{"id":530,"date":"2013-12-05T18:08:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T02:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=530"},"modified":"2014-06-22T07:04:53","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T14:04:53","slug":"midnight-at-the-helm-on-night-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=530","title":{"rendered":"Midnight at the Helm \u2013 On Night Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The one question we are most frequently queried by friends and family is: What do you do at night when you are in the middle of the sea?\u00a0 You can\u2019t anchor (or \u201cpark\u201d as some friends have asked).<\/span><\/p>\n

You can kind of anchor, it\u2019s called heaving-to or you can lie-a-hull.\u00a0 \u00a0Basically you stop sailing and just drift while you get some shut eye.\u00a0 But if you are trying to cover some ground you need to sail around the clock which means someone is on night watch.<\/p>\n

Other than heavy weather sailing, I find maintaining a night watch, with a short-hand crew, to be the most challenging task while at sea.\u00a0 Sailing short-handed is just that \u2013 a shortage of hands to help sail.\u00a0 We are a crew of three, but our 10-year-old son, Dante, is too young to be on night watch.\u00a0 So that leaves Jen and me to heavy-eye-it through the night.<\/p>\n

If you have a large crew (think of the days of old square rig sailing ships) it\u2019s no problem.\u00a0 You divide the crew into sub crews with each sub-crew taking some number of shifts per day.\u00a0 For example, suppose you had a crew large enough to divide into three sub crews – a first mate would be responsible for the first crew, the second mate responsible for the second crew and so on.\u00a0\u00a0 Assume each crew takes a 4-hour watch duty.\u00a0 The daily schedule would work out like this: on watch four hours; off watch eight hours.\u00a0 So each crew would have two watch shifts per day.<\/p>\n

But as mentioned we are effectively a crew of two.\u00a0\u00a0 Over the years Jen and I have experimented with different watch schedules.\u00a0 Two hours on, two hours off \u2013 too short can\u2019t get enough sleep.\u00a0 Four on, four off \u2013 too long, hard to stay awake at the helm.\u00a0 Three on, three off seems to be the easiest for us.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, it is very hard not to doze off at the helm regardless of the schedule you try to maintain. \u00a0You\u2019re not actually steering the boat, which makes it even harder to stay awake.\u00a0 In our case we have an autopilot, others use a wind vane.\u00a0 Either case you aren’t doing any physical work, just watching for other ships and any hazards, like hitting land.\u00a0 Combine that with the gently rolling of the sea and you have a perfect lullaby in the making.\u00a0 Press any sailor on this point, and if they are above board, they will admit they have fallen asleep at the helm.<\/p>\n

So given this reality here is what we do to maintain a margin of safety:\u00a0 If we are near shore, 10 to 30 nm we set our radar alarm and AIS alarm to warn of any nearby ships, and set a kitchen timer for 20 minutes.\u00a0 So if we do doze off we are woken with plenty of time to deal with any hazards.\u00a0 Keep in mind – we are only traveling 5 to 6 knots.\u00a0 Now when we are further off shore, 30+ nm, we set the timer for one hour.\u00a0 Our radar can pick up targets within a 48 nm range and our AIS has a range of 80 to 150 nm.\u00a0 Cargo ships cruise at around 12 to 22 kts.\u00a0 So assume a cargo ship heading directly towards us at 22 kts, and we\u2019re going 7 kts (I wish) – our combined speed is 29 kts.\u00a0 At a minimum distance of 48 nm between us, time to impact is approximately two hours and ten minutes.\u00a0 So even with the timer set to one hour, if a hazard should suddenly appear just after I fell asleep (for one hour) I would have one hour and ten minutes to deal with the situation upon being woken by our timer. \u00a0Every hour we get up and check the radar and AIS for targets and check the boat for any thing that might be amiss, which takes about 10 minutes. \u00a0Then back to sleep. \u00a0Now \u00a0I\u2019m not suggesting others do this, but this approach has worked for us.\u00a0 And we\u2019re surprisingly well rested which enables us to be better sailors during the day and not zombies. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be notes: if we see a target on screen, regardless of how far away, we won\u2019t go a sleep.\u00a0 And if it looks like the target will pass close by we hail them over the radio to confirm they see us and what their intentions are for passing us.\u00a0 Often we’ll get an updated weather forecast from them to boot.<\/p>\n

It a glorious sight \u2026 seeing the sun rise, knowing you have made it through another long night!<\/p>\n

Time to hit the hay.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood morning Dad! \u00a0I slept great last night. \u00a0Are you ready to play?\u201d\u00a0 Oh boy\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sunrise over the Gulf of Tehuantepec<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"11236932994_8e0b46a31c_c\"<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The one question we are most frequently queried by friends and family is: What do you do at night when you are in the middle of the sea?\u00a0 You can\u2019t anchor (or \u201cpark\u201d as some friends have asked). You can kind of anchor, it\u2019s called heaving-to or you can lie-a-hull.\u00a0 \u00a0Basically you stop sailing and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sailing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}