Using headphones on night watch?

[mike388]

Mmmm well it all depends ... Going around Singapore at night two people wide awake on watch is barely enough with or without earphones.
In the middle of the ocean pitch black night no boats sighted for days AIS alarms on and and a timer set in case of nodding off. 1 ear phone is good to listen to a good book. If you can't hear what's going on around you with one ear turn volume down get ears tested.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by buzzstar

Actually not intended to be snarky, but mainly to suggest this lengthy thread is is nearing a natural end, in much the same way differences of opinion often do: If AIS is ubiquitous, why do you need it in your go-kit for deliveries? I suggest that you have one because it is not ubiquitous.

I carry my own AIS in addition to all my own nav because boat systems fail and a backup, especially a backup I am intimately familiar with is helpful. It's been helpful more often than I would like.



I have stories. *grin*



I've posted elsewhere about what is in my go-kit. Perhaps I should resurrect that for CF when I get back from my current trip.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

I carry my own AIS in addition to all my own nav because boat systems fail and a backup, especially a backup I am intimately familiar with is helpful. It's been helpful more often than I would like.



I have stories. *grin*



I've posted elsewhere about what is in my go-kit. Perhaps I should resurrect that for CF when I get back from my current trip.

How do you deal with the issue of the MMSI on a delivery boat?

Jim

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

How do you deal with the issue of the MMSI on a delivery boat?

Receive only I'm afraid. The FCC has a request for portable MMSIs for AIS and handheld VHF. Pending.

[buzzstar]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

I carry my own AIS in addition to all my own nav because boat systems fail and a backup, especially a backup I am intimately familiar with is helpful. It's been helpful more often than I would like.

Good point, and I hope you can also somehow post the stories, and resurrect the item about your go-kit. I suspect I am not the lone stranger in saying this.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by buzzstar

Good point, and I hope you can also somehow post the stories, and resurrect the item about your go-kit. I suspect I am not the lone stranger in saying this.

I'll post about the go-kit when I get home from my current trip. I have pictures as well. It isn't perfect and is a work in progress although it has been pretty stable for a couple of years. In that time I think I only changed the wefax radio.



As for stories, well, there are those. *grin*


To stay on the nav digression to the headphone thread (*grin*), the beginnings of really focusing on portable nav was losing the alternator about halfway between Oxford MD and North Sound, BVI. Power conservation meant my low-power iPhone 4 (Navimatics Charts & Tides at the time) was much more attractive than the electronics suite on the boat.



On another trip the VHF-AIS splitter failed and toasted the AIS. We got the VHF back on line by plugging the masthead antenna directly into the radio. For AIS we used OpenCPN on my laptop and my dAISy2 AIS receiver. We were running up the US East Coast in the Gulf Stream so it was helpful to "see" the traffic coming as we passed commercial ports large and small as well as the big fishing centers. AIS also greatly eases the process of entrances like negotiating the pilot area at the mouth of the Chesapeake and getting through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.


It has also been nice to have something stable even when boat systems are flaky. The Raymarine classic E series black-out problem and the Garmin 74xx random reboot problem are less disconcerting with stable nav inside. These sorts of problems are why I never, ever use the chartplotter to drive the autopilot. Steer to heading and adjust as necessary based on the plotter. Always grateful for COG lines. Also why I carry some SD cards (including the famous 32 MB cards for older Raymarine) and a set of adapters for all three physical sizes. With owner permission I update firmware when it is dated and there are known problems that have been fixed.


Not to digress from my digression (*grin*) I also know the provenance of my charts. The boat I'm on now heading up to Kentucky on the inland rivers (running the Tombigbee at night is not for the faint hearted) has charts eleven years old. Mine were updated (NOAA and USACoE) before we left Punta Gorda and again in Mobile.

[seafox9]

DITTO!

Originally Posted by Pete7

Personally not for me, sound is one of the senses which may alert you to something going wrong like rigging or sail fluttering, not to mention another ship approaching.

On a dark night 3 decades ago we crossed the busy Solent waterway at night after an evenings dive. We could just hear some big diesels but couldn't see anything until a large portion of the night sky disappeared, the stars literally vanished. Took a little while to work out and then the penny dropped, we were looking up at the fin of a stationery submarine on the surface.

So I won't use earphones.

[slide]

Originally Posted by captmikem

Imagine yourself, alone on the ocean, your boat sunk 12 days ago, either a killer shark struck her, you hit a submerged meteor, or a container fell off a passing cargo plane and crashed down on you.

It is a quiet night as you sit in your liferaft/dingy, you have used up all of your flares on passing ships that never saw you, batteries in your 9 flashlights and 7 vhf’s you brought along are all dead or corroded with salt water, same with the strobes on the 5 safety harness/life vests. Only your six handheld gps are working. You are nearly out of water and you finished all the food 3 days ago.

You are contemplating the end..

Suddenly you spot the lights of a small sailing boat headed your way, in fact he is headed right at you! OH LORD you are SAVED!!!

He comes closer and closer, you stand up and shout and wave, you can’t believe your luck that he would come this close!! Oh THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

But wait, he does not slow down, he passes 50 feet away, you shout, blow the whistle on your life vest, anything to let him know you are there.
As he passes you see him sitting in the cockpit with his back to you. He MUST hear you! Is he Deaf?

As the small boat sails away with you yelling your lungs out you see the tale tell white cord going to his ears… Your voice and whistle are never heard, the only sound that reaches his ears is Jimmy Buffet wailing "Cheeseburger in Paradise"……

When I was last sailing off Florida, we had a real-life scenario similar to your comical one.

A guy was struggling in the water about 1,000 yds offshore. I don't remember what put him there but he was in great distress. One after another boat passed him often quite closely. He shouted for help over and over as boat after boat just drifted by him.

Finally, one boater bothered to fish him out of the water.

AFAIK, none of the other boats' crews were wearing headphones.

[buzzstar]

Originally Posted by slide

When I was last sailing off Florida, we had a real-life scenario similar to your comical one.

A guy was struggling in the water about 1,000 yds offshore. I don't remember what put him there but he was in great distress. One after another boat passed him often quite closely. He shouted for help over and over as boat after boat just drifted by him.

Finally, one boater bothered to fish him out of the water.

AFAIK, none of the other boats' crews were wearing headphones.

Just curious, if you saw all of this, why did you fail to rescue him yourself? As written, it does not sound as if you were the guy in distress or the rescuer.

[slide]

Originally Posted by buzzstar

Just curious, if you saw all of this, why did you fail to rescue him yourself? As written, it does not sound as if you were the guy in distress or the rescuer.

It’s an event told to me at an anchorage supposedly soon after it happened. I didn’t personally witness.

[SailingFan]

Originally Posted by fryewe

Boredom.

This is my opinion. Take it for what you’ve paid for it.

The first time I came across the phrase “weeks of boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror” was in the book Blow Negative which I read as a young submarine sailor. It’s a fictional account of life on diesel submarines. I’ve seen the phrase numerous times since.

I was immediately intrigued by the phrase because it captures the essence of engaging in an activity where you’re surrounded by potential energy that can kill you and your shipmates instantly if the boundaries holding it back are breached, but the energy is usually kept in place by robust engineering and materials, and well developed procedures and practices of well trained watchstanders.

Those boundaries can be breached in numerous ways. Little can be done about a catastrophic breach without warning, but because most systems are over-engineered, that type of failure is infrequent.

Significantly more likely are failures from cascading small faults,improper operation of systems, and poor watchstanding. Watchstanders prevent these kinds of failures.

So...since days and days of routine can generate boredom, how do you fight it?

You fight it by being bored while off watch. While on watch, the life of the ship and crew are in your hands. It’s up to you to note the small faults before they cascade and to operate systems professionally. Installing a boom preventer can be boring. Replacing one that’s chafed and can fail can be boring. Inspecting the standing rigging and finding nothing wrong seventeen times in a row can be boring. Dismasting due to failure to prevent a uncontrolled gybe or due to a missing clevis pin keeper generates sheer terror.

A bored watchstander is an unsafe watchstander. If you’re bored, train yourself. Learn something about your ship, the sea, and what duty really means. Use all your senses to keep the off watch safe. Their lives are in your hands.

A bored watchstander should be ashore.

Leave the ear buds in your bunk.

How many watchstanders were bored on Fitzgerald? McCain?

YES!!

[moniia]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Think, consider, question, contemplate the now and the future, remember past things but mainly just be with yourself.



Can be as simple as deciding a new way to eat the next meal or a another way to sail or working on a theoretical nav problem; the list is endless when you start thinking about stuff

Yes...
That said, I'm using headphones quite often as I'm partial to a good book or sometimes to a good bit of music. And sometimes it is just too noisy outside so I prefer my preplanned noise

[moniia]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

There is nothing wrong with going below to pee, make a cup of coffee, check the chart, etc.

But do you really think it's ok to be "on watch" and be asleep? Or reading a book? What kind of "watch" is that? Being continuously distracted by something (or asleep) is totally different from taking 5 minutes off to do something before getting back on deck with all your senses.

Obviously where you are sailing makes a huge difference in what kind of watchkeeping is required. If you are 500 miles offshore and out of the shipping lanes and with no traffic around, and you've got radar guard zones and AIS alarms set, I guess you could even safely go below and watch a movie, or just go to your bunk and get a good night's sleep (although that would be in violation of the rules). But in coastal waters where there might be at any moment a small boat not broadcasting AIS which your radar might miss, or lobster pots, or whatever, or where if your autopilot has a glitch could put you onto a hazard, or where there is ship traffic which requires attentive monitoring, a totally different level of concentration is required.

And do you really expect that solo sailors do not sleep at all?

[moniia]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Proplus tablets from the chemist. It's concentrated caffeine plus some other stuff, recommendation to take 2 every 8 hours. Sometimes we took more, washed down with black coffee. Just be in a safe place when you finally stop because you will sleep.

I'm sorry, it doesn't work if your NORMAL dose of caffeine daily is around 1200mg... you use these tablets or energy drinks (or both...) just to keep a proper level of caffeine in your blood and avoid any withdrawal symptoms...
And by the way, if you are at this level - you drink coffee just before you go to bed as otherwise you won't sleep any good... and wake up with a huge headache as a night is long enough for first withdrawal symptoms to start

And yes, I speak from (years long!) experience. So don't ask how I managed to OVERDOSE caffeine- it wasn't pretty...

[moniia]

Originally Posted by telecam

While on night watches in fair conditions and open waters, I love to listen to podcasts. I am using a set of Apple Airpods, perfect for this. But yes, I don't wear headphones in rough conditions or busy navigation areas.

What exactly are you able to hear outside in rough conditions?? That is actually the best time to use headphones...