Discovery is a Seastream 445ST, designed by Ian Anderson and equipped specifically for Sail Training.
She has 12 berths in a combination of a three berth and two berth cabins with further accommodation in the spacious pilot house.

The skipper for the weekend is our friend and very experienced captain Mike Nadin.

The Explorers left Highbury for Southampton and spent the rest of the evening on the boat getting used to her and what she has to offer. Catherine and Richard Phillipson are working with the Explorers this weekend and this is the end of a navigation course that Catherine has been running for some time now and is a chance for the Explorers to put into practice what they have learned

From Catherine
The weekend was, I think, very successful - it was pronounced "nang" in terms of deep respect, especially when we put up a performance headsail which had "Sony" written on it in big letters!

Sadly we couldn't get a berth in Cowes on Saturday, had I realised that would have been in any doubt I would have prebooked. We went back to the home berth and we did some serious sailing and a trip to Cowes on Sunday.

Discovery itself is interestingly rigged, it's very much a bespoke training vessel and is in beautiful condition.

Mike and Nigel (the Mate) were impressed by the Explorers' teamwork and felt that they managed to achieve more than usual on a first trip. Generally people pulled their weight well.

Extra honours go to Justin who was particularly engaged in the sailing, he was really solid to deal with and seemed to enjoy the helming a lot. Martin was also very supportive and as he is rather the lead spokesman for the group it was great to have his support.

We cleaned the boat ourselves but everyone worked like demons and we managed to get it all done in one hour 4 minutes - 4 minutes longer than the target I set them, and about 56 minutes less than Mike N was obviously expecting.