Dave Eptons Blog
All change in a day as a novice…
Day 5 all starts well. We continue with our overnight track that slightly bears north from our direct track to St Lucia. The last couple of days we’ve ended up with a more westerly wind by the morning that’s pushed us too far off course, so we’ve done a leg south in the more difficult wave conditions. Today the wind has stayed more northerly, so we continue on the same tack hoping it will last. Why not? Its only going to be 15 miles off our track to St Lucia by the end of the night.
The plan b starts well with the A team on watch, Sean, Simon and Ross, the track is holding but towards 8pm its started to drift a small amount north. On this tack my cabin is on the leeward side. When we pick up speed you become instantly aware of the chop of bow wave against the side increasing. With my limited experience on the yacht world and as a first time on a yacht out of sight of land this sound has got mixed blessings. Even if misplaced!
Great that we are covering the ground quicker but after our broaching at night (see previous blog from Danny) with the kite up, you are scarily aware of how difficult it gets, and the feeling of speed just heightens the sense of awareness of being out here in the middle of the Atlantic. You’re a long way from help and unlike other forms of travel, when it gets awkward you can’t just park up easily!
We take over at 8 and we’ve lost the visual references of stars, clouds or moon from previous nights. This all makes keeping a kite flying so much more difficult. I’m amazed at skipper Olly and first mate Seans ability to use the combination of a scan of instrument data, feel from the helm, position of the kite and trimming on winches to keep UMIKO true. The riding turn on the winch which caused the broach just means the more you have to do that at night the greater the risk of a riding turn. As one of the winch guys for the kite…I’m very aware of the risk so now check my winch regularly.
Things get more difficult on the third watch. The watch gets large wind shifts from squally rain showers added to which one of the pro crew Stephane is suffering from fever like symptoms and has to go below. Helps needed with trimming and helming so as standby team we all go up together to do another stint. Danny from the other team is also suffering from a bad back so is not fully operational. Olly and Sean are getting tired. We’ve got two of our 9 sailing crew out of full order.
It all ramps up the pressure very quickly, and we are not even half way across the Atlantic. The knowledge that we’re still out front in the race keeps spirits up but you have no choice. You can’t exactly stop! So on that night, so many of my previous worries of doing this as a very new experience had started to be realised.
We go straight onto a 3-hour rest for only one hours sleep then back up for another stint towards day break.
To add insult to it all, Olly receives another tomahawk missile type strike from a flying fish that went straight down the hatch and hit him while resting on the saloon seats. Her has already had one previous, on deck, a direct hit to his eye by a hefty one!
So, todays contrast is that we are all sorted and having an amazing sail in amazing conditions.
Dannys back hasn’t crippled him out of order completely, Stéphane’s problem of heat stroke has been sorted, we’ve had a great days sailing and Seans had a birthday cake made by our very capable cook Karina. Karina is also now recovering well from a smack to her arm below deck during our broach.
It’s a long way to go but we are still out in the front. A day of more contrast I can’t imagine!
A big thanks to Phil the boats owner, for the chance to be out in all this craziness.
Dave OUT!