Where do you sleep?

[rebel heart]

At anchor or tied up we (two of us) sleep in the forward v berth. Works like a champ. My fiancee even made custom fitting sheets (with elastic bottoms!) for the cushions.

Underway, one of us is on watch, and I tend to prefer the pilot berth. It's adjacent the cabin table, and has a 10" solid lip that comes up against it, so the lee cloth just hangs there.

Just wondering how you guys do it. I like the quarter berth, but *any* noise up in the cockpit wakes me, and people trouncing around changing sails and grinding winches really sends the sound through into the quarter berth. And if the engine's on, forget it.

[migot1]

I like the ~pilot bed` as it is near the GPS, Autopilot , and VHF. I sleep in my cloths when underway, and keep a powerful Torch next to me on my bed. when I am in the cockpit ,I ALWAYS put on the Harness, no matter what the weather is... you never know when the next blow is coming, and I keep a 80 Meter long rope trailing in the water with a fender attached to the end ...just to be safe.

Mike

[defjef]

We have a36 with a V and an aft cabin under the cockpit. We can only stand in the corner, but it's large enough to sleep fore n aft or athwartship. When not underway we always use the aft cabin. There's plenty of ventilation, no rain ever and a view of the instruments in the nav station.. alarms and so forth. Underway the wife will nap there as well. The thermostat for the heat is in the aft cabin because heat is required most for when we are asleep.

The down side is that the aft berth is close to the steering quadrant and hadraulic arm of the auto pilot which makes for some annoying sounds if you try to sleep underway.

With a forward head the aft sleeping provides more privacy and access to the head etc for either of us and less disturbance to the non head using sleeper.

Passages we use the starboard or port salon settees which are also berths with lee boards as well.

Our V is used like a walk in closet and for guests when they do spend the night

This arrangement works well. A stand up aft cabin would have been nice, but that would not be possible in an aft cockpit in our size boat. We accept the compromise.

jef
sv shiva
Contest 36s

[David_Old_Jersey]

The forepeak is the head........so the choice is either the aft cabin or the settee berths in the saloon (port and starboard)....or the 1/4 berth - but for me all 1/4 berths are like sleeping in a coffin

I am kinda surprised that the settee berths seem to be my preferred choice and I use the lee cloths even when in harbour - I find it makes the bed snug and stops the bedding / me falling off at 3am!......but they are also top sea berths.

Of course the aft cabin is not exactly "finished" at the moment - which may account for my choice - but maybe also that most of my life I have lived in small accomadation (no 20 roomed mansions for me!) or been based in small places that I was never staying for long (and no, not prison!).....so a small bedroom, cum lounge, cum kitchen (cum workshop?!) is not a big ask.

But the aft cabin was meant, in the future, more for extended trips away with da Missus.........

[sluissa]

I've taken naps on the cabin benches before. Not the most comfortable bed on the planet, but I honestly think it's probably the simplest option on my boat. The V-berth is mostly used for storage at the moment, with sails, ropes, boathooks, scrub brushes, the spinnaker pole, unused cushions and pillows all piled up there. It'd be possible to clean it out for guests, but that would put some junk either on the floor, or outside as there's no other place with enough space to store some of that stuff.

Also, no lee-cloths yet for the benches, I'll have to rig something up but it should be simple enough. For now I'll just switch sides to which ever side isn't going to roll me out of the bed and hope I don't have to have more than two people asleep at once while underway.

As for noise, on a boat this small, only the V-berth really has any chance of keeping the majority of the noise out and even that is out of the question if a head sail has to be changed. So I'll just have to get used to it and promote the benefits of silence to any future crew. Loose lips sink ships... or at least gets everyone angry at you for waking them up.

[ssullivan]

Sounds like you've been living aboard and adjusted, RebelHeart.

We did the same. We didn't sleep in our aft cabin, which was pretty cavernous (see attached pic). We preferred the snug feeling of the V-berth when at anchor and resting.

While underway, we slept in the cockpit while the other was on duty. Again, pretty comfy in terms of space (see other attached photo).

We thought it was funny that we bought a boat with a huge aft cabin thinking it was going to be important and in the end... used it more for storage than anything else.

[rebel heart]

sulivan - I love those pictures of cabins when they put the wine glasses on the bed!

I like the idea of sleeping in the cockpit. When there's three or more people, I like a rotation of a) watchstander at the helm, or awake with an egg timer set for every 15 minutes just in case, b) off going watch in the cabin getting rest c) on coming watch moved from the cabin to the cockpit, still able to get some rest, but available to the watchstander.

Our head is right next to the forward berth, but at this point we sleep through whatever the other person is doing in there. If you know you're going to be particularly noisey, we try to do it before bed time.

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to sleep in the forward berth underway. I was crewing on a boat, and this guy slept up forward, taking his duffel bag and bracing it between the overhead and himself. Worked out quite nicely for him. I haven't tried it yet myself, but I've always been eager to see if I have what it takes to sleep forward on a beat.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

sulivan - I love those pictures of cabins when they put the wine glasses on the bed!

Yeah... ha ha ha. I took that picture of our aft cabin for charter business purposes. It was the room we rented out for the charters, so I figured I'd make it look as nice as I could (for non-sailors).

[rebel heart]

Do you have a head aft? That would make chartering a lot easier, because you can really seperate out the living spaces a bit.

[Mike Banks]

Either in the aft cabin or the wing berths. Aft cabin when under way--wing berths when riding to anchor gives a bit more thrashin' around room. There are two heads--but only the forward one can be used in harbour. The aft cabin head is ocean discharge so it can only be used in open waters.

One advantage of a trimaran (there are a heap of disadvantages too) is a good sleep is possible even in choppy conditions--and later for smooth water use I will build a couple of berths into each of the amas.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Do you have a head aft? That would make chartering a lot easier, because you can really seperate out the living spaces a bit.

Yup. It was huge back there. Head with separate walk in shower. Big aft cabin. Quite a lot of the boat was dedicated to that aft cabin, since it was a center cockpit.

[S/V Antares]

I hate V bearth,s. Now that I am old enough to pee several times a night I find it a pain to get out of and into. I like a salon bunk..and lee cloth when transiting. Just snug as a bug.

[Amgine]

Interesting commentary.

On the boat we have, I prefer the quarter berth when at anchor or at the dock. Underway I sleep in the cockpit, sometimes while sitting in the companionway and sometimes in a ball on the bridgedeck.

The quarter berth is a bit of a pain getting in and out of 3-4 times a night to check the anchor, but it tends to be a bit warmer. But then, I recently added a cabin heater... we'll see if my habits change. I hate making up a bunk/taking it down, so I have tended to avoid using the settee berths.

[Weyalan]

Lisa & I sleep in the quarter berth - it is about a queen-size double. The matress is split in half so that at sea, we can slide in a lee board and still sleep 2 people in there. When we are sailing short handed at sea, I prefer the saloon berth (with lee cloth) because it is easier for the person (or persons) on watch to get your attention if they need you.

[Kanani]

We have a large aft cabin as well. However, our bed goes all the way across (9'wide at the front), with dressers on either side. Where ssullivan has open space next to the bed, we have storage lockers, under the bed. That's where I keep my dive gear.

I can see why you wouldn't want to sleep in a bed with no sides on a boat . We sleep in the aft cabin while at anchor but we sleep amid-ships in the dinette/birth and settee/birth while out at sea. It's much faster access to the cockpit and a lot more comfortable. I have to know that I can be on deck in 2 seconds flat if something doesn't feel or sound right.

I also have the radar mounted next to the companionway so that it can be seen from my bunk or swung into the companionway to be viewed from the cockpit.

If I had a rotating video camera on the masthead, I'd never have to go topsides..... j/k.