In the first watchkeeping chapter we covered setting up a good system, and in the second we focused on the importance of avoiding distraction, now let’s get down to the practical details of watchkeeping, particularly shorthanded.
20 Practical Tips For Better Watchkeeping
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Hi John,
On Alchemy we always have one of those safety whistles tied to the steering station binnacle. It is easily reached from the usual on-watch position under the dodger and from the helm if hand steering. In this way, the off-watch crew can be quickly and easily summoned and not have to resort to yelling, which always seems to heighten anxiety.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Dick, that’s so smart. It would also be neat for our little sailors aboard SEAMER! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Dick,
Good idea. Like you I hate yelling for many reasons, but particularly for the one you state.
Hi John and all,
I wrote this a while back for another venue, but had in mind an inexperienced guest on board who wished to become more involved in the running of the boat.
Shifting One’s Mind-Set
At this time when many are looking at ocean passages to warmer climates for the winter, one’s Safety at Sea is usually founded on a mind-set that is developed after long years of sailing, and much experience in a wide range of conditions. This mind-set is hard earned and serves us well. It is, however, possible, even for those who have a lot of sea miles and especially for first timers, to induce mind-sets that can improve safety.
For example: When on passage, I think there can be a good deal of difference, when doing a 360 visual sweep of the ocean, if you tell yourself ahead of time that there is a potentially dangerous ship out there and you just need to find it. The work is then to convince yourself that you were wrong: that there is no ship, no danger, out there. This may be a particular effective suggestion for new and inexperienced crew.
The same goes for pre-passage inspections (or all inspections for that matter): look for the problem you “know” is there. When I go aloft to check rigging, I “tell myself” that a problem exists and I just need to find it. And then convince myself there is no problem.
I know this “mind-set” shift changes my behavior from what might be termed casual-but-attentive to one of increased diligence: others have confirmed that this “mind-set” shift made them more focused.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Hi Dick,
Sure, good mental trick.
Hi John, this is all very interesting. I cannot emphasize no 9 enough. Sleep becomes so precious.
And we also never drink alcohol during a crossing, like any crossing. It somehow was never even an idea. We’ve surprisingly started drinking so little since living on a boat. Perhaps it’s the weight of our 4 little sailors tagging along. We like being 100% capacity, unaltered. We are entering the Fjords of New Zealand with a couple bottles as I write this. Cheating on my phone by reading this article as dawn is cracking over the horizon. The irony?! Anyhow, most of the alcohol on board at the moment it is for bartering with fishermen. As cliché as it is, those fishermen never seem to have left the previous port with enough booze to make it to the next.
By the way, Foveaux Straight got a little nasty last night. For the first time, I though of your 2 and 25 rule. We had 1.5 against a steady 30. You were right, gets steep and gnarly fast. Luckily, we knew we would have only about an hour in there!
Hi Marie Eve,
Interesting that you are drinking less while cruising. I fear it often goes the other way. As you say, four kids will certainly keep anyone out of the bottle…if it does not drive them to it!
We always found that cruising pretty aggressively in challenging places kept us on the straight and narrow. Just hanging out in a warm place seems to lead many people to trouble once they go cruising.
Hi John,
About power naps, I find that even less than 5 minutes help a lot, especially with repetitions. If the naps are significantly longer, like perhaps half an hour, it’s not only a potentially dangerously long gap between lookouts. I also feel it makes it much harder to get properly awake and clear minded. I might feel more tired than if I didn’t sleep. I don’t know the science here, but I prefer less than 15 minutes or more than 2 hours.
The last half year I’ve had an Apple Watch 10. One feature I’ve come to love is that I can set it to wake me up by vibrations only. It doesn’t disturb anybody else. It’s a gentle wakeup, no shock awakening followed by a tiger leap to kill the alarm. It’s also a solid wakeup. A physical touch is an entirely other thing than a sound. I’ll never go back to an alarm clock! However, it’s not cheap, it needs to be tuned to not give too much disturbing light and it must be charged every 1-2 days. Not perfect for this purpose, but I like it.
I’ve also often resisted the adage that the off watch must be brought up for most tasks. I get that there are extra dangers from darkness, and that some feel scared by that. Still, If I can’t do routine operations alone just because it’s dark, the boat is set up poorly or I’m incompetent. Both can be fixed. I’ve never heard a single valid argument against that conclusion.
I’m definitely no alcoholic, but also like a beer etc. At work on the Amsterdam canals we have a full bar and a host who will bring me anything I would like. The solution: “Only when the shore lines are tied, (or the anchor is set).” No exceptions. I think that’s smart for all boating, but I’m no fanatic if people want a single beer or such.
Roald Amundsen, Norwegian, first to traverse the North West Passage, 1903-06, first to the South Pole, 1911, and then even first to the North Pole 1926. He thought Robert A Peary got there 17 years earlier, which everyone thought, until nowadays. Amundsen did indeed say the quote you mention, “There’s no bad weather, only bad clothes.”
However, he got it from the maker of some of his gear, Helly Hansen. They invented the first durable foul weather gear, “oilskins”, (special waxed cloth), in 1877 and the quote was their business slogan. The quote sounds better in Norwegian, as it’s a rhyme. “Det fins ikke dårlig vær – bare dårlige klær.” 🙂
Dick, I like your whistle solution. I’ll get that. Once when our autopilot failed i tied a line from my foot and led it to the cockpit, so my girlfriend could awake me without leaving the wheel. She got me awake allright! 🙂 But a whistle is better.
Hi Stein,
All good tips. Interesting about the Apple Watch. I too have a 9 and really like it. Good to hear you were able to get the screen dark enough. I agree on nap time. If over about 20 minutes, then I need at least two hours.
I like the 15 minute rule, I have used 10 minutes as a rule. Also folks need to go to a position to see. For example, on my centre cockpit, you need to go to the stern or bow to get a full sweep depending on point of sail and sail area set. Craning one’s neck to try and look under the foot of the genoa just won’t cut the mustard, also another reason for near centre line jackstays, confident maneuvering around the deck.
When teaching how to perform a watch, I instruct students about the peripheral parts of the eye being superior to identify changes than the centre of the eye. When looking around, sweep the horizon slowly but focus on the peripheral vision. Often the peripheral vision will detect an item, and when looked at by the centre of the eye, the item will not be there, so you have to repeat. The slow sweep is importantly. Why? Our brain doesn’t actually record what we see in detail, it takes a rough snap shot. When you look from left to right, it assumes that not much has changed and just fills in the vision from memory rather than keep recording new memory. This is why the centre part of our vision can be deceived, and why slow sweeping and peripheral vision is so important. I may be miss representing how the eye, mind interface works, but that is the gist of the process.
I learned to Power Nap at work where long hours drilling wells, logging data required attention. The rules were 15 minutes max or 2 hours. Apparently after 15 minutes the body starts to switch processes for deep sleep. I can certainly attest to that rule, fresh and alert after only 10 minutes is real, and grumpy bear with a sore head after 45 minutes is not a place I want to experience. As a by the way, lots of articles on how messed up our routine sleep pattern of 6-8 hours at night really is. Apparently napping is normal. Samuel Pepys diaries is full of London life where folks get up at 3am and meet up for a couple of hours of work. His diaries were used as part of a research program into past sleep patterns and circadian cycles.
Hi Alastair,
Lot of good points, particularly on how to do a scan and the importance of looking under the jib, particularly on a centre cockpit boat. One of the things I liked on the M&R 56 was that being a cutter the jib was high cut and no overlap, so visibility was much better, even from the centre cockpit.
And there I was, feeling really guilty about my little catnaps during ocean passage watches – but now vindicated by the master!
Hi Brian,
Not sure I’m the master, but good for me to hear that someone else has the guilty secret.
Mixed nuts are our go-to watch snack. Crunchy, salty (or not, depending), but with lots of good protein.
Hi Brian,
Good recommendation, Phyllis and I are big time nut eaters too, both at sea and ashore.
As a relative novice, I’ve been caught out by ‘silent’ instrument failures on watch, both on the same Atlantic passage. The first was when the radar quietly stopped showing returns, which took rather a long time to sink into our dim brains. Then a few days later, we realised that our AIS was severely degraded when a cargo ship ‘appeared suddenly’ about a mile off in the middle of the night. Easily fixed by replacing a connector, but it was a wake-up, haha. Despite knowing this, I think I keep regressing back into the visual scan being just a verification for an instrument check.
Hi Simon,
That’s a good point, particularly on AIS antenna issues, which are far more common than most people realize. Also good on you for recognizing how easy it is to start regarding the electronics as the primary on watch source when in fact a visual check should always be prioritized. On that subject I was talking to a very experienced cruise ship captain some years ago and he shared that one of his biggest problems with new officers is getting them to look out the bridge windows. Scares the hell out of him when they fixated on glass bridge to the exclusion of all else.
Hi Simon and John,
I wrote this a while back:
Testing VHF and AIS (last edited 3-’25)
Antenna problems are common in vhf installations and grow on the boat insidiously, especially over winter and often without anyone noticing the deterioration in performance, especially in this day and age where cell phones are so ubiquitous: same deterioration does occur with AIS. Most everyday vhf transmissions are under 5nm and are possible even with a partially compromised coax terminal. It is when you want to reach out 25-30nm and beyond (most likely not an everyday call but an urgent or emergency call) that a little corrosion interferes.
A suggestion: At the beginning of the season, find a boat going in the opposite direction and set up a sked where you talk every 10 minutes or so and record distance apart as shown by AIS. Test the hand-held also. Note the antenna heights and ensure the Tx power settings (some skippers always use high power, even when talking to a marina a short distance away and have never gone to low power). Log the distance apart where the signal starts to get scratchy and when it drops out for both the vhf and AIS. If there is cell phone contact, it may be that AIS lasts longer than vhf and you can continue to record AIS functioning. (If really energetic, play with different tx power levels to get a sense of the difference they make.) Write it all down: preferably with an organizing template made ahead of time.
Now there is a base line for the future and an indication of present functioning. If there is the thought that there might be a problem, repeat with another boat. Remember, the problem may have been the other boat’s problem.
Using the CG for radio checks is largely pointless and has to be a bother for them. It is largely pointless as their equipment for both rx and tx is so powerful that it would mask problems in your equipment unless they were really egregious: in which case, they would have been noticed already.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Thanks for that Dick. We now measure our antenna SWR before a long passage, so that we know what good looks like, and then debugging is easier a week later offshore. It’s hard in the absence of any other vessels to be totally confident that things are the same as the last reassuring good reception a few days before.
Hi Simon,
Yes, that is certainly the instruments way to test and lends itself to doing the testing on the hard when the mast is out and all the cable connections are easy to access including extension cables that might need to be purchased to link up with the meter. But often the back of the radio is a challenge to access as are breaks/junctions in the coax out of the mast. Also, not many are familiar/confident with an SWR meter and its readings, but it is probably an instrument that should be better known. Using the meter is made much easier if the design of the coax routing and access to the radio’s back is designed with using the meter in mind.
On the hard testing has the added benefit of easy access for remedying problems that might be found.
I suspect you might be a HAM/amateur radio person, or have used marine SSB where a SWR meter is more commonly used for evaluation.
Perhaps, I have been fortunate, but I have done my testing at the beginning of the season and considered myself good unless some symptom emerges or I notice corrosion when doing inspections.
My best, Dick Stevenson, KC2HKW, s/v Alchemy
For others. Here’s the definitive paper on properly testing a VHF antenna system:
http://honeynav.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/VHF-AIS-masthead-antenna-installation-and-coax-testing.pdf
Bottom line, it’s harder than it sounds to do right.
For this reason I generally go with Dick’s testing protocol (below) although I would be first to admit it’s not as good as the Honey method, or even close.
Hi John,
Thanks for posting Honey’s essay. Not easy reading or to execute, but just a ton on interesting information. Dick
On #14 “Be on time” yes but… I have adopted Chris Stanmore Majors position on this. The watch should wake the next watch. Many people sleep poorly waiting for the alarm to go off. Fearing they have over slept. Just tell the watch how early you need to be awake. 5 minutes, ten minutes. They will be so happy to POLITELY wake you. Rather than wondering if you are getting up. Less stress for all.
Hi Carl,
Good point I should have added. We always did that. But even so I’m embarrassed to admit that sometimes I would fall back asleep at 02:00 watch change thereby forcing Phyllis to dig me out again.
Hi John,
Interesting thoughts on napping, I will have to think about that more. As someone who struggles to nap, I have not even thought about it for myself or anyone else I have sailed with. Most of my offshore sailing has been done with bigger crews and there it can be really good to excuse people from a watch to sleep but then they also become the first people you call. If combined with a system where generally when you call for more hands, you don’t call watch leaders assuming it is not a tricky thing that needs doing, you end up with a system where people can get caught up on sleep and watch leaders usually don’t fall behind in the first place.
In my view, learning to properly thermoregulate is at least as important as good clothing. This is actually a real skill and I didn’t learn it until I started winter camping. The temptation is to power through and make progress/finish a task but in truth, the people who finish first are usually the ones who take the time to worry about their temperature. To me, this means:
When I sailed tall ships, I did it mostly wearing cotton underlayers and fisherman’s PVC foulies as that type of work is super hard on clothing and that is simply what lasted. It worked pretty well as long as we were not in a hot climate but I did notice some inexperienced crew soaked themselves in sweat then got cold. In fact, I found that I was drier and warmer than the people wearing anything but real top end synthetic gear as the mid and lower tier gear started leaking not long after purchase. Top end synthetic gear definitely allows you to get away with more lapses in proper thermoregulation but I still think learning how to do it is a good skill.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Really good points about thermo regulation. Back when we were sailing a lot in the north we had to be very careful with that. Not sure who said it but “never sweat in the Arctic” is a good mantra. For example, just before going forward to reef I would pretty much always take off my watch cap to blow off some heat, and if I was looking at a really tough job, remove a mid layer, or if dry, the top layer.
That said, we did find the combo of top of the line Gortex gear and smart wool base layer was by far the most forgiving. It’s just amazing how much moisture smart wool can absorb and then transfer to the mid layer, before it feels wet or will chill us.
Hi John,
On a quick review of the sleep literature, it has been shown through multiple studies that short naps as discussed here improve alertness and reduce sleep pressure, or the urge to sleep. Long haul commercial pilots and NASA astronauts use such strategies. It is also apparent that effective nap duration is somewhat individual, with sleep inertia or that feeling of being hung-over after a nap occurring after different length naps for different people. In other words, a 15 minute nap is not the same for everybody. Therefore, it is important to practice napping to determine optimal short nap time and effect. Along those lines, the concept of sleep hygiene is especially important in an environment where it is a given that sleep will be disrupted. This takes planning – as you have already said, when not on watch then rest should be a high priority. Another sleep aid not mentioned yet is exercise, to the extent possible in swell – again, worth planning so it actually happens.
Hi Paul,
All very god points, thanks.