Several people have asked how we do watches or if someone is always awake, etc. International marine law requires that someone always be on watch. Singlehanders obviously don’t do this, and international marine law is often more about assigning fault in the case of an accident than about enforcement in the same way traffic laws are enforced. We always have someone awake and on watch. Since we have four people, there’s really no excuse not to. Three hours is a common watch length, and that’s what we originally started with, but with four people and 24 hours in the days, it meant that we all had the same shift all the time, good or bad. To remedy this problem, we decided to do two and a half hour shifts at night (which we roughly define as 11pm to sunrise). This moves shift times by 1-2 hours every day, which is enough that we all get to experience sunrise, sunset, mid-day, and the pre-dawn shift without having our sleep schedule moved too drastically from day to day. This can all change in bad weather, when one or more people are too sick to take a watch and the people doing watches are not always able to do a full watch (or can do more than a full watch).

There are really only two watch duties that the on-watch person is solely responsible for in all cases. The first is to look around at least every 15 minutes – a full 360 degree sweep that is done to avoid a collision at sea. Yeah, the ocean is a big place, but you’d be surprised how close you come to ships when you’re near land or even out in the middle of the ocean. Given that your closing speed with them could be over 20 knots and you might miss them on one look around, this is an important safety task. Everyone has numerous close-call stories, but one of the best is the ship that showed up at a port in Alaska with remnants of a sailboat’s rigging hanging from their bow. The crew of the ship was unware they’d hit anything. Large ocean-going ships are notorious for not keeping a lookout, not answering the radio, and being oblivious to smaller craft, so it’s really the duty of the smaller craft to keep a sharp lookout. This sounds like a pretty simple task, but the girls met a woman in Ft. Pierce who had crossed the Atlantic on someone else’s boat and was complaining about the overbearing captain, who had insisted that the on-watch person look around every 15 mintues. It’s a pretty laid-back state of affairs when you feel the need to complain that your job, which you only do for 3 hours at a time, requires you to actually sit up and look around 4 times an hour.

The other watch task we have is to make a log entry at the end of the watch noting date, time, position, speed, heading, temperature, barometric pressure, any notes, etc. This ensures that we have a recent known position in case we have some sort of nav problem, makes it easier to keep an eye on barometric pressure trends, and allows the previous watches to leave notes with information that the subsequent watches may find useful.

Tasks like trimming the sails are essentially the task of the person on watch, but someone is generally available to advise or assist when needed. If we’re in an area with shoals or reefs, the person on watch is responsible for ensuring that our position and course maintain a safe distance from hazards. The person on watch is also has the general task of noticing when “something goes wrong” and either responding to the situation or asking for help before things get worse. This can involve anything from an overheating engine, to a fouled prop, to a chafed-through line, etc.

In an area where there are numerous hazards, or the weather is nice, one’s watch is often spent in the cockpit, enjoying the sun and breeze or the stars. In instances like a major ocean crossing or cold weather (which to us is now anything below 75 degrees with a cool breeze — our thermometer is like this: if shorts, bare feet, and no shirt is comfortable then it’s nice, if a T-shirt is needed then it’s cool, if you’re not comfortable once you’ve added a T-shirt then it’s cold), much of the watch may be spent inside the main salon reading or resting with a trip outside to look things over every 15 minutes.