LESSONS LEARNED WHILE CRUISING Jamie & Behan Gifford Goodnight Moon Revisited: A Surprising Feature of Night Sailing


Niall, underway to French Polynesia.


On a vast dark ocean. There was a boat. And a tired crew. And the sound of:


The hull slipping through the water. And so many books, swaying in nooks. And a jib sheet block and the ship’s clock. And lockers all full and more than one tool. And a mug and a plate and a question of fate. And a sleepy person muttering, “Your turn on deck mate.”


It’s easy to imagine that while


underway at night, being below deck is a place of soft, muted sounds and gentle swaying. How perfect for the off-watch crew to achieve a deep and restorative sleep; and on-watch crew to get a brief, peaceful respite from being on deck. Unfortunately, it’s more like a marching-band a few streets away. In rough conditions it can be like a train. In the dreaded state of no wind and lumpy seas, think “recurring car accident” as sails hoisted to steady the motion, noisely “slat, slat, slat.” A new cruising family, Tucker


and Victoria Bradford with their two children aboard Convivia, recently wrote on their blog (http://foregeover. com/), “...reflecting on our first overnight passage, what strikes me most was how noisy it was. Not up top (in the cockpit) but down below.” On Totem, we went through a


similar experience. With time we came up with some permanent fixes, learned to live with some noise, and employed temporary fixes such as pillows for the rest. Oh yes, before every passage, small pillows stuffed galley lockers to protect breakables. I’ve not come across a definitive


answer to this maritime mystery. Doing research, I came across a number of possible causes. Sound waves carry better in denser (cooler) nighttime air. 48° NORTH, NOVEMBER 2011 PAGE 26


Muscles in the human ear are more relaxed at night, allowing more sound in. Human night vision is poor; so by reducing that sensory stimulus, the brain can focus on the other senses, hence better hearing. In short, take your pick. Fewer distractions at night must


play a strong role. During the daytime, conversation, music and numerous other ambient noise sources distract from the rattles, clangs, and squeaks that happen in the background. When everyone and everything onboard is settled for the night, a kind of disjointed concert builds: The soothing rush of water past the hull. The unnerving


When everyone and


everything onboard is settled for the night, a kind of disjointed concert builds: The soothing rush of water past the hull. The unnerving pitched, metallic sounds coming from galley utensils. The dull groan of a sheet block as it responds to dynamic sail forces.


pitched, metallic sounds coming from galley utensils. The dull groan of a sheet block as it responds to dynamic sail forces. When on watch late at night and tasked with staying alert and seeing in


darkness, what was previously white noise during the daytime, comes alive. Some sailors don’t seem to mind


the noise, even when off-watch and sleeping. I tend toward the opposite, having spent a fair number of nights tracking down annoying sounds that weren’t there the night before. It seems like an easy thing to conquer. But countless items onboard with even a few millimeters of movement can create sound that carries into a bulkhead or the hull. This has the effect of leading you on a goose chase as the sound source is far from where you hear it. We once had an awful fingernails on chalkboard like sound that took months to solve. It seemed to come from the hull, an unnerving thought, but moved around and was only audible at night. Several times I traced it to a jib sheet block. I’d coat the block in Silicon spray, but to no affect. Turns out that pressure water on the block could remove salt crystals stuck in an unseen cavity, and ground with every sheave on bearing movement.


Discovery: The first step to a


quieter boat underway is to figure out what noises you’re dealing with. Start with the galley and storage areas as they have the most stuff. Movement equals noise, so pad it, secure it, or both. If moving towards an overnight trip but not quite ready yet, then a few


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