Race 2 - Day 5
Crew Diary - Race 2 Day 5
20 September
On GoToBermuda we are operating a three watch system with the crew split into three watches of six people. The Skipper and the Chief float between the watches to help when necessary and to do the navigation. The watches are called Horseshoe Bay, Tobacco Bay and Shelley Bay, after the three most beautiful beaches in Bermuda. I am the watch leader for Shelley Bay watch. The three watch system means that one watch is ‘on’ (ie on deck sailing the boat), one watch is ‘off’ (ie below decks asleep in their bunks) and one watch is on ‘standby’. The standby watch is split into two with three people doing the cooking and cleaning for the whole crew (whilst being ready to don lifejackets at any moment to help on deck with any manoeuvres or sail changes) while the other three get to stay in their bunks for an extra watch of sleep. The next time the watch is on standby the positions are reversed. The benefits of this system are that everyone gets a double watch of sleep at some time every day and the cooking and cleaning duties are shared amongst the crew all the time. We operate three 4 hour watches during the day and four 3 hour watches during the night, which means that your watch times change every day so everyone gets to see sunrises and sunsets at some point. You also get to know all the other crew members because you always overlap with a standby watch. It’s a system that the whole crew really enjoy.
During the day we spend a lot of time teaching sailing skills to the less experienced crew members to increase the numbers of crew who can helm and trim the sails. If conditions are favourable we do the same at night although when conditions are tricky we have to use the more experienced helms.
Last night conditions were quite tricky with a big swell and winds oscillating between 14 and 20 knots. Surfing down waves at up to 12 knots when the wind dropped to 14 knots meant that you almost overtook the wind at times and collapsing the asymmetric spinnaker was a big risk. However, it was a lovely night for sailing with a full moon and on my watch (3am to 6am) we had two pods of dolphins come and join us for a bit of play. Surfing down waves bathed in moonlight with a pod of dolphins jumping alongside the boat is pretty special.
David