the two ship vs. ship wars but won the men’s and the ladies’ by a country mile. We attempted to cover the crew of Stavros with water by cunningly standing them by our bowsprit for a “group photo”… sadly someone forgot to turn the fire hose pump on, meaning Glenn the bosun dashed up and turned it on to find…nothing happened. The Stavrosians then realised what we were planning and ran off, returning with buckets of water. The next hour was spent throwing water over anyone and everyone!