Boating and Sailing at night

[laika]

Oh...and update your charts. A buoy not being where it "should" be (or one where you don't expect it) is not such a big deal in the light with other landmarks to navigate by. It gets much more stressful when you have fewer reference points at night. Lights get added and removed and their characteristics occasionally get changed: Download the notices to mariners and update your charts (even if you just concentrate on lights and markers and ignore depths and wrecks which don't affect you)

 

[capnsensible]

nothing more fun than nav at night......

Actually, Ive found a few things........

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Totally unnecessary to have a piad hand on board. Sailing at night is, if anything, easier than in daylight because you can see other boats and lit buoys etc a great deal better. But I understand your hang up - I have a similar one about single handing even though thats effectively what I do with SWMBO on board. And if its rough you cant see the waves

When sailing with a pal we bicker most about who has the fun of doing the midnight to 4 am watch - we both want to do it and tbh its far more pleasureable with the other crew down below and asleep.

 

[ctelfer38]

Night sailing

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

If you don't mind another contribution. No matter how much technology you have to hand, there is nothing to beat a good pilotage plan written out as a check list or a simple sketch showing buoys, lights, bearing, distances, transits etc. Have that in the cockpit with a red light torch and check of your waypoint as you enter/leave your harbour. All obvious stuff I know; but the basics never change really. Hope it goes well.

 

[Ripster]

Many thanks to all for the contributions and advice.

We are convinced we can have a go ourselves now. Practice starts next week out of the ports we know, all of which are fairly well marked and lit. We'll begin by leaving at night and traveling in darkness to our destination to arrive in the morning. Once we have got used to it, we'll try arriving in the dark. Passage plans and pilotage plans are part of our standard prep anyway - though we'll pay more attention to light sequences now! Charts are up date.

Need to acquire a red light torch - got plenty of white ones.

 

[onesea]

Need to acquire a red light torch - got plenty of white ones.

I am going to get blasted here, I would not worry to much... I would have afew dim tourches (LED KEy rings pound shop)

A couple of flash lights, again led. As long as they are not to bright, the trick is not to shine it in peoples eyes and use your hand as a shade...

Oh and a smart phone unlocked is often a good source of light to ...

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

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.

+1 especially between 03:00 and 06:00 hours can get damp and the body cools down quicker.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

also, pick your location carefully for your first night sail.... find an entrance/exit that is fairly straightforward, and not too heavily populated to avoid too much light pollution from shore.

Its a wonderful experience, and one that once you've done once, you'll want to keep repeating. I actually think I prefer sailing at night to during the day!

 

[Rigger Mortice]

I am going to get blasted here, I would not worry to much... I would have afew dim tourches (LED KEy rings pound shop)

A couple of flash lights, again led. As long as they are not to bright, the trick is not to shine it in peoples eyes and use your hand as a shade...

Oh and a smart phone unlocked is often a good source of light to ...

+1 I agree.
I find a headlight useful. I always know where it is!

 

[Reptile Smile]

I was SO much less experienced than you on my first attempt at night sailing. Actually, I am probably still SO much less experienced than you...

My first attempt was a two hour jaunt up the Thames estuary in the dead of night to Southend. LOL. It's a long story. I probably could have chosen a more helpful first route, but it had a happy ending. In the end...

The guts of it is, yeah, man up and do it. It's fine. I was hugely reassured to have Navionics on my phone to reassure myself with, but I would recommend both a headtorch (doesn't blind you as the light faces away, and they're not that bright in the first place) and a million candela ebay special as back up for when you just can't find that damned unlit mooring buoy you're after. All else is half the fun of it...

 

[john_morris_uk]

When some of us first went sailing at night we didn't have any nav instruments except a compass and a log. With all the gear you've got there's no excuse for getting lost! (That's got the grumpy old man bit out of the way!)

We do LOTS of night sailing and there's nothing quite like it. When I take newcomers to yachting out sailing there are two things that consistently come out as 'favourite parts of the week'. One is any spinnaker runs, but the by far the most popular is the night sailing.

Be prepared. (Passage plan, somewhere for off watch crew to sleep, hot drinks, good torch available, proper lighting available below and above decks etc etc)

ALWAYS wear a harness when on deck or in the cockpit at night.

Keep rested.

Its much more important to have a pilotage plan ready and available at night when entering unknown harbours! Its much harder to just cuff it from the chart...

PS, I don't think a full moon is helpful for avoiding ships. They usually have Nav lights...

 

[Dab]

Lots of good advice here. You said earlier you were used to doing pilotage plans.

As I was building my night pilotage experience (and I still am) I always did a sketch with the lights and marks, distance and bearings, usually on an A4 piece of paper, which I would have in the cockpit with me in a clear waterproof cover. I would then treat the pilotage as a full time job, which means someone else is at the helm and the the "pilot" is then free to look for the next marks, ferries and other craft coming in and out and pass instructions to the helm. You will need a dim light to look at your pilotage plan, and a bright light just in case some of the marks you are looking for/checking off are not obvious or unlit. It is a good discipline to identify and tick off mark as you pass it. You then know exactly where are, and limit the chances of cutting shallow corners. With more experience you may want to relax some or all of this depending on how new or complex each entry/departure is and the conditions.

Once you get near to where you are going to stop, give some thought as to how you are going to identify your buoy/berth and work out what the tide is doing - this is all less obvious at night. A slow drive by can be useful, using your bright light to pick out our berth inside the marina (from the marina plan you looked at earlier) as you go past. You could stop as part of this to confirm the effect of tide and wind.

Advice to man up and go for it may suit you, but if you want to walk before you run, you could do a lot worse than a practice at your home berth. Give yoursleft plenty of time while stationary to draw up a plan, assemble and test your night time kit and go through you day to night routine as it gets dark. Then once it is properly dark pilot your way out to the navigation limit, turn round and come back in. You could even then swap roles and do it again. By the end of that you should be pretty confident, have identified any shortfalls in your kit and have a good idea of what division of labour works best for you. If you think you home berth is too easy/complicated, go somehere else you know during the day and then try it there.

The rewards are rich. For any given trip the extended sailing time gives you much more flexibility to work the tides in your favour extending your reach, and you oftern find you have the water almost to yourself, even busy places like the solent on a summer weekend.

 

[TQA]

Sailing at night is, if anything, easier than in daylight because you can see other boats and lit buoys etc a great deal better. .

Err depends where you are sailing. In some areas of the Caribbean boats showing the correct lights at night are not the norm, they may show some light but not always. Buoys may be lit, may be flashing correctly, may be in the correct location and lighthouses may be working but the wise do not rely on them to do so.