Watch Keeping - St. John's, Newfoundland
by Kate and Hamish Laird

• Planned route this summer: Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Greenland, Scotland
• On board: Kate and Hamish Laird, their children, Helen (4) and Anna (3), Jason Fitschen, and up to three guests on each leg of the voyage.

Lately, all our passages have been fairly close to land, shipping lanes, lobster pot buoys, and fog, so we've been unusually vigilant - frequently, the person on standby is the one navigating and doing the radar watch, instead of the one on watch, who is on the helm.

	Hamish at the helm on the passage to St. John's, Newfoundland

We always use a rigid watch schedule; I'd go nuts otherwise. When I'm on the helm, I NEED to know how much longer it is. Whatever the watch length, I can handle it, but not for a minute extra. No matter how long the watch or what the weather, there is nothing better than the sight of the next person on watch coming up to give you the "five minutes left" signal. For day trips, we usually break into 2-hour shifts of responsibility, even if the whole crew stays up the whole time.

Watch Schedules:

When Hamish and I were two-handing without children we did three-on/three-off at night, four-on/four-off in the day, taking our longer sleeps during the day and breaking the day into seven segments of 3/3/3/3/4/4/4. (This is a modification of the excellent Swedish system for a fully crewed boat, 4/4/4 at night and 6/6 in the day; we find six hours an unbearable length of time for a lone person to be on watch.)

Three people fit into that schedule easily, although with two children and three adults, we switched the schedule to four-on/four-off at night and three-on/three-off in the day, so that we could get a better chance at sleep at night when the children are asleep. There is no question that three crew and two children is a harder schedule than two-handing. I am in awe of parents who sail two-handed with small children. If anyone has any good answers to this, I want to hear it!

We do know people who go to sleep at night and let the radar alarm do the watch, but I could not do that.

Lately, however, we find we're moving more towards three-hour watches straight through the day and night with three adults. In light weather, this effectively means three hours on, six off, which is ideal for the first few days at sea. In heavy weather, it becomes three hours on the helm, three on standby (navigating, weather, helping with reefing/unreefing, childcare), and three hours off. This is hard to keep up for more than 36 hours, but fortunately, most weather systems are shorter than that.

With four or more adults, we move into a rolling watch system, so someone new gets up every two hours, with two people on watch all the time, which results in four-on/four-off, but keeps a continuity between watches, so one person is awake and the other has time to wake up. With four, this means the watch times stay the same day after day, which is easier for sleep patterns, but not as amusing. With five or six, it turns into a leisurely schedule with rotating shifts. With two people on watch, the watch crew take on all the other duties, navigating, babysitting the weatherfax, cooking, cleaning and childcare, so one's off time is really off.

Sample Schedules

The rolling watch has a big advantage in that it can be closed up easily if someone is sick or tired.

Watch Duties

When we are under sail, we usually handsteer. We use the autopilot when we are reefing, trimming, running down to check the radar or plot a position. A wind pilot is on our shopping list, but they are too vulnerable in ice, so we didn't worry about it as an early purchase. We definitely plan to get one before we head south the length of the Atlantic to Antarctica.

In high winds or rough seas, we stay at the wheel, and the other watch duties are taken over by the standby person. A helmsman is much more reliable in heavy weather than an autopilot - and we find we are much more likely to reef on time if we're actually out there, dressed and ready, than if we're inside in carpet slippers. The standby person is usually dressed in foul weather trousers and boots, with a jacket and harness near by; in very bad weather, standby is fully dressed, or even harnessed in the cockpit.

Night Vision

Even when we're motoring with the autopilot on, we don't read (although I have seen Hamish with a book on afternoon watches when other people are up and about) and we try to use only red lights at night. We put overhead red LEDs in every cabin and both heads, and the chart table has a red light. There is another in the galley over the sink area and the propane solenoid light is an amber LED light - bright enough to really notice in the day time and positioned to cook by at night. The red light system was worth every hassle to install it (they're 12 volt LEDs, and our main system is 24 VDc, and wiring two in series proved to be just too bright, so it meant running a second lighting circuit through the boat). I had always wanted to sail with red lights, but I'd never been on a boat with an extensive system before. It really makes a difference on a dark night - you come on deck and can instantly see well, rather than waiting 10 or 15 minutes for your vision to come back.

We try to keep head lamp use to a bare minimum: it is too easy to turn around at the helmsman (or whomever) and blind him or her for the next ten minutes. We trim sails using a handheld searchlight or (our favorite) a $2.50 WalMart floating flashlight, though we have to be very careful not to turn it on with it aimed in the cockpit - the bare aluminum, though duller than it was, makes a very effective night blinder.

We don't rely on the radar alarm - they are not good enough for small obstacles, such as ice; we are constantly tuning the radar and cycling it through different ranges. On a clear night, we don't keep a radar watch, but lately we've been leaving it on standby every five minutes or so. The other day we were coming up the Nova Scotia coast in thick fog; it lifted a bit and I caught sight of a fiberglass sailboat about a mile away. There was nothing on the radar until we were a quarter mile off. Even more surprising, we had a similar experience with a fishing boat off the coast of Newfoundland - his echo was showing up every third sweep or so, very weak, up until a half mile off. Big ships can be seen on the 12-mile range, but for the most part we page through 6, 3, and in very thick fog 1.5 and 0.75 miles.

We find the hardest watches to be just after midnight. For the night watch, we bring out a Tupperware box with chocolate, granola bars, hot chocolate, instant porridge, and cups of soup. Chocolate bars and ginger tea are my late night vices; Hamish prefers hot chocolate, Jason has the instant soups. (Anna's the one who's taken to instant porridge; Hamish says it is sacrilegious.)

Crew Training

We bring guests into the watch system as much as possible, or at least have them assist to the extent of their abilities. Some of our guests are very experienced, and we have them lead a watch, some are neophytes, whom we don't leave alone on deck. Some can take the helm with 35 knots and a poled-out jib and main wing-and-wing. Some are still learning to wind the lines clockwise on the winch; we teach them to help with furling and trimming, and helming in easier conditions.

Jason had never done any offshore sailing when he joined us. When we left New Hampshire, he woke Hamish or me when it was time to reef, and we went to the mid deck to reef with him. After a few weeks, we left him alone to do it while Hamish or I helmed, and now he turns the autopilot on and does it alone the way we usually do. It takes a certain number of reefing and unreefing times to pick up the system on any new boat, but the more the on-watch person can do alone, the more sleep the off-watch person gets, and that can be critical if the weather picks up or something goes wrong. It can be helpful to post a list of reasons to wake up the watch leader, with the most important item being "or for any other reason".

Many jobs that are often "crew only" or "captain only" don't need to be; it depends on how possessive you feel. But a non-seasick guest might be thrilled to have the responsibility of plotting a position on the chart, or tuning up the weatherfax. We often make up a duty list to go with each watch time: whoever is on watch at 18:00 cooks dinner, 21:00 turns on the nav lights and washes the dishes. Everyone plots positions. The less experienced the crew or guest, the more formal the duties should be. On Jason's first ocean crossing, we kept a deck log - every hour we'd note LAT/LONG, wind speed and direction, course over ground, bearing to waypoint, compass heading, barometer reading (and whether it was up or down), engine revs and hours, autopilot heading if on, speed, and a notes section. Now we don't bother with that. I am more formal than Hamish; I still write those things down, but days go by with only my notes in the log. But what really matters is that we all check those details most hours without the prompt of the log. If other people are plotting positions, however, it is important to have them write down the GPS numbers in the log or on a notepad, so the captain or mate can double-check the positions, or replot any puzzling ones (is there suddenly a big current, or did the last guy make a plotting mistake? It's easy to blame the newby navigator, but that isn't always the right answer.)

Enough Sleep

I find the easiest way to get into the watch system is to have no caffeine on the first few days of a trip, and to go straight to bed when off watch. It can be hard to sleep in the day at first, but just getting rest is almost as good as sleeping. This is easier said than done with small children on board, but they are getting more and more self-sufficient when we are at sea. The hardest thing is to keep them out of our bed while we are trying to sleep and they want a story read.

It is very hard to say no, but we need to (more often than we do).

Hamish denies having this feeling, but I confess that there's nothing better than lying in bed listening to Hamish or Jason reef or unreef. It will be me soon enough, but it's a pleasant lullaby all the same. The worst sound is Hamish managing to get the boat sailing, half an hour after I've come in from a trying watch with the motor on. Or maybe the worst sound is the start of the motor after I've spent my whole watch trying to get Seal moving under sail.

Combating Seasickness

One of the most difficult moments for someone who's not feeling well is moving between on-watch in harness, foulies, boots, and heavy fleece, then into bed, and then coming out on watch again. Some tricks we've learned include:

An easy place to leave the harness. We have pvc tubes to take the inflatable harnesses and a set of pockets to take one tether each. (If someone really isn't well, another person takes care of putting these things away.)

Foul weather jackets are hung up in the wet locker (mine look just like Hamish's, so I've put a K on both sleeves to help me find mine in a hurry).

Trousers usually stay rolled down over boots, firefighter style, so we don't have to fuss with the boot/trouser/velcro transition. Leaning down fussing with cuffs is a good way to feel a lot worse.

Wet clothes need to come off immediately, so the crew doesn't get cold (or a wet bunk or sleeping bag) - this can be a hard sell to a seasick person; he or she may need help. In cold weather, I like to sleep dressed for the next watch without heavy covers; Hamish prefers dressing before watch.

A 2-1/2 qt plastic paint bucket with a lid makes a good personal sick bucket

A 1-litre Nalgene bottle can come to bed and help keeps the crew hydrated without the struggle of going to the galley.

Fleece clothing - wool or polypropylene can hold unpleasant smells.

Chewable seasickness pills (Bonine, Dramamine chewable, Sea Legs) work faster and can be taken while still lying in bed. (One of our rules is anyone who has taken Dimenhydrinate has to be clipped on. Meclizine Hydrochloride has fewer side effects, though it makes me grumpy. Sleepy or Grumpy? All of them dehydrate, so the bedside water bottle is really important, especially with Scopolamine.

Length of Passage

All our recent trips have been under four days and close to shore - the hardest scenario for a passage. After about four days and with a bit of searoom, the sleeping and the scheduling become automatic, and I really start to enjoy being at sea. The stars, the birds, staying up after watch is over to talk, reading to Helen and Anna, watching them build with Legos in the forward cabin, no longer noticing the motion before the mast. Then, I remember why I love being offshore.

You can learn more about the Lairds and SEAL at their website www.expeditionsail.com.