Yesterday I had an interesting night at the helm. The previous watch had just dropped the yankee and hoisted the windseeker and I started helming under diminishing winds which quickly turned into a windhole. Helming became very tricky because if the boat has no speed it has no steerage. Then a few minutes later the wind picked up incredibly quickly. We were trying to set up the yankee while at the same time going incredibly fast and heeled with the windseeker. Helming became a Mario Kart videogame where everything was happening at high speed. When we finally hoisted the yankee I had been helming more than two hours straight and I was spent.
Every day each of us spends a couple of hours at the helm, during our day and night watches, unless conditions are really difficult or critical, when Nano, Angus and the watch leaders will take over. There are many aspects of helming that we need to master: helming using a point in the horizon, helming using the compass, helming with waves, helming with fickle of variable winds, helming with the spinnaker, helming at night… We are all slowly improving and reaching higher levels.
