Evaluation-

I chose to take part in the sailing activity at Oman Sail which was provided as an option by The Sultan’s

School. Before this time, I have never had sailing experience before, and to be quite honest, I didn’t even

have much of a swimming and water experience before. I set myself four goals which were challenging

but easily measureable and they are listed below.

Goal 1 – Commit to this activity for a period of 6 weeks, 3 hour sessions per week.

I committed myself to this activity and I achieved this, I started the activity on the 9th of January 2013

and finished on the 13th of February 2013. Although this activity was quite exhausting, and it was an

endeavour to complete it, I am quite pleased with the fact that I attended all the sessions, even those

where I felt slightly unwell and even when I needed the following weekend ache-free. The evidence of

this can be seen in my entries to ManageBac.

Goal 2 – Achieve all the objectives and skills required in level 1 sailing provided by Oman Sail.

Oman Sail had various objectives as part of their level one certificate, which I was granted at the end of

this activity and hence I was successful in achieving this goal. The following is a list of some of the

objectives and how much of them I managed to achieve, and the evidence can be seen in one of the

pictures I uploaded to ManageBac.

· Prepping up the boat- This included taking the boat out, plugging in the water safety, taking it

down to the dock, attaching the sail and boom, fixing the rudder, etc. We were able to do this by the end

and this was ticked off on our booklets.

· Tacking: This means turning the direction of the sail boat, but it isn’t that simple, and the process

actually involves lots of complicated physics, avoiding the “no go zone” wind direction, etc. We achieved

this with a figure of 8 turn and a three point triangle, even though the latter was level two. Hence this

objective was achieved.

· Capsizing and recovery: I capsized a total of 3 times during my course. Initially it was such a

frightening experience due to me having such little water confidence and I literally felt paralyzed by all

the water. The next time around I was able to move and the third time I was able to pull myself up to the

boat. Progress!

· Launching and recovery. This is taking the sailboat from the shore and bringing it back

respectively, and this was also a new skill but I was not as confident with this objective because we only

had one session doing this. It was planned to do other sessions but due to weather conditions we weren’t

able to. This was the one objective that wasn’t ticked off at the end.

Goal 3 – Work in collaboration with my friends and trainers to improve my skills and help others when

possible.

Sailing may seem like an activity entailing individual accomplishments but in reality a lot of teamwork

was involved. On our first day, we were two students in a boat each and I shared mine with Samaa. We

had our fair share of misfortune and (for others) comedy as can be seen in the first entry to ManageBac.

When we capsized, Samaa helped me to move about and helped me to calm down in such deep water. I

also helped others with prepping up their boats and especially bringing them down to the docks, because

they were usually heavy. I was also always attentive when the instructors and trainers were explaining

the day’s work in class or when they were giving us directions during our time afloat, so I achieved this

goal pretty well.

Goal 4 – Improve my swimming skills and learn not to panic in the event of boat capsizing

Before the start of this activity, I had never taken swimming lessons, and the only experience with this

that I had was playing on the beach, etc. So the water depth required for sailing was actually

overwhelming. It wasn’t as bad for me to call myself water-phobic but it was still pretty nerve wracking.

The first time my boat capsized, I literally started screaming that I’m dying and I couldn’t move and I felt

as if something was pulling me down, even though I had a life jacket on. The next time around I didn’t

panic as much but I still was unable to put the boat back up. But on our final session all of us decided to

capsize ‘for fun’ and it wasn’t bad at all. I learnt a little bit of swimming technique but not enough to say

that I’m a confident swimmer. Obviously it will require much more time and training for that to be true,

so I can say I somewhat achieved this goal.

In reference to the CAS learning outcomes I feel I have achieved all of these too.

Awareness of strengths and areas for growth - I gained a better understanding about my strengths and

areas for growth. I’ve found out that I’m good at listening to instructions, for instance I was able to steer

myself out of the ‘no go zone’ (in the direction of the wind) when the instructors told me. I was also good

at prepping up the boat. Tacking took some practice to get right and sometimes the book would hit my

head, which was painful. And sometimes the boat wouldn’t catch the wind and I had to fiddle with things

to keep moving, but once I was in the right direction, it was fine. The most amount of learning I had to do

was with launching and recovery because I feel like I didn’t have enough practice with that.

Undertaking new challenges- So far I have discussed how all of it, even the swimming was basically a

first time experience for me so the whole thing was one massive challenge, but one that I loved

undertaking. It has made me have confidence in my abilities to cope and adapt with new environments

and believe in my strengths. Even with such little water confidence, I was able to complete the whole

level one course and I’m quite proud of that.

Worked collaboratively with others – As mentioned earlier, sailing involved an active participation by all

and involved helping others and listening to others. I helped my peers prep up their boats and take them

down to the docks, in turn, some assisted me when my boat had capsized. With some coordination, we

were also able to avert collisions between the boats and avoid going into the no go zone. Working

collaboratively enabled us to pool our skills.

Show perseverance and commitment – Sailing sessions were very exhausting. Even after a month of this

activity, my body did not get used to it physically and my leg muscles would ache for the rest of the

weekends. It was 3 hours’ worth of working out once every week and for an unfit person such as myself,

it was a lot, but I still continued with the sessions. I didn’t even give up one day when I was sick because

even though sailing was exhausting, going out in the sea had some kind of a therapeutic effect.

Developed new skills - I have discussed some of these skills before, tacking, launching and recovery,

prepping up, etc, and I am glad to say that I learnt all of these in my level one course. Even managing to

swim a little bit is a new skill for me. Sailing gave me the opportunity to challenge myself and learn as

much as I can and I’m glad to have learnt the skills that I learnt for the future.

Reflection

Overall I feel I have really benefitted from this activity. Sailing was an experience for a lifetime and I will

definitely carry on with this sometime in the future. I didn’t master it or anything, it was simply a level

one course but even then the skills I leant over this short period of time were quite valuable. Sometimes, I

was sleepy and tired from IB work so that probably affected my performance but I still did all the sessions

even though it was exhausting. In the future, I hope to have better bight sleep before going on a sailing

session and I hope that I don’t panic at all in the case of capsizing and that I am able to bring the boat

back up.