Page 70 - The Royal Lancers Chapka 2017
P. 70

68 REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS (QUEEN ELIZABETHS’ OWN)
 Exercise BLUE LANCER was very much an opportunistic expedition and I (Captain White) had only six days to find a crew and jump through the Army’s adventurous training hoops. A few weeks later myself, Lance Corporals Williams-Tanton, Quigley, Marshall, Hartley and Mason found ourselves en route to RAF Akrotiri where a tri-services sailing centre maintains two yachts – a real treat for service sailors who fancy a change from the Solent. The crew was very much a novice one; I had never sailed in the Mediterranean and by his own admission Lance Corporal Marshall had ‘e-purged’ almost everything he had been taught on his Competent Crew course. Fortunately, he held some muscle memory when it came to rigging sails and working lines and sheets.
The team quickly gelled into a slick, near-America’s Cup-stand- ard crew and the afternoon breeze along the South Cyprus coast
The sun sets on the fleet at RAF Akrotiri
Lance Corporals Quigley, Mason, Marshall and Captain White take a mid-afternoon dip
set perfect conditions for novice sailors to learn some nautical basics. That said, one morning I failed to fully appreciate the space required to manoeuver the yacht in a marina and with a burst of power managed to slice through the mooring line of a multi-million pound Russian-owned super yacht - fortunately for my bank balance rope repairs are easily affordable. To save the blushes of the skipper, Lance Corporal Mason decided to add his name to the list of clumsy sailors by fumbling a winch handle and hurling it overboard. These two mishaps were just two of the enormous number of lessons this crew learned in four days on the water, and tales of sun, sea and sailing have no doubt inspired some thought amongst the next generation of potential Lancer sailors.
SRW
The crew avert their eyes from Captin White’s gopping dad-bod
Lance Corporal Williams-Tanton fails to hide some rather messy sails
Exercise BLUE LANCER
    
























































































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