Standing Watch Alone At Night At Sea

Tuesday, July 26:  Yesterday we began the ocean voyage portion of our trip, sailing 24 hours per day.  This required the three of us to work out a schedule so that someone is always on watch in the cockpit.  We decided on a “three on, six off” schedule.

Coleman took the first watch at 9 am yesterday, Ted took over at Noon, I took over at 3 pm, and so on for the next 72 hours.

My first night watch was midnight to 3 am, this morning.  It was creepy because I could not see what was on the water unless it had lights.  However, I soon got used to watching the radar screen for a blip.  When I saw one, I would first look in the indicated direction, then if I could not see anything, I would use my binoculars and could usually see some lights.  Then, I would check back with the radar periodically to see if any of the blips were headed our way.

The weather was pleasantly cool for my watch and warmed up to around 80 during the day.  At 9 am, we started our second full day of rotating watches.  So far, each of us has appeared on deck on time and has safely navigated the boat for the full watch.

We motor sailed in light wind until around 10 am, then the wind picked up enough for us to raise our sails and get a boat speed of over 4 kt.  Later, the wind picked up even more and was behind the beam, so we furled the jib and raised the spinnaker.  What a nice run!  This is what ocean sailing should be!

As the day wore on, the wind and waves continued to increase.  The wind was now almost directly astern and we were having trouble keeping the spinnaker filled.  Ted showed us a technique he discovered on his last cruise – namely that he could sail Bottlenose “wing-on-wing” with the spinnaker on one side and the main on the other!  This allowed us to go dead down wind, with both main and spinnaker pulling nicely.

The ocean waves were confused.  We had large, long period swells coming toward our starboard side, while shorter period, wind-driven waves were coming toward our port side.  This created a very choppy wave pattern, which repeatedly slammed under Bottlenose’s bridge deck every few seconds, making the boat shudder and slow down.  This continued for some hours, but Bottlenose continued to keep up a decent speed.  She is one tough boat! 

As evening approached, the wind began to slack, so around 9 pm, we took the spinnaker down (we don’t use it at night anyway, since there is only one person on watch and it is too much for one person to handle) and continued to sail wing-on-wing with the main and jib, toward midnight.