Charlotte Hole awarded Best Potential Skipper at ASTO Conference
The Cirdan team attended ASTO’s annual Sail Training Conference in Portsmouth on Friday 27th January. Queen Galadriel’s Mate, Charlotte Hole, took home the award for Best Potential Skipper!
Charlotte joined the Trust in March 2018 as Bosun on Faramir. Already a keen dinghy sailor, Charlotte had her first taste of sail training volunteering within sail training.
The Charlotte we see today is very different from the reserved, young girl who joined Faramir’s crew five years ago. Charlotte’s lack of confidence in her own abilities masked the dedicated and competent young person she was to become.
After a season aboard Faramir, it was decided a season on a completely different vessel would be good experience for Charlotte. She took on the role with a great deal of trepidation – not just a new Skipper and Mate to work with but a different boat and one with a gaff rig.
As with the industry as a whole, 2020 was a difficult year. During the furlough period, the crew were given the option of living aboard Queen Galadriel, but government guidelines prevented Cirdan from asking them to work. Whist others sat and read or wrote their memoirs, Charlotte took it upon herself to smarten up the deck area with a few coats of paint amongst other maintenance jobs. She took over her parent’s house with metres of canvas volunteering her skills to make new sail and hatch covers for Duet.
The return to operation in 2021 saw Charlotte back on board Queen Galadriel as Bosun but with the vessels out of action longer than usual, she was tasked with making removable seat covers for all three boats – these were washed between voyages as part of our Covid prevention strategy. As the season progressed and the boats were all back in action, Charlotte moved around the fleet to work aboard all three vessels as Bosun and trainee Mate. By now her knowledge was sufficient to stay on over the winter to help the Fleet Manager update the rigging guides before making some replacement sail covers.
Last season, Charlotte was rewarded with a well deserved promotion to Mate. Her meticulous working methods made her the crew member of choice to be contacted by the office to sort out the ‘occasional’ administrative hiccup on board ie missing receipts. Charlottes’ s sailing skills have never been in question but towards the end of the season she got in more practise at manoeuvring Queen Galadriel, stood in for the skipper on occasions and ran a weekend training voyage for the crew. The winter months saw Charlotte back again to work at the sewing machine, making bean bags from Faramir’s old winter cover and redundant bunk cushions. More importantly, she’s been assisting the Fleet Manager with regular maintenance, updating records and putting a training guide together.
With her dedication, range of skills and passion for providing life-changing opportunities for disadvantaged young people, Charlotte is definitely a potential skipper not just for Cirdan but for sail training – the forthcoming season will see her not only as Mate but trainee Skipper. She will have a new Skipper and Bosun to train up on QG in addition to her own duties and is looking forward to every opportunity of training as skipper across the fleet. Charlotte is aware that taking on the skipper’s role is not easy and involves a good deal of training but she is prepared to work at it and wait until the right moment occurs.
Charlotte has worked with a broad spectrum of groups whilst at Cirdan from young people with high levels of autism, young offenders, adult learning difficulties to sufferers of psychosis. The friendly and welcoming nature of Charlotte means that she is able to build an affinity with everyone who comes aboard regardless of who they are and the difficulties that have led them to a voyage. Charlotte takes the time with each and every person to ensure that she finds a way of connecting with them in order to fulfil not only the Trust’s aims but also those of the group leaders for the voyage and their young people, tailoring her instruction style accordingly.
A good way to describe Charlotte is a sponge. Since starting with Cirdan, she has understood she is not yet the finished article but has shown a determination from day 1 to soak up knowledge. It doesn’t matter if it is a current skipper passing on sailing knowledge or our engineer or shipwright working on the vessels, Charlotte takes every opportunity to learn about every aspect across the fleet. She has also come developed an understanding that it is not just about learning but teaching as well. Charlotte now has the ability to take junior members of crew under her wing and pass on the knowledge she has gained.