Umiko - Blog 3 Day 2 Nightime Sailing

Night time sailing on Umiko

It’s the second night of the Arc2018 on sailing yacht Umiko. We have a mixture of professionals and Amateurs on board. Yesterday we travelled mainly South to try and pick up stronger winds and seemed to achieve this goal early evening, meaning we could Gybe and start to head West. The sailing was good (achieving 232 NM in the first 24 hours – not bad with the light winds we have had) and all on board are in good spirits.

During the night we had some hours of total darkness with no Moon, and very few stars due to cloud cover. Helming was particularly tricky with a moderate swell and as a point of reference in the distance. Olly (one of the professionals on board) was fantastic and gave us all an opportunity to grab the wheel and give it OK. With a few scary moments and a few shouts of ‘left hand down !’ …. ‘left hand down a lot…!!’ … ‘I’ll take over…’ we managed to get through a few tense moments. And eventually you sort of thought you were getting the hang of it – great helming experience (and certainly takes your mind off that distraction at home called work 😊)

Coming off watch onto standby now and hoping for fair winds and safe sailing for everyone attempting this wonderful passage.

Richard
Amateur on Umiko