Sailing at night away from city lights is an experience no one should miss, millions of stars and meteors overhead, moon beams lighting your way, flashes of light in the water, a white trail in the wake from phosphorescence and flying fish in the running lights are all yours to enjoy.
Night sailing can be intimidating, your visual sense is impaired, hazards are hard to see, your sense of spatial awareness is hampered. Suddenly, even in-home waters you aren’t quite sure of where you are, lights on buoys and running lights from other vessels are hard to pick out from the backround lights of shore.
On the other hand, your sense of hearing becomes more acute so you hear more than you do during the day and suddenly it feels like conditions are deteriorating. The fact is while the wind may, because of changing conditions pick up at night it doesn’t do so just because the sun went down and it got dark. It just sounds like it has. Unless the boat is healing more or has more weather helm the conditions haven’t changed.
At night, it is critical that those standing watch remain awake and attentive, yet our circadian rhythm says we should sleep at night and throughout our lives we have trained our bodies to do just that. Nearly all cruisers find that passages under 3-4 days are the most difficult as the time is too short for your body and mind to adjust to your new wake/sleep cycle, plus sleep periods are short and some occur during daylight hours both of which are taxing. Longer passages, those over 4 days, allow you to adjust and somewhere around day 3 or 4 you will wake up from a sleep period feeling rested and in rhythm with the boat.
Critical to everyone getting the rest they need is a watch schedule and it is important that everyone follow it! Frequently, I will find myself either so enjoying a watch I don’t want to leave the deck and let my relief sleep or I know that my relief has been tired so I let them sleep. I end up paying for it in the end, I become overly tired and have a hard time staying awake on my next watch or I am not quite at the top of my game when the crew wakes me up for a problem on deck.
How long should your watches be is a decision each Captain and crew must decide. Weather and sea conditions, length of passage, number and experience level of the crew are all factors that dictate different length watch schedules from boat to boat.
On Malaya with a crew of two we stand 4-hour watches round the clock with two 2-hour dog watches starting at 1600 hours. Through trial and error, we have found this schedule works best for us. If the weather is cold we will shorten watches so no one gets overly chilled. We will also not hesitate to wake the off-watch should we find ourselves having a hard time staying awake or getting cold. Also, we try to schedule any work, such as a sail change, that requires two people on deck to happen at the change of the watch so the person who just feel asleep doesn’t need to be woke up.
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To aid our being able to fall asleep as fast as possible when we go off watch we rarely drink coffee during the day after our morning cup. If we want a hot drink at night we use decaffeinated tea or on cold nights, hot coco.
For the off-watch to get a good rest it is important that you identify the best sea-berths onboard. These are generally low down and near the longitudinal center of the boat. Berths at the forward end of the boat always have way too much motion for anyone to get any meaning full rest. A sea berth needs to be wide enough for someone to lay down flat on their back without their shoulders being squashed and have a lee cloth so they won’t be thrown out of the berth. If the weather gets cold where a blanket is required we find a rectangular sleeping bag works best, they are warmer and cold spots don’t suddenly show up because the sleeper rolled over and untucked a blanket.
One of the more important skills you need to learn to sail safely at night is “ships lighting”. What lights do ships, tugs with tows, fishing vessels and submarines display? Learn to use your handheld compass or fixed objects on board to tell if a ship is on a converging course with you. Have AIS or Radar then start in the daytime correlating what you see on the screen with what you see on the water.
Like many other sailing skills, sailing at night takes practice, i.e.…. Time on the water, to learn and be comfortable with. Start by going out for evening sails as the sun sets so you have an idea of where you are and what is around you as it gets dark. When you first start out take several people with you so that you have several pairs of eyes keeping a look out, particularly if you are sailing in an area with lots of backround lights. Keep your position constantly updated, constantly navigate and learn to recognize the various light patterns and colors on Aids to Navigation, learn how far off various types of lighted buoys will be visible. Keep a close watch out for other vessels, particularly those that might be lost in backround lights. In some places like New York Harbor the only way to pick out ships in the backround lights is by looking for their silhouette moving past the city lights. If you are in an area with tug traffic keep a sharp lookout for tugs with tows. Many times, the tug is visible but its tow which has the same lighting scheme as a sailing vessel under sail, may be difficult to see and can be as much as 1500 yards behind the towing tug. Like I said, “take extra hands with you when learning so you have lots of eyes watching”
Sailing at night, alone on deck with your headphones on listening to music or a book on tape, watching the sky and play of star and moon light on the water, listening to the dolphins blowing alongside can be magical, but only if you are comfortable with it. Get out and Practice!
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