July 20, 2005 - KEEPING WATCH - SLEEPING WATCH
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

	On watch: Michel sleeps between timed dings on the lee cockpit seat.

The one on watch sleeps in the cockpit.
The one off watch sleeps below.

When first we began to cross oceans we took three friends along for crew, and great fun that was too. We stood night watches for three hours each, arranged so that the watch-keeper would come on watch at exactly the same time as he or she had gone off watch the night before, the idea being that we could in this way watch the procession of constellations and planets across the night sky. This was particularly interesting since a comet was visible at the time so we could watch its tail swinging around itself. We often spent the hours of our night watches with flashlight and star charts in hand. I remember finding Bowditch's star charts (perhaps all we had at the time?) particularly helpful, alone well worth the weight of that hefty tome. It was a thrill to put names to the patterns of the jumbled heavens. My sense of awe was so heightened, it reminded me of lying on my back as a child, marveling at the stars. I've never become as familiar with the southern heavens as I became with the northern sky.

When we began to do ocean passages with just the two of us aboard, there was less shipping than there is today, and we seldom saw another vessel. Because of this, away from recognized shipping lanes we both used to turn in to sleep in the double bunk in the main cabin, sometimes for eight or ten hours at a stretch when the weather was benign, without once surfacing, leaving Winnie the Windvane in charge of the ship. Michel, more of a nocturnal animal, slept on the outside against the lee cloth with a flashlight and compass on the cabin sole so he could check the compass now and then in order to average out a course. By listening, he tried to gauge our speed. In that way he was able to work out a dead reckoning position for our morning sun line. For my part, more of a diurnal animal, I chose to do the computations for our celestial navigation when the sun rose high enough for us to shoot the sun with the sextant.

Our watchkeeping is a flexible, unstructured routine, particularly in the daytime. Whoever is in the cockpit watches for shipping, checks the course, and makes sail adjustments. Since I love to read and Michel is not able to do so without going a bit green, he is the one who does most of the watchkeeping in daylight hours. This suits him. He is happiest watching the wake, the sails, the rigging, the waves, the birds. Because of my cast-iron stomach, I do most of the cooking, the dishes, radio skeds if any, and puttering about below decks. When I read in the cockpit I glance about every few pages. Whoever needs to catch up on sleep naps below decks.

Under our windshield, at sea.

Over the years, as the number of vessels on the high seas increased, and after a few near misses, we began to keep night watches of three hours on, three off, and this regular nighttime rhythm became the Dragon norm. However, because of our see-through Crystal Palace sheltering the cockpit, and its canvas forebears, we don't often stand night watches, we sleep them. The important safety features are reliable self steering, and a mechanical or electronic dinger. (We use kitchen timers.)

The person on watch beds down on the cockpit lee berth with a dinger near his ear, set for anywhere from ten to twenty minutes depending on proximity to shipping lanes, likelihood of fishing boats, possibility of floating containers, visibility, and number of fellow cruising vessels in the immediate area. When the dinger dings, the one officially on watch gets up, scans the horizon, checks the course, the wind vane, and the sails, tweaking whatever necessary. A dim red light under the windshield casts its cozy glow without destroying our night vision. Binoculars close at hand enable us to check out anything puzzling. The "watchsleeper" then resets the dinger and lies down on the lee cockpit seat for another timed cat nap. At change of watch, we may have a cup of cocoa together, or we may change bunks with scarcely a word. However, in bad visibility - be it rain or fog, when we may have only minutes or even less to make a course correction to miss another boat - we do keep constant careful watch, relieving one another frequently.

Michel drops off to sleep above or below decks almost immediately as his head hits the pillow. I am a lighter sleeper and tend to get far less sleep than I need so that I become a bit of a zombie on passages. We changed from a strict three-on, three-off throughout the night in order to leave me in the berth below for one uninterrupted six-hour stretch. Since I love the dawn watch, we usually try to arrange it so that I come back out to man the dinger around three or four each morning after my six-hour sleep, so that I get to look at the heavens and watch the sun rise.

Because, except in heavy squally weather, we tend to get plenty of sleep, we don't hesitate to wake the other for sail handling help or just to share a special moment - St. Elmo's Fire, moonbows, a particularly spectacular sunrise. A once-in-a-lifetime experience was during a period of prolonged windlessness - it was so calm and clear that stars, planets, even constellations were perfectly mirrored in the sea, and we could not tell where the sea ended and the sky began. Our propeller wash was brilliant with phosphorescence, and we felt as though we were speeding through space, leaving a luminous swath behind us.

	Off watch: Michel sleeps below.

At times of tricky landfalls, both of us have always kept watch together. In busy sea lanes, one of us is always up and scanning the horizon. As I write, there are at least three abandoned yachts, dismasted or otherwise disabled, as well as another overdue and missing between NZ and Tonga as the result of a largely unforecast June Storm, rather like another monster of that name a few years back. If we were out there now we'd be doing what I'm certain others are doing - keeping a constant close watch, scanning the horizon ahead.

Our system is not foolproof. We have been known to sleep through the warning dinger. At least once it could have led to a catastrophe. We were approaching England's Scilly Isles. We intended both to be up and about and on watch as we neared them, particularly since, due to overcast weather, we had been unable to get a reliable sextant sight for two weeks and we didn't trust our radio beacon fixes taken from an AM receiver. Exhausted from worry and lack of sleep, we slept through the alarm. We have no idea how close we may have come to those rocks that have been the graveyard to hundreds of ships, to thousands of sailors. GPS means more to us than to many because we know just how worrying it can be to be unsure of position.

We sometimes think how wonderful it must be to have radar to help keep watch, yet we know radars are not infallible. Once a container vessel passed in the fog within a few hundred yards of us in heavy breaking seas. They called us on Channel 16 scolding us for not having a radar reflector. We assured them we did indeed have a radar reflector and suggested that they may have tuned us out when they tuned down the "sea clutter". We will be most interested to read how much peace of mind it gives others to have radar to help keep watch.

In the early days, radars were cumbersome, current-hungry things, and we saw so many yachts stranded in port waiting for radar parts, that we were never tempted to get one. We are aware that radars have come a long way since. However, we also know that even the new hardware has its limitations too, even with its more visible and more economical-to-run LCD displays. Certainly they are a must in fog territory, and we could have saved ourselves many worrisome watches, especially crossing the English Channel. But we choose to cruise in the South Pacific now, where we have only seen thick fog half a dozen times in the last twenty-some years. Rain and rain squalls are the causes of poor visibility down here, and we understand that most small radars do not pierce that very well. We can remember one yacht kissing the reef in Rangiroa while the skipper had his eyes focused on the radar screen, thinking that he was entering another rain squall. Luckily he was on the lee side of the atoll and going very slowly, so he was able to back off. The bigger, more powerful radars are another kettle of fish and, with their proximity alarms, could prove very useful.

Nowadays, a bit longer in the tooth, not quite so relaxed perhaps, and standing night watches, I may arrive feeling exhausted after a boisterous passage. But in the days when we both slept the night through, we often arrived at our landfall full of piss and vinegar. I remember clearing customs in the middle of the night in Victoria, BC and then going for a midnight walk. We were so rested, so full of energy, and feeling so wonderful to have completed our first offshore voyage (to Hawaii and back) that we couldn't resist stretching our legs.