Page 95 - RAPTC Year of 2019

for doing this and provides life changing opportunities and a well- earned Certificate that is recognised by all future employers.
The AFC is the largest DofE provider in the country with results way above the national average. Our latest results where 99.5% with approximately 800 JS gaining an award each year.
Each JS will attend 2 evening classes per week, consisting of a Skill and a Sport. The Skills we have to offer range from Art to Musical Instruments, Pilates to Languages and even an introduction to Football Coaching, hoping to plant the seed for our
future coaches. Our Sports cover all of the most popular Sports and we also include 3 styles of Martial arts with a highly qualified, ex Olympic Judo coach and an ex world champion Shotokan assessor. We have some excellent coaches which include a level 4 ex professional Rugby coach and several UEFA level 3 Football coaches.
There are many other excellent coaches who enthuse the 300+ JS each evening. Included are around 30 Military coaches out of the 90+ coaches Pearson TQ employ. Many of the Military coaches come from or are hoping to join the RAPTC.
93
ARMY FOUNDATION COLLEGE HARROGATE TALISKER WHISKEY ATLANTIC CHALLENGE – FORCE ATLANTIC
Capt (MAA) C M Hames RAPTC
“Hi Chris, it’s the CO”, “Hi Sir, what’s up?” “How do you fancy a physical challenge?” “Yeah, of course, what is it?”. Damn! What have I just said! What if it’s running
multiple marathons, how will my back and knees cope? “Row the Atlantic”. Phew! “Yeah, absolutely let’s do it!”. That’s exactly how it went, probably should have asked my family first but hey, these opportunities don’t come too often (thankfully!).
That was in Sep 18, what a blur of a year, unimaginable workloads, training, meetings, shows and courses. All the time doubting myself that my back would hold up well enough to make the start line. This was my main concern, I was in so much pain for most of the training year, I received some great words of encouragement from lots of people but especially Richie Windard when I was at a very low point, thanks mate. I quickly concluded that if I had to start off already on pain killers then that’s what I would do (and did!), what the hell, we’d all be on them after the first week at sea anyway, mind over matter!
We had trained for this moment for a year, that’s not actually that long but we were here and finally sat in our completely self- contained boat in La Gomera marina on 12 Dec 2019, the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge start day. Before this was 11 hectic
Atlantic Sun Rise