How can you sleep at night?

[10011100]

As a completly inexperienced sailor, i was wondering if anyone would enlighten me...

If you and your partner are sailing across an ocean, do you have to take turns sailing 24/7? I figured an anchor wasnt an option because of the depth, so do you just go to bed and drift on through the night? A worrying prospect!

[Cruisingdad]

Originally Posted by 10011100

As a completly inexperienced sailor, i was wondering if anyone would enlighten me...

If you and your partner are sailing across an ocean, do you have to take turns sailing 24/7? I figured an anchor wasnt an option because of the depth, so do you just go to bed and drift on through the night? A worrying prospect!

Most people pull 4-4.

- CD

[labatt]

You take watches - two to four hours at a shift (four seeming to be the most common), 24 hours per day. International regulations require someone to always be on watch.

[10011100]

So more than one person has to be on board?

[Cruisingdad]

If you solo, you likely set a radar alarm and/or a egg-timer for 15mins. You cannot always keep watch so you take a chance.

- CD

[10011100]

WOW, that is a pretty incredible way to live.

[Boasun]

Originally Posted by 10011100

WOW, that is a pretty incredible way to live.

Hard on both the body and your internal clock.

[BOLTER33]

I bet the solo sailors take more than 15 minute naps. I Read that someone was sending a sail boat across the Atlantic via remote controll.

[camaraderie]

A lot depends on where you are. If you are in shipping lanes or close to land it is one thing...out of the lanes many single handers sleep for several hours at a time...check things...then go back to sleep. A radar alarm helps.

[Giulietta]

only Cams and wimps sleep at night in a crossing....real man (like me) don't sleep...

back in 1923 when I was crossing the atlantic East to west from new York to Frankfurt, via the Indic Ocean, on my wood ornamented rich, 5 foot thick Valliant hull built in 1845, with a over full keel and skeg hanging rudder, proudly spiking the sky with my 4 mast tripple decker double core plank on carbon fiber sloop ketch, with a hoyt rig on the port spreader, I spent 46 days without sleep.

Off course it help the fact i did not pay the Sears credit card bill and I knew they were going to cut my credit off, and that makes me lose my sleep....

But what kept me going was the thought of watching Oprah once again....once I hit the famous atlantic islands of Madagascar...

Having nothing to eat for 67 days and drinking my own urine, only because I like the taste, and making margaritas with the water from washing my socks, also helped in keeping awake....

Man once I landed..I slept a whole 3 hours...then moved on to my next trip, a cruise to Siberia, via Serbia, and then I got 5 Knockroaches...but that's another story...