Boating and Sailing at night

Ripster

Ripster

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Thus far, my relatively short experience of skippering Mobos and Sail Boats (c10yrs) has been almost all daylight trips. Sure, I have left in the half-light of Dawn and arrived at Dusk but, never sailed all night at Sea or followed a pilotage plan into a harbour or estuary in the dead of night and its about time I did as this is becoming too much of a restriction on our plans. I have done up to a coastal skipper theory course so understand pilotage, shapes and lights etc., and am fairly confident about planning and using charts. There is Radar, AIS, GPS, Plotter etc on board and this is only Eng channel based - starting with some sub 12hr coastal passages in fairly benign conditions.

I am in two minds - just get on with it and start slowly and tentatively with SWMBO as crew like normal...or.... do the first ones with an experienced paid hand on board for invaluable guidance. Yes I know.... it all depends on how confident me and SWMBO feel but, from your experience what advice would you offer :)
 
Just get out there a do it. If you are competent in daylight you'll have no problem. Go into familiar destinations for your first few trips to gain confidence but, at this time of year, you'll only have a few hours of darkness anyhow.

Night sailing is great.
 
Offer to crew on someone else's passage first?

10 years is not short experience, even if it's only a couple of weeks a year, you should be confident enough on daytime passages & know your boat well.

There isn't much special out at night in open water, the fun comes when crossing shipping lanes, or in amongst the rocks & sandbanks of an estuary (especially with a busy, well lit horizon to hide the buoys & lights you need). You have radar, chart-plotter, autopilot or AIS & I assume you are well acquainted with them, if so, just go & do a passage.

Aim to arrive after dawn when it is easier to enter an unfamiliar port (or even a familiar one!). If it all gets too much or you are uncertain, just heave too for a while & have a cup of tea. There is no rush & delay just means you arrive with better light. There's not much darkness around at the moment anyway, only about 4-5 hours at most.
 
Ripster said:
Thus far, my relatively short experience of skippering Mobos and Sail Boats (c10yrs) has been almost all daylight trips. Sure, I have left in the half-light of Dawn and arrived at Dusk but, never sailed all night at Sea or followed a pilotage plan into a harbour or estuary in the dead of night and its about time I did as this is becoming too much of a restriction on our plans. I have done up to a coastal skipper theory course so understand pilotage, shapes and lights etc., and am fairly confident about planning and using charts. There is Radar, AIS, GPS, Plotter etc on board and this is only Eng channel based - starting with some sub 12hr coastal passages in fairly benign conditions.

I am in two minds - just get on with it and start slowly and tentatively with SWMBO as crew like normal...or.... do the first ones with an experienced paid hand on board for invaluable guidance. Yes I know.... it all depends on how confident me and SWMBO feel but, from your experience what advice would you offer :)
Click to expand...

I agree with Rigger Mortice, but I will say a couple of things. How competent is SWMBO, just a competent as yourself and an active participant, or does she normally just go along for the ride... a lot do. I say that because she will pick up on your anxiety/nervousness (if you are when you get out there) and it won't make for a relaxed atmosphere. Prepare a passage plan as you normally would and your boat in the normal way. Why not take off from your home port/harbour and plan on returning in the dark if you are familiar with your port. Things 'are' different when its dark, distances can be hard to judge, buoys and lights can be difficult to pick out against the myriad of lights ashore. Ships and especially fishing boats can be confusing as to their course/direction at times, but if you keep cool... no great problem. Make sure you keep your cabin lights dim (reds if you've got them) to preserve night vision, wear your harnesses and clip on, maybe make a flask of soup or something, check your nav lights are working, and make sure you've got a trusty torch on board... preferably a couple. Then just do it, and you'll be learning every minute that you're out there. Once you've got your first night passage out of the way, plan another one and your confidence will grow with every hour.... Good luck
 
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I find night sailing easier in most ways. Navigation is easier than you think but you need to trust your instruments and charts.Generally the sea seems to be calmer at night but when its not, its not as scary, as you can't see it! Getting tired is your worst enemy, especially when you start 'seeing things'. Biggest risk are pots and containers.
 
Pick the right weather; plenty of coffee, VHF in the cockpit, binoculars, apart from steaming/navigation lights no other lights to avoid being blinded, eliminate surprises by doing a bit of route preparation before hand. I don't do much night sailing but when I do I enjoy it.
 
As others have said but...

I would start with night departure from your home or easier known port. Followed by easy passage to start with and arrive next port daylight.

Maybe depart Weymouth, Brighton, Lymington/ Yarmouth (westbound), Brighton, Portland, leave places like the Hamble, Poole and Portsmouth till you have an "easy" practice first. Its not rocket science but you will find you can do things better. Use a couple of easy ports to find your weaknesses and grow from there...
 
Lots of sound advice here, I find night sailing simpler (not easier as such) in a way because the important things are lit and readily visible at ranges far greater than in daylight but the "clutter" - scenery and water surface is not. The entire environment talks to you - it's exhilarating as well as beautiful.
A bit more preparation with regard to identification of lights and marks en route and have an alternative planned just in case.

The hardest thing I found was trusting that marks you need to see will become clear in plenty of time for you to use them - they can often be lost among shore lights for instance and it can be uncomfortable at first, but they will become distinguishable. Believe!

Do a familiar trip first to prove to yourself that you can do it, once you've broken the ice (takes minutes - really!) you'll love it I'm sure.
 
If you have never been at sea at night I would certainly suggest either joining someone else as crew or getting an experience hand on board for the first go. All of the comments above are entirely relevant but there is something different about being in the cockpit on your own at 0200 with your wife tucked up asleep down below trusting your judgement entirely.

Silly things like getting used to keeping awake, managing a watch system - you will have to sleep at some stage! - and making decisions based on lights, AIS, radar etc alone is important.

Having driven Warships, yachts, MOBOs etc around the world, I can still remember the first time I was in charge at night on my own (Thames estuary crossing Gunfleet at the age of 15 doing my CoSkip practical on the schools Hurley 22!)

Once you have that confidence under your belt, the word is your oyster - the next trick is teaching/persuading SWMBO to stand you a few hours either side of the night watch so you can really get some miles under your belt!!!
 
Surely in addition to long passages you do some local cruising. So I suggest you do a little local cruise leaving just before sunset and returning after dark. Make it a short cruise so you are not tired and make it local so you know the area.
Night sailing involves knowing the boat and where every thing is and how it works in the dark as well as actual navigation. Get the first practiced so you have no concerns then go for the latter. good luck olewill
 
11 yrs as a full time cruiser and I love SAILING at night but hate entering harbour or almost any area with hard bits in it at night.

My advice is to plan your passages so as to arrive at 10 am. Leave at night by all means but check the markers as it gets dark!

Just aided in a rescue where a cruiser hit a reef and spent the night there nearly losing his boat, he was entering a bay on the south coast of Grenada at night and got the wrong bay.
 
Just don't under-estimate how cold it can get, even at this time of year.

Make sure you wrap-up well with plenty of layers. There's nothing more miserable than being cold while on-watch at night.

Otherwise, get out there and do it. You'll wonder what all the fuss was about afterwards.
 
I don’t want to put you off. Navigation at night in a well light area like the UK is not difficult as some have said it can even be easier to identify significant navigation marks like major lights even buoys.
Some harbours can be safely entered for the first time at night if they are well marked and light.
The real challenges to night sailing are cold and fatigue. Even in summer the short night is long and cold. When you have a long established watch routine the hours are not so bad. If it’s a one or two day trip with an overnight passage and a small crew you will be dog tired.
Dress warm, Dry, even the dew gets you wet and cold. Have warm sweet drinks, Hot Chocolate is great for keeping warm.
There is nothing quite like a moonless clear night sky off shore, you will be amazed at how many more stars’ you can see and how bright the Milky Way is. If lucky you may even see the Northern Lights
 
I did my first night passage as skipper a couple of years ago, after only having done one night trip previously as crew.
Instruments I had were a compass, gps and depth.

It was certainly more challenging in that I was concentrating more (probably due to it being my first go) and checking sail telltales / wind indicator, involved lots of torch pointing.
I was single handed so it did take a fair bit of thought. Other challenges were navigating a fairly narrow winding channel and being able to identify the nearest channel buoy and not the next one along.

Also, when I came into moor at my swing mooring, boats didn't seem to be there until what seemed the last minute and they all appeared out of the darkness.

It was certainly a challenge, especially single handed but not heart stopping and was well worth doing.
 
If possible, for your first night passage try to pick a week when there is a full moon! OK, the tides will be high, etc, but the moonlight will make the passage so much nicer! Gives you a better chance to spot things like those nasty ships in the dark!

And just after moonset, you get sunrise, so never really dark at all.
 
Lots of encouragement here for you.

My 2p.

Aim to do a short (4-5) hour sail back to your home port (assuming that your home port is lit ofcourse) Have a lazy day before hand so that you're not tired and make sure you Have a reasonable evening meal so that hunger isn't a problem. Spend the afternoon preparing the boat and yourself so that come 7-8pm you can get going. Will be plenty of light whilst you leave and the transition to dark will be gradual.

You will still get a couple of hours of proper darkness but will then not have the uncertainty of where to go in a strange port.

Once you have overcome the fear do a longer one, again back to somewhere that you know well, then build on that.
 
Another vote for crewing with someone else at night (ie as their crew, not hiring a paid skipper), but make it someone who doesn't rely on plotter/GPS/AIS (or can refrain from doing so). Knowing what lights mean and how flash patterns are written on the chart you will have learned in your theory course. What requires practice is working out what the heck it is you can see (before you can translate that to "what it means"): Picking out the navigation lights from a load of super-bright deck/working lights on another vessel. Picking out a buoy with a particular flash pattern against background clutter. Being able to describe the pattern you're seeing so as to either communicate it to the skipper/navigator or quickly find it on a chart. Not rocket science but a bit of practice would give you confidence. You won't get the same benefit from sitting in the cockpit with a skipper following a satnav as you will from one actively involving his/her crew in looking out for lights.

When happy, "Just do it". On the arriving in the dark thing, depends entirely on the destination. Port Chantereyne marina? No problem. Anchoring up the Dart amongst other boats on a moonless night? Possibly not the best plan.
 
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