Umiko - UMIKO Blog 7 1.12.18-3.12.18 flying to the finish!

Dear Umiko Fans!
1.12.18-3.12.18 Blog 6
24 hr run 297nm
DTD 838.8nm
SOG 14kts

Dear Umiko Fans!

I hope this blog finds you well. I appear to be a bit behind on the blogs so I am trying to surmise a couple of days. We have been working hard to keep the boat going as fast as possible so I may have missed a blog or so…

The Wildlife…

From the 30th on we have been regularly visited by fin whales. They can move incredibly fast and are often going faster than us ( we are averaging 12 kts or so).

Flying Fish Attack….

These continue last night we had a kite collapse as the result of an impoact to the chest of the helm who then with no horizon or reference lost temporary spatial awareness an collapsed the kite.

The BROACHES…

Thankfully not too many I think we are up to four total with one on each watch though “A” watch are claiming they had a breach not a broach as they did lye the boat completely flat as per the earlier events.

The tack Line…..

The strongpoint that we had made in Palma was too sharp. The tack has failed a number of times so we put Gibb shackle directly to the strong point. This metal to metal contact caused wear and eventually the Gibb shackle gave way! I have not seen that before… We rustled up an improvised tack soft point that appears to be smooth and are hoping that as of this morning we are not going to have any other problems.
In order not to slow the boat down we ally the kite to fly on its tack safety strop while the repairs are affected. This massively destabilises the kite and makes for difficult driving.

The SPEED….

So the trimmers and helms are working much better together than when we started this voyage. The team work has definitely come on! This is not just because we wanted it to but out of necessity. While Eric and Stephane were working on the tack line and I was told “ keep it steady and slow” I got a new speed record of 21.8kts. It was a prolonged surf… Stephans life jacket went off he got so wet!

Other Traffic…

We have not seen another vessel in days but we are tracking the fleets progress on our navigation software expedition. It looks like G2 and us will have a close fast run in to St Lucia is we both hold it all together.
That is all for for now guys I am going to go and get some rest because with the conditions picking up and a challenging night ahead I am sure to have a lot of hours on the helm!

Olly OUT!