Umiko - Captain log

Captains Blog 29.11.19
Today was another fantastic day with light trade wind breezes. So far we have been one of the more northerly boats. We have been waiting for the wind to veer further to the east and then hopefully into the south east. This would mean we could gybe and continue on an optimum course. These shifts are never straightforward with a number of “false starts” with the inevitable unenviable course to follow post gybe…
We are now on a port tack which is much better for my sleeping arrangements as I am not hanging in my lee cloth all the time. The wind has moved around to the east but as ever not as much as we were hoping with glimpses only of the numbers we were hoping for.

Crew moral is good. Stay Calm passed less than half a mile from our bow this morning after six days of racing. While we have had our challenges, apparently so have they. They collected a shark on their keel. This is a known phenomenon; the shark has no bones so folds around the keel and is quite tricky to get off. Stay Calm had to do as their name suggested and back the boat up using the main to free themselves from the shark. It was nice to see them and have a catch up. We look forward to sharing stories in St Lucia and Antigua.
A big shout out needs to go to Baz firstly he did the rig inspection this evening even though he is not a big fan of heights. Secondly because he was the first crew to get hit by the now infamous flying fish.

Olly Out