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Date Posted: - Monday - 02/14/11 - 12:43am
Author: Sean (Keeping a proper watch.)
Subject: 15 min. sleep intervals
In reply to: Randall via Gitano Vela (Bruce) 's message, "Greetings from Murre in Mexico" on - Thursday - 12/30/10 - 4:03pm

Randall,

Congratulations on your trip! I feel you are taking a huge risk with the 30 min. naps though. At the speeds that shipping travels a ship can go from over the horizon to over you in about 15 min. I know you have AIS but what about a radar with a proximity alarm? Lots of smaller fishing boats won't have an AIS transmitter and may be poorly lit or traveling unpredictably. You say you have only seen six ships but there have probably been many more you didn't notice. Coastal cruising requires a more diligent watch to be kept to be done safely. My friend Jonas aboard the Alberg 35 Pelican recently completed a singlehanded circumnavigation and he set an egg timer at 15 min. intervals ALL the way around the world day or night. He said it is tiring but you eventually adjust to it. Keep an eye out for Pelican as he is enroute from Cocos to the Sea of Cortez right now.

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[> [> Keeping a "Proper Watch" -- James (m-31" Pyxis"), - Monday - 02/14/11 - 11:17pm

In November 2009 I sailed down to the Sea of Cortez from San Francisco. On the Baja coast I sailed out to Guadalupe Island from Ensanada and then back in to Turtle Bay. This put me well off shore most of the first leg. I made long offshore tacks out and back on the last two legs. As a general rule I used egg timers set at 15 minutes when 40 miles or less from shore. When I was further off I took more extended naps. The AIS I have was giving me targets at up to 40 mile out for large vessels and closer for smaller ones.
What I learned is that there is no magic number for how much time at once a Single Hander can safely sleep. In shipping lanes or near a Cape a ship could be on you in less than 15 minutes but further off shore this is less likely. As for the 15 on 15 off regiment. I don't think many people would do this on long offshore passages. I would question the quality of the watch if they are just taking a look around in a daze then jumping back into there bunk every 15 minutes. I can't imagine 21 days of waking up every 15 minutes and I am no stranger to extreme sleep deprivation. Most of the of the single handers I know sleep for hours at a time when off shore. There is more to this than just the closing speed of shipping. Being fatigued from not sleeping enough can be more dangerous than the calculated risk of sleeping an extra 30 minutes now and then. Some times not sleeping for 24 hours or more is called for other times the smart thing to do is get some rest before you hurt your self. The trick is to know what to do when. In the end you weigh the demon of constant fatigue against the slim chance of a collision. Sailing single handed can be dangerous , you may as well be well rested.


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[> [> The Other Extreme -- Randall, Murre, M31, - Tuesday - 02/22/11 - 10:01pm

I haven't had to ponder this question much since posting it a few months ago because I've been island hopping between Puerto Escondido and La Paz. Simply amazing country here, like sailing in the Grand Canyon. I've been getting plenty of sleep at anchor except when (last night; three nights ago; twice the week before last) the forecasted NWesterly or forecasted calm turns out around midnight to be southernly right up you ass and the anchorage turns into a rodeo. But I digress...

Along the way I met a guy who, a few years back, single handed from Mexico to his home in British Columbia via Hawaii in a Cal 29. He had the same question we've been discussing here, and he reasoned that the likeley hood the dotted line on the chart representing his boat would meet head on with a the dotted line representing a ship was miniscule. The Pacific is, after all, vast. It could hold the continential US sixteen times over. Even thousands of ships take up a tiny space...

So he stood no watches. Instead he stayed below. He slept when and as much as he wanted. He watched movies and listened to music. He rarely went on deck unless needed.

Now, this man is no fool. He was forced to repair his autopilot underway. When that failed, he rigged sheets to wheel (!) for self steering. He survivied three gales in the north of greater than 40 knots. When his rigging began to give out--the wire was popping out of its swages--he successfully jury rigged repair. He did the entire Mexico to BC run almost non stop (only stayed two days in Hawaii).

I can see his point. When I crewed on a yacht from Hawaii to BC in 2005, we didn't see anything, not a ship, not a bird, not a plane, not a log, not a bottle with a message, until we hit the great circle route at the latitude of Seattle; i.e. almost 2000 miles of nada.

I'm not advocating this approach, but it is interesting to ponder, and was the norm until a scant forty years ago.

(He made it just fine, by the way.)

RR


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[> [> [> I feel sleepy -- James (m-31" Pyxis"), - Tuesday - 02/22/11 - 11:37pm

Randall

When are you leaving Baja? I will be back to Escondido by April 1


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[> [> [> [> sleep -- sam, - Friday - 03/ 4/11 - 3:03pm

Virginia and I spend six happy years simply 'gunk-holing' with a cadre of fellow cruisers. We logged about 25,0 miles just mingling with the locals while par-toking of their hospitality. Years later replicated this trip in a VW 'pop-top'. With out question, the Malolo was a much more rewarding trip....Don't hurry back...You're at the starting line of where the fun begins.....S & V


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