Hello UMIKO Fans...
Well after this afternoon I have plenty to write about.... I'm tired though so this will have to wait for tomorrow. In the meantime we are gong in roughly the right direction under A4. with Polly on the helm. We are hoping for more wind/ wondering why it has not started to fill in already. Not long before i wrote this the DTF was less than the distance to our departure point... We are over half way..
Olly out
Blog from Teddy...
This is my first Ocean race. I thought it would be good to give an insight to the experience so far on racing across an Ocean on Umiko, an 80 foot Swan as although I think myself a good sailor (have you ever met a Sailor who didn’t think they were much good?....they are not Sailors!)
There are 12 of us, Olly the Skipper, Nico the first mate, Chris the Chef from Umiko, 7 club sailors from the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire (Ireland) and a Father and Daughter from Sweden. We are split into 2 watches over an estimated 2 weeks. 4 hours on/4 hours off by day 3 hours on/3 hours off by night. 3 meals a day and a good chance you will be called for a sail change or Gybe daily when you are asleep!
Olly, Nico and Chris are incredibly capable in any situation but also calm and easy going and ensure everybody develops, there are no hierarchies for crew here.
I’m going to lay this out in the areas of performance sail training as in the past 8 days I have learned more than all the courses put together (and don’t forget I was a good sailor before this!)
1. Boat Handling
Let start with the Winches, they are electric and have three speeds. You tail the sheets keeping your small fingers at the side of the Wench and your Thumbs facing you, why? (I asked also) because you can pull more with each arm….and if you do get dragged into the wench (this thing is like a small keg that rotates like a train wheel), you’ll only loose your small finger and that’s a lot better that losing your thumb. Thanks Olly! The guy is really practical.
The Kite, ahh my Alma Mater, I started out on Bow, if you were/are a Bow then you’ll know to keep stuff like that quiet when you step on an 80 foot Yacht, yep you’re a Helm really. It doesn’t last long before you are standing on the Bow thinking how you will present that you are not a Bow next time. Fortunately on Umiko when they say that its just for major manoeuvres, it actually is and there is no set positions, so I’m happy with this and of course there is so much I can teach them no doubt, so just give me a look at the set up here. Oh so you have a Lock system for the Kite halyard, right, we don’t have one of those on our 36 footer. I see so if it gets jammed we need to go up the mast, 36 Meters you say, incredible feat of engineering, me? today? Did I mention I wasn’t a Bow? I wonder if they are aware that the kite is still up, they are, after the Winch discussion I decide to just do it and not ask any practical questions. Once I am confident that the crew haven’t agreed to get rid of me, up I go and Wow! What an experience, I was actually quiet happy up there, they view was incredible and actually its pleasant getting up there as the electric winch means there is no jerking….it seems we are the only thing on the Sea everything else has disappeared 360 degrees.
Lets bring up the bag then and set up for a hoist The bag takes four people to move it to the rail but from there on its just a kite like any other and up she goes…its huge! To retrieve the kite we need to use the Wench on the lazy sheet, then spike the Halyard, so cool! And all hands to bring it in, a good rule of thumb here is when you think the head is about to appear you are about half way. To pack this initially took 30 minutes and half a bucket of sweat, we have this down to 6 to 7 mins now (sweat factor had not improvement).
The Helm (where we all want to be), you would accept that maybe you are not going to get to Helm much on an 80 Footer racing across the Atlantic. Well in line with all the other positions, this is a possibility also. Running under a Genoa and Main you get to see how responsive the Helm is and actually not that different to any other, the experience is a progressive one though, next thing you know you are helming under kite, then at night, with wind shifts every 10 mins and waves…… a strange thing happened here when we hit about 8 knots the wind disappeared but the boat kept on going at a similar speed, this is how I learned the practical impact of apparent wind, we were now travelling at the same speed as the wind and reassuring breeze on my cheek has disappeared only to be replaced as we continued to accelerate beyond the wind speed to my face as though we were going up wind, of course I knew the theory of this before but it never gave me such a good feeling!
Ok so this is not a training environment all the crew are now up to speed as I am and we were racing all this time, if you ever get me over a pint I will be a nightmare. But in reality we are all confident to handle the boat and we are a cracking team. What Next…
2. Boat Performance
We have all levels of skill on this boat but we are all very quickly able to handle how she operates and now we want more speed, but this is a 2 week race so I am starting to understand the Skippers methodology, less mess ups on handling so we can concentrate on performance.
The Sail wardrobe is akin to any other boat except and we know the polars of each so we busy ourselves on discussing why we are not getting the right speed, until we are and consistently. Our 2 watch system is now keen on when she does well, we fill out a log after each watch, because of the involvement to date we all know what the log means, I will admit that on day one looking at the log I thought it like some bureaucratic exercise required for insurance purposes but now I am seeing what the conditions were like, what was achieved and how are we performing. If you asked anyone about the last 24 hours here you would think they were the skipper as they will know all details of their log, there are no passengers.
3. Tactics
Now we are on top of the other two this is the area that can really make the pay off, we meet every day at 5:30 to discuss the weather, the Grib files we get and what the optimal performance route is, the technology is really cool also and learning how it works and reading Grib files is all part of the journey, we are all involved on the progression of this selected route watch by watch. The first 2 to 3 days don’t tell you much as we are all making our way south and learning the boat as above, we are on day 8 now and we know the boats we want to beat (big shout out to Stay Calm as she’s also a Swan and nearby!) We are 1334 nautical miles from the Finish line or the best part of a week and we are match racing, isn’t that incredible. We are also looking at some of the others and if you woke someone up in the middle of the night here for a sail change, they might as easily ask you if you have any news on the other boats!
The setting
We are all pro racers in our minds now, God help you all in Dublin bay! And maybe I forgot to mention some of the more magical experiences of being over a thousand miles from (any) land. On my first night we had Dolphins light up the phosphorescence around us as they paraded alongside. Just at the end of my watch I saw a shooting star sail across the sky. I have never seen so many stars in all my life and the run all the way down to the horizon. Shooting stars are a common theme, every night.
We pass squids whose tentacles are lit up with phosphorescence and recently the flying fish have started to jump on board for a lift but we are not insured to take them as they haven’t done the boat handling part so we throw them back. The other day as I was getting a Halyard a whale rocked up he has a much better SOG than us we noticed!
The Sunrises are powerful and the Sunsets make everyone stop and watch the sun melt across the sky apparently there is a green flash just as it sets. We are now on the first quarter of the moon so it will light up more each night until we finish. I greet the Plough, Jupiter and Orions belt every night as I come on watch just to make sure all is ok in the world. I saw the Southern Cross last night on our port side with the North Star on Starboard, it was a magical moment and I though of the many Mariners over the years who used this map of the Sky.