Singlehanded full night sleep?

[Visarend]

Originally Posted by jalmberg

Thinking outside the box, considering how many people have dogs on boats, I wonder if it would be possible to train a dog to bark when it heard/saw/felt a nearby ship? I bet they can hear the sound of engines through the water pretty far off. Sure would be handy to have a dog on watch! Never heard of such a thing, though, so...

Fact is, these dogs exist and you can see them on many Dutch barges: the breed is called Schipperkee. Small black shepherds guarding boats, killing rodents on board and barking in the fog when approaching other boats. This is the reason why Schipperkee translates in "little Skipper."

[Kamen]

Originally Posted by jalmberg

Thinking outside the box, considering how many people have dogs on boats, I wonder if it would be possible to train a dog to bark when it heard/saw/felt a nearby ship? I bet they can hear the sound of engines through the water pretty far off. Sure would be handy to have a dog on watch! Never heard of such a thing, though, so...

1. How will that work in a busy harbor?
2. Training the dog to bark at ships is doable. Training him to not bark at anything else would be a challenge. Dogs that are inclined to bark tend to bark at many different things and sometimes just because they want attention. How long until you start ignoring the barking, thinking it's just another seagull?

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by jalmberg

I don’t single-hand, buy if you are on passage in an isolated part of the ocean, I don’t see why heaving to is any safer than allowing the boat to steer itself while you sleep.

I'd agree. Both need a four hour check.

[jackdale]

Some case law

"In 1984, Granholm v. TFL Express, the court found a single-handed racer negligent for taking a thirty-minute nap."

https://www.boatsafe.com/single-hand...onflict-rules/

FindACase™ | GRANHOLM v. THE VESSEL TFL EXPRESS

[GILow]

Originally Posted by StoneCrab

I would think that the main benefit comes from not having to worry about weather during the night. If you shorten sail and basically configure for a storm, when the squalls come through, you're already configured for the bad weather.

Shortening sail is good, but hove-to is just mathematically wrong.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by GILow

Shortening sail is good, but hove-to is just mathematically wrong.

Yep, making good a few knots in the desired direction most always is better than drifting downwind at 1-2 knots. If under wind vane direction, an off-course alarm is a good idea!

Jim

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Yep, making good a few knots in the desired direction most always is better than drifting downwind at 1-2 knots. If under wind vane direction, an off-course alarm is a good idea!



Jim

Off-course... or XTE?

I’ve been thinking about this one a little and figure wind vanes will wiggle all over the place, might it be better to determine an acceptable XTE and then deal with the heading adjustment after some good sleep?

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by GILow

Off-course... or XTE?

I’ve been thinking about this one a little and figure wind vanes will wiggle all over the place, might it be better to determine an acceptable XTE and then deal with the heading adjustment after some good sleep?

A reasonable approach, one that was not available back when we had a wind vane... at least to us.

Perhaps a combination of course and XTE could be set up. If one set the XTE big enough to avoid falsies and one had a big wind shift, the course alarm would go off sooner... dunno if that would be significant.

Well offshore it surely is not critical!

I dunno about your boat, but we don't loose much speed with a reef in the main, and not so awful much with two. A pre-emptive reef would mean that a sudden squall could be dealt with quickly by rolling up the genoa.

I'm sure that you will work out a scheme once at sea!

Jim

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

A reasonable approach, one that was not available back when we had a wind vane... at least to us.



Perhaps a combination of course and XTE could be set up. If one set the XTE big enough to avoid falsies and one had a big wind shift, the course alarm would go off sooner... dunno if that would be significant.



Well offshore it surely is not critical!



I dunno about your boat, but we don't loose much speed with a reef in the main, and not so awful much with two. A pre-emptive reef would mean that a sudden squall could be dealt with quickly by rolling up the genoa.



I'm sure that you will work out a scheme once at sea!



Jim

Yes, I suppose XTE is a little more recent.

My thinking is that you’d get better sleep if the boat is permitted to wiggle around in the XTE band. That way a brief, random wind shift wouldn’t disturb the beauty sleep, and may well be corrected by the next wind shift in the opposite direction. (One lives in hope.)

Certainly an advocate of the double-reefed main at night. Like you, I find it makes very little difference in all but the lightest conditions. With this setup I find my next step to depower is to roll away the yankee, leaving a nice balance between the tiny main and the staysail.

[BugzyCan]

This would be an excellent test for AI. A camera facing each direction, fed into a computer, it has sonar to watch ahead for objects in the water, like containers, or logs, and the weather system is fed into it as well, then you set a course, and set it to alarm if anything changes, and you crawl into bed.
Alarm goes off if
- ship goes off course
- wind changes direction
- a vessel is on a collision course
- something in the water directly ahead (it could even be set to automatically avoid)
- low battery, or no battery condition
- water in boat
- fire or smoke
- CO/2
- land ahead

I am sure someone is working on this exact thing someplace.

[Kit_L]

My vessel, ex-commercial, has lights that can show "Not Under Command", and I do have active AIS and a radar that allows settable zones, but even with all this, I do not feel I am being responsible if I do not keep a watch. Like one of the respondents above, I feel six on and six off is the best (and once I worked with two on and two off, 24/7, but that was exhausting after two days), and every second day overnighting somewhere.

Clearly this is not possible on a trans-ocean passage. I don't know how the Vendee sailors do it; I believe they are at risk.

[CassidyNZ]

I sailed from Seychelles to Indonesia single handed. Had a new radar that stopped working on a frequent and regular basis so didn’t rely on it. Long before the days of AIS, no other alarm systems available. About 2/3 of the way the AP also stopped working but by then the SE monsoon had set in and I was able to set the boat up on the wind to sail itself.

First fact: at 400nm from the nearest land there is no commercial shipping simply because ships don’t go on routes that don’t go to a port and in that part of the Indian Ocean there are no shipping routes.

Second fact: once east of Sri Lanka the sea becomes populated with fishing boats and they become more frequent as you head east. But they are to a point easy to predict because they’re laying long lines over distances of 30nm or more and once layed they sail directly back along a reciprocal course to begin harvesting the line from the other end. So if they’re not heading at you, you can rely on being reasonably safe.

Third fact: once the SE monsoon sets in, not only is the wind constantly on the nose, the equitorial counter current (W to E) disappears and the actual equatorial current (E to W) becomes more prevalent. I was sailing an average of 150nm a day and making 50 to 60nm CMG. Soul destroying monotony broken by tacking the boat once a day as I waddled up a course.

I got into a routine of sleeping for an hour, ten minutes on deck, back to bed for an hour breaking the cycle only to cook meals which happened randomly day or night as/when I got hungry.

Did I enjoy it? Not even slightly, most difficult voyage of my life. Would I do it again (at all, ever)? Not a chance. My trip was forced on me by a series of uncontrolled circumstances - I would never allow that to happen to me again. I don’t admire single-handed sailors, I think they’re all a bunch of total whack-jobs.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Kit_L

My vessel, ex-commercial, has lights that can show "Not Under Command", and I do have active AIS and a radar that allows settable zones, but even with all this, I do not feel I am being responsible if I do not keep a watch. Like one of the respondents above, I feel six on and six off is the best (and once I worked with two on and two off, 24/7, but that was exhausting after two days), and every second day overnighting somewhere.

Clearly this is not possible on a trans-ocean passage. I don't know how the Vendee sailors do it; I believe they are at risk.

Of course they are at risk,

Falling overboard,
Heart attack,
Broken bones,
Freezing to death in the southern ocean, It gets very cold down there,
Boat sinking,
Frisky whale landing on top of their boats,
Container plugging a hole in their boat,
Mast snapping off and dragging them under,
Getting lost, Its a big ocean, They might miss the sign posts,
Big ship running over them,
Hitting an Iceberg,

There is more risk walking down the street, Tripping over, Hit by a car,
Tree branch falling on you, Lots of those lately, Fatal's as well,
Airborne diseases,
One of the highest death rates world wide come from coconuts falling on peoples heads,

All risks are manageable, If your not up to it, Its simple, Dont do it,

Cheers, Brian,

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Kit_L

My vessel, ex-commercial, has lights that can show "Not Under Command",

NUC does no mean no one is on watch. It means that mechanical problems with the vessel are hindering maneuverability.

[hatyaiair]

I used the 20 minute egg timer on numerous passages but it takes its toll in a few days and you may get so exhausted you miss the alarm. Have almost been struck by large ships and freighters a few times even shortening sail and hoving to are not really safe. I once sailed from Fiji to Queensland and never saw another vessel until I was within 50 miles of Australia but on the other side of the coin I was out in daylight on the foredeck mending a headsail, not facing forward and narrowly avoided a Collison with a boat in the middle of the Atlantic. I never had radar and this was before AIS. With radar and AIS alarm you definitely reduce your risk considerably. Best of luck!