Tradecraft topics: Watch standing

Next in a series of postings concerning sailing tradecraft, offering various tips on technique, is the topic of watch standing.  Navy seamen and women around the world serve on shipboard with a watch duty schedule and specific responsibilities, and we can do well to adopt some of those best practices.  Here are considerations and guidelines for how we can stand watches for safety and competitiveness when we sail extended offshore passages…

Schedules:

• Most people focus on how long watches are.  What is more important is having enough time off to get adequate rest.  Fatigue does awful things to judgment, reaction time, and safety consciousness.
• Watch schedules I favor have no more than 4 hours on duty and no fewer than 4 hours off duty.  With a 4-hours-on and 4-hours-off schedule, that offers rest or sleep time of up to 12 hours for every 24.
• I generally consider that 3 crew on duty can sail Volant effectively for normal operations – 1 trimming the headsail or spinnaker, 1 trimming the mainsail, and 1 steering.  That number, plus number of bunks, dictates how many of the total crew can be off-watch.  For a typical crew of 6, 3 crew on duty and 3 crew off duty works well.  However, for a crew of 5, in order to get enough off-duty rest hours, we might be sailing 2 on and 3 off for generally 10 hours out of every 24.  
• Here is a list of watch schedules that we use successfully.  Among the selected watch schedules, copied below are schedules for 5 crew and for 6 crew that work well on Volant (click/touch to enlarge the image):

• The Royal Navy and others use dog watches around the dinner hour of 2-hour watches instead of 4-hour watches.  That serves to reverse the watch times for each crew member every day.  Our long-distance races in the Great Lakes are not so long as to justify the complexity of reversing watches.  So, I prefer the consistency of sticking to the same watch schedule every day.

On-duty watch:

• When you are on watch, you are responsible for the safety of your crew mates and the integrity of the boat.  Someone on each on-duty watch will serve the role of watch captain.  He or she will be responsible for navigation and weather tracking.
• Helm duty should change every hour or every 2 hours, if conditions are favorable.
• At night, clip in with your tether.
• Sail the boat well.  Big gains (and losses) are often realized overnight because of vigilance and motivation, or lack thereof.
• If a complicated sail change is necessary, like a spinnaker peel, wake up 1 or 2 of the off-duty watch crew to help.  That is safer than doing a transition short-handed.  Everyone should be available on call.  They will have to get caught up on sleep later.
• If there is an emergency, or concern about the course, or adverse weather coming, or a problem with the boat, wake me up!  An emergency will probably require all hands to be up and assisting.
• Someone on duty should brief crew who are starting their watch about weather and ambient conditions, sail trim, and race strategy.  Ensure continuity between shifts, and keep everyone involved in sailing the boat.

Off-duty watch:

• When you are off duty, getting some sleep is your priority.  Unless you are wet and cold, you may want to leave some or all of your gear on to save time and be more ready.
• Use red light in headlamp or flashlight, and limit the use of cabin lights, to avoid compromising night vision of the on-duty watch crew.
• Please be ready for your on-duty watch on time, waking up early enough to change clothes, use the head, or get coffee or a snack.  This is a professional courtesy very much appreciated by all.
• When you dress for your on-duty watch, remember that it is easier to stay warm than to get warm.  Layer up for flexibility to accommodate the conditions.
• What happens in stormy conditions when weight on the rail is critical?  Sometimes, it is necessary to serve your off-duty watch on deck on the rail.  Some people can sleep stretched out on the rail or leaning against the cabintop.  Be sure to clip in with your tether.

Sleeping:

• Volant has berths for 5, counting the starboard quarterberth as a double, and assuming that most sails are stowed on the sole between the settee berths.  
• However, practically, for offshore distance racing, Volant has 3 legitimate berths because sails will be stowed in half of the starboard quarterberth as well as centrally on the sole, and gear will be stowed in one of the settee berths.  So, the berths are the port and starboard quarterberths and 1 of the settees.  Onboard stowage space is not a Beneteau 10R strong suit. 
• If we are racing and we want to manage excess heel angle, for example, sailing close-hauled, crew off-duty watch should be on the high side.  One quarterberth and one settee berth will be high side, so those are preferred.  This is especially important if we expect to stay on one tack for a very long leg.  However, the gear for 5 or 6 crew stowed on one settee is probably equivalent to the weight of a crew member, so there is no benefit in shifting the gear from side to side.
• What happens if we tack?  It’s not too practical to interrupt sleep and get up and move, so we generally just stay where we are bunked.
• I have fleece sheets, polyester blankets, and inflatable pillows on board that can be shared.  We generally do not need individual sleeping bags, at least in reasonably warm July and August conditions.

Nutrition:

• 
  Nutrition and hydration are important in a multi-day endurance race.  Though tempting, we should not rely on a diet of peanut butter-filled pretzels!  There are many options for decent food, easily prepared.  Check out this master list of sailboat provisions that I have been compiling since we first delivered Volant.   
• We will usually plan to eat when shift changes occur.  Good times for this, with overlap of on-duty and off-duty crew, are 6:00am, 12:00pm noon, 6:00pm, and 12:00am midnight.  (The navy refers to the midnight snack/meal as "mid-rat" - midnight rations, not rodents!)

Accommodations? "The best I've seen. Hardly any rats." - Jack Dawson, Titanic

• If conditions are OK, we can prepare a meal.  If conditions are rough, we eat something that does not need any or much preparation.
• For a shared meal, one on-duty crew should start food preparations, and he/she should eat as their watch ends.  Crew coming on duty should eat as their watch starts.
  

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  Standing watches helps make offshore passage-making safe, comfortable, fun, and rewarding.
  Sail well, get rest, get nutrition, stay warm and dry, enjoy the sunset and sunrise, be courteous to your crew mates, crush the competition!