Measuring

DIMENSIONS
The yacht above is 72 feet* long. Do you know how long that really is?

1) Would the yacht fit inside the school hall? How much space would it take up out in the car park? Take a piece of string 6 feet long into the school car park and lay it down end to end. How many times? 12 times, of course. That's how long it is.

2) The yacht is also 18 feet across at the widest part. Use your string again, three times! Now can you take some chalk and draw a rough outline on the ground? (Ask permission first!)

3) What do you think of the size? Does it look big enough for eighteen people to live on? Ask eighteen students to get 'on board' (that is, to stand inside the chalk outline). What would it be like to travel around the world on a boat this size for long periods of time? What kind of difficulties would you face?

(If you prefer to use metres, check with the 'Home-to-be' page.)

LOGISTICS
What about your food? For a long journey for 18 people you need plenty of food. But let us start with the first and one of the shorter legs of the race, from Southampton, UK to Boston, USA. That's a journey that covers 3,200 miles and approximately 18 days at sea.

If you plan the day-by-day menu, you can start to make a shopping list so that your yacht will be fully provisioned for the journey. How many jars of coffee will you need? How much milk? How much toothpaste? By the way, there are no fridges or freezers on board.

It will be very bad for crew motivation if you run out of food but what about soap, tissues and cleaning materials? Make a list of these other things that you will also need. The responsibility is yours to keep everyone well fed and happy for the whole journey!


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