CHAPTER 12 Living with watches
A good watch system leaves all hands thoroughly rested. However, it takes time for the body to adjust to the way of life. One or two tricks of the trade can make the most of the watch below and help time pass on those long nights alone.
Go with the flow Don’t try to fight your body’s natural inclinations, always excepting the natural one to want to sleep all night long. Find how yours functions best and help it to do just that. For example, some skippers take the first watch below after dinner because it panders to the metabolic ‘low’ that follows a big meal. Other sailors love to see the night turn grey followed by the sunrise. If that’s what turns them on and the remainder aren’t clamouring to get up early, give them the dawn watch, and so on. Don’t mess around As with seasickness, the trick to achieving maximum hours in the sack is to get on with it when you go below. You may only have three hours in total. Of course it’s agreeable to clean your teeth and change into clean pyjamas when you go off watch, but you may find it’s better to hit the hay straight off and worry about such niceties in the morning. In heavy weather, turning in ‘all standing’ is not slovenly, it makes good sense, because you might be needed on deck in short order, and in the meantime you need all the shut-eye you can get. Keeping awake Many modern small craft have autopilots of some description. If this is so, keeping awake should be easy because you are free to move about. Take a really good look round the horizon and if all is clear, hop below and brew up. Take your coffee on deck and enjoy it under the stars, if there are any. If it’s blowing a hooley, hide under the dodgers and feel the rhythm of the boat as she rides the waves. Note down the weather forecast and, if it helps, read a good book in between regular scans of the surroundings. Better to be alert every two minutes than half asleep after an hour struggling with boredom. Take the opportunity to familiarise yourself with the navigation instruments, and fill in the log book creatively so that the next watch has something worth reading in addition to the data that you are correctly noting down for the skipper. There really is lots to do.
If you are obliged to steer, don’t peer permanently into the compass. This is the road to the ‘mesmerized zombie’ effect. Try picking out a star that’s sitting above your bow when you’re on course, then steering by it; or use the run of the sea, or the wind. Recall snatches of poetry or consider what your speech might include at your daughter’s wedding. I once sailed with a West Indian skipper who could recite huge tracts of Shakespeare
he’d learned while sailing a trading schooner as a young man. There is no excuse for an active mind to fall asleep on watch. Indeed, many experienced people actively look forward to having this time to themselves in fair weather to sort out their heads.
The change of watch
It’s a good idea to establish a process for handing over the watch, even on a family boat, because tired people can otherwise miss out vital data. The log book should be filled in by the watch going below, and rather than waiting for alarm clocks to wake their successors, it’s generally better for them to call the new watch. A cup of tea all ready for them goes down well, because it puts the new watch in a more amenable frame of mind while using up the last quarter-hour for the old one. When the sleepers come out into the cockpit or wheelhouse, the retiring watch should brief them on weather and sails, or any engine peculiarities they are monitoring. Switching sails is best kept for the change of watch if it can humanly be managed — more people on deck, and nobody is dragged from his bunk. Next, ships in the vicinity are pointed out, with comments as to their aspect and relative movement. Finally, any night orders are reiterated.
Night Orders
All crew should be absolutely clear about what is expected of them when left in charge of the ship. These ‘night orders’ are often best written down so there is no doubt, because crew of only modest experience may otherwise find themselves in a dilemma about whether to waken the skipper or not.
Orders can be many or few, but a typical set of requirements might be as follows. These are examples only. Skippers will set their own limits to suit operational needs: • Monitor oil pressure and engine temperature. • Log standard navigational data every hour on the hour. • Check the bilge. • Note voltage on the domestic batteries and call the skipper if it drops below 12.0.
• Call the skipper if any vessel comes within an agreed distance as defined by radar.
• Call the skipper if any vessel is on a collision bearing, even if it is still four miles off.
• Call the skipper or mate if the mean wind increases or falls more than five knots, or changes in direction sufficiently to affect the tactical course.
MANUAL OF SEAMANSHIP | 127
Crew care and watchkeeping
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