Keeping Watch at Night ?

[zeehag]

the actual 10 min lead was a true 4 hour lead..lol during which there are flukey winds and all kinds of other warnings of doom. that is for severe tboomers.
how do i know--i was out in them for a year. timed them and saw what happens.

haystax bring slightly shorter warning, as is the strange extra big sea everyone calls a rogue--isnt a rogue--is a freeking warning sign. pay attention. means bigger seas are coming, and if you look towards direction from which the damn thing came, you WILL see haystax. the more immediate changes are more heard than seen. there are 15-30 min between cat making feline 500 on this boat and downpouring rain or blasting wind--both make ear pain for gatos, therefore warning is rowdy.

[noelex 77]

Mark I don't want to bore CF readers in an esoteric discussion of papers especially ones so old, but I think night illumination is important so I will address some of your conclusions. The rest of CF can skip the posts, there is no exam at the end .

Originally Posted by colemj

The second link was to a US Navy study that concluded that low intensity white light was superior to preserving night vision in submarines than red light at an equally useful intensity.

I don't agree with your above conclusion of the second paper. The official conclusion was:
There were no significant differences in the ability to see such targets after adaptation to red or white light.
They also stated:
Thus, although there is no question that maximum scotopic sensitivity can be shown to be better after adaptation to red than to
white light,

Lets look at the paper in more detail.

The test was conducted at relatively high levels of illumination with only 8 or 12 subjects depending on the experiment.

The experiments showed a superiority of red illumination not the other way around, but it was not statistically significant. (Not surprising given the small number of subjects and high luminance). The actual results were:

Experiment 1:
Red: 0.49
White: 0.46

Experiment 2:
Red: 0.125
White 0.111

Experiment 3:
Red: 31,195 yds
White 31,021 yds

I don't see anything to support your conclusions that white light is superior.

The third reference was I am sorry, just junk.

Statements like this show a complete lack of understand of the mechanisms behind red illumination.

"night-vision" could be preserved better by stimulating only *one* of the three photo-receptors (humans can see red, green, and blue, and have receptors for each of these three "primary" colors).

[barnakiel]

yeeeeees

Standing watch.

How about standing offshore. Well afoot eh?

Nonsense.

Sit some stand some, get the blood moving. Why lash.

b.

[Wrong]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

yeeeeees

Standing watch.

How about standing offshore. Well afoot eh?

Nonsense.

Sit some stand some, get the blood moving. Why lash.

b.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Agreed. Headlamps also free up both hands. I have stuck my small Maglite between my teeth, but that is not very effective.

Best things since sliced bread always wear is at night

Dave

[boatman61]

Sorry folks but all this bollocks about lights is getting silly... its dark.. no moon and I've been on deck a couple of hours and need a coffee... so I'll do a 360 scan... nip below and put the kettle on... need light to make sure the sugar and coffee don't go on my feet... 5 minutes maximum... shoot may even knock up a sarnie while the kettles boiling... back on deck and I can make out the horizon after 3 minutes... if there's a light on it somewhere... I'll find it even quicker.
As to newbie crew knowing their lights... parrot fashion repetition of memorised flash cards is one things... seeing the real thing and calculating the headings is something else... so newbie crew WILL get tested and cues if needed before they'll be trusted at night... I get totally pissed of with being woken 1/2 hour or so into a nice sleep coz some dickhead cant tell stars low on the horizon from a ship..

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Sorry folks but all this bollocks about lights is getting silly... its dark.. no moon and I've been on deck a couple of hours and need a coffee... so I'll do a 360 scan... nip below and put the kettle on... need light to make sure the sugar and coffee don't go on my feet... 5 minutes maximum... shoot may even knock up a sarnie while the kettles boiling... back on deck and I can make out the horizon after 3 minutes... if there's a light on it somewhere... I'll find it even quicker.
As to newbie crew knowing their lights... parrot fashion repetition of memorised flash cards is one things... seeing the real thing and calculating the headings is something else... so newbie crew WILL get tested and cues if needed before they'll be trusted at night... I get totally pissed of with being woken 1/2 hour or so into a nice sleep coz some dickhead cant tell stars low on the horizon from a ship..

+ 1. That's what happens in real life.

Always why I ask newbies to wake me.

I should say even my own posts can come across as absolutist. But I'm not like that. I modify everything depending on conditions and the known skill levels of the crew.

Recently did a delivery with two friends both of whom are very capable skippers. No standing orders , Sleep was blissful.

Dave .

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Sorry folks but all this bollocks about lights is getting silly... its dark.. no moon and I've been on deck a couple of hours and need a coffee... so I'll do a 360 scan... nip below and put the kettle on... need light to make sure the sugar and coffee don't go on my feet... 5 minutes maximum... shoot may even knock up a sarnie while the kettles boiling... back on deck and I can make out the horizon after 3 minutes... if there's a light on it somewhere... I'll find it even quicker.
As to newbie crew knowing their lights... parrot fashion repetition of memorised flash cards is one things... seeing the real thing and calculating the headings is something else... so newbie crew WILL get tested and cues if needed before they'll be trusted at night... I get totally pissed of with being woken 1/2 hour or so into a nice sleep coz some dickhead cant tell stars low on the horizon from a ship..

Yep. It's amazing how lighting schemes start to make a lot of sense after you spend some time observing the real thing. A freighter starts as a dim speck... obscured most the time by seas. Then... yes it's a white light that's really there. Pretty soon you can see the taller steaming light in conjunction with the bow light... and suddenly you know which way he's going and can make adjustments as necessary....then you can finally see some color on that bow light.... pretty cool really...

[Wrong]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Yep. It's amazing how lighting schemes start to make a lot of sense after you spend some time observing the real thing. A freighter starts as a dim speck... obscured most the time by seas. Then... yes it's a white light that's really there. Pretty soon you can see the taller steaming light in conjunction with the bow light... and suddenly you know which way he's going and can make adjustments as necessary....then you can finally see some color on that bow light.... pretty cool really...

If you can't see the 'city lights' from most ships before they are on the horizon, you have a problem.

[Sea Frog]

I was wondering is some sort of gimballed IR sensor with a proper controller/software, doing 360 degrees scan of the sea, would help detecting unlit boats. If it is unlit, does now show on radar, no AIS, then the only way to reliably detect it is a thermal signature. In the sea, any boat will have a different thermal sig from the water, and this can be used to alarm. It may even be not too much expensive, unless you use commercial FLIR stuff.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Wrong

If you can't see the 'city lights' from most ships before they are on the horizon, you have a problem.

Dont get to sea much Wrong do we , most freight boats at night are not lit up like cities. Often there can be little deck lighting or usually accommodation block is at the rear with most of the lighting

Dave

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Dont get to sea much Wrong do we , most freight boats at night are not lit up like cities. Often there can be little deck lighting or usually accommodation block is at the rear with most of the lighting

Dave

Likely a Caribbean cruiser used to the 'Lobster Boats'...
Yo Mon... der be 5000 lobsters landed at South Beach....

[Wrong]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Dont get to sea much Wrong do we , most freight boats at night are not lit up like cities. Often there can be little deck lighting or usually accommodation block is at the rear with most of the lighting

Dave

Even in the rare case when a ship may not throw so much light as to look like a city in the distance, I have never had trouble recognizing the white navigation lights on bow and stern far enough away to discern that first it is a ship and second direction of travel. Even in significant seas. What do you define as a "freight boat"?

[D&D]

Originally Posted by skipmac

The problem with head lamps is that it is a natural reaction is to look directly at another person when you speak to them or they to you. With a head lamp you just blinded them.

Certainly handy when trying to work on something by yourself and you need both hands but not allowed on my boat for general use.

On most decent head lamps the angle of the lamp is adjustable...and, for most people (certainly the case here) the most useful angle is inclined down so as to be pointing to objects within arm's length in front. So it shouldn't always (or even often) shine into someone else's eyes.

Furthermore, for us nearly all night watch keeping is done solo, while the other 'crew' sleep. So for us there's very, very low risk of blinding anyone else.

Further still, if the head lamp is used on the red light (as it should be >90% of the time) it is significantly less blinding than the white light. We read (with interest, thanks! ) the articles and posts in this thread about 'the red myth', but it seems safe to suggest at least that a single red LED on a head lamp will have less impact on night vision than full white light from either the head lamp or a torch.

Finally and even accepting the risk of shining into someone else's eyes, that risk itself can be managed by the wearer of the head lamp simply taking care not to indulge the "natural reaction" and instead be always mindful of where your own lamp is pointed.

As already noted on this thread, head lamps are hugely handy tools. They are always there -- you never need to look for them when you need them -- and they leave both your hands completely free.

So for us, all weather head lamps are absolutely required wear for night watch keeping...and we keep spares.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by jackdale

How do you read at night without a light? I suppose a red headlamp might work.

Thinking about it I hardly ever do, very occasionally with red head torch but to be honest it doesn't work very well. I was wrong there.