Building Night Experience

We sail out of Hamble and have done the trip to Cowes quite often in the dark. It's easy enough to follow the Hamble channel out to Southampton Water keeping the greens on the left and reds on the right - remember the dog leg before Hamble Point southerly cardinal buoy. Then off southish skirting just inside Calshot Spit subject to depth to stay out of the big ship channel and west of the Brambles towards the Cowes marks which will of course be merging into the background until you get quite closeish.

If you have a plotter or gps I would pop these marks in: Hamble Point, Calshot Spit, West Knoll (watch the tidal set, it keeps you away from the Brambles but you're still outside the shipping channel), Prince Consort. If you're after a marina Shepards is my preference on channel 80 or just turn up there
 
AngusMcDoon said:
I didn't say they did. There are, however, many less ferries at night than during the day as I'm sure you know, and virtually no pleasure boats. As for ships, it's hardly Dover with 8 ships an hour, is it? It's just like it would be on the Mersey, Clyde, Thames or Humber.

Anyway, I expect you remain convinced it's "one of the trickiest stretches of water in the UK", I don't, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. I hope the OP goes for it, and expect he'll survive the hour or two it takes and will come back here to tell us all about it.
Click to expand...

Extraordinary, read what he said!
 
My apologies if it's been said before, jumped into this when it's already 9 pages long. What about starting before dawn? If it goes wrong of an evening there's a lot of dark hours ahead, go out an hour before dawn and you know that it will definitely not be dark in an hour! A friend of mine did this earlier in the year, a Harbour exit is marginally easier in the dark than a Harbour entrance as well.
 
SteveTibbetts said:
My apologies if it's been said before, jumped into this when it's already 9 pages long. What about starting before dawn? If it goes wrong of an evening there's a lot of dark hours ahead, go out an hour before dawn and you know that it will definitely not be dark in an hour! A friend of mine did this earlier in the year, a Harbour exit is marginally easier in the dark than a Harbour entrance as well.
Click to expand...

Thats a very good idea. i dont fancy geting from Swanwick to the river mouth in the dark so one idea I had was to move down to Hamble Point early evening, and stay on the centre river pontoon, then get up early and go from there.
 
This time of year you can sail to Cowes in the dark, or at least partly in the dark, arriving in good time for a pub meal and a few beers.
Get a couple of mates or maybe another boat for company and do it.
Be home for lunch on Saturday...
If the tide is right Lymington or Yarmouth are OK to get into in the dark.

I suspect you learn as much in 1 hour passage plus entering harbour as you do sailing all night.
A night crossing to Cherbourg or St Vaast is nice given a good wind direction and a bit of company.
I find it can get colder than you expect so I prefer a minimum of three for night crossings this time of year, we do short, overlapping watches so you are not alone on deck for long.
In the Solent, I would not encourage inexperienced people to singlehand at night, but I wouldn't criticise them for it either.
Good clothing including base layers helps a lot IMHO.
 
PhillM said:
Thats a very good idea. i dont fancy geting from Swanwick to the river mouth in the dark so one idea I had was to move down to Hamble Point early evening, and stay on the centre river pontoon, then get up early and go from there.
Click to expand...

We're in Deacons and have gone up and down the river several times in the dark this year.

There is a reasonable amount of background light and there are a lot of red and greens up and down the river with not too much light on shore to obscure the channel markers. Add that to he boats moored each side of the channel and it's really not too hard.
 
Phill, If you decide you'd like a seasoned passenger, or for that matter to have a nighttime nosey round the Solent, prior to your first trip out alone, give me a shout. I believe we're only a pontoon apart.
 
A word of advice ?
When night sailing as a priority night vision ought to be preserved.
This means you must avoid bright lights aboard.
The compass light, for example on many binnacles is invariably too bright.
A good way of dimming it is to coat the bulb with a thin application of red nail varnish. I have a dimmer. If you have to use a bright light, like for example shining the sails with a powerful torch to make your vessel seen, shut one eye while you do it. When the torch is off, shut the eye you opened and look through the other one until you do recover your night vision.
When going below use a head torch to consult your chart, etc., Don't switch on all the lights otherwise when going on deck again you won't see a thing for a couple of minutes.
I hope you take my advice, the consequence of long experience.
 
I don't think that this weekend is going to be "the one". However, I am getting started with preparations.

The message about crew has been received loud and clear. The offers of crew are much appreciated and I will take them up.

SimonjUK, I'm on D12 outer and am around most Saturday mornings through the winter. Do come and say hello.

I have bought a Petzl head torch with red light. I will charge up my 1M candle flashlight. I am thinking about getting a couple of white flares as well.

With F7 in the forecast I'm going nowhere today. I will be down at the boat pottering around this morning but this afternoon, while the family go off to the football, I shall get my charts out and start to prepare a passage plan.

Depending on how easy / time consuming I find it, I plan to prepare leaving Hamble, entering Hamble, to Cowes, to Yarmouth and to Portsmouth. Thus giving me a range of options depending on weather and tide.

Having not done this before my idea is to write out what I expect to see as my next light and what other lights I expect to see ahead, to port, to starboard and astern. I guess I will also want to work out bearings for waypoints based on lights and plot a few way points for the gps.

Any feed back on how you prepare a night PP would be happily received.
 
PhillM said:
I don't think that this weekend is going to be "the one". However, I am getting started with preparations.

The message about crew has been received loud and clear. The offers of crew are much appreciated and I will take them up.

SimonjUK, I'm on D12 outer and am around most Saturday mornings through the winter. Do come and say hello.

I have bought a Petzl head torch with red light. I will charge up my 1M candle flashlight. I am thinking about getting a couple of white flares as well.

With F7 in the forecast I'm going nowhere today. I will be down at the boat pottering around this morning but this afternoon, while the family go off to the football, I shall get my charts out and start to prepare a passage plan.

Depending on how easy / time consuming I find it, I plan to prepare leaving Hamble, entering Hamble, to Cowes, to Yarmouth and to Portsmouth. Thus giving me a range of options depending on weather and tide.

Having not done this before my idea is to write out what I expect to see as my next light and what other lights I expect to see ahead, to port, to starboard and astern. I guess I will also want to work out bearings for waypoints based on lights and plot a few way points for the gps.

Any feed back on how you prepare a night PP would be happily received.
Click to expand...

Just like any PP -- tides, weather, waypoints, estimated time of passing various waypoints, clearing bearings, lights, hazards, radio channels.

I personally think you are way overthinking this.

Getting down the Hamble at night is total simples. There is plenty of artificial light and you surely know every inch of it. This is no challenge whatsoever. The channel into the Hamble is actually more confusing because of the lights which go out to the BP terminal -- as someone wisely mentioned above, you can't tell the distance nearly as well at night. Are you using a chart plotter? This really kind of takes the mystery and most of the challenge out of night pilotage.

If I were you, I would make this trip to Poole or at least Yarmouth, and don't do it alone. Do it a few times with someone experienced in it, and who knows the area well, and you'll never have a tense moment, in fact, it will be simply fun from the very beginning.

It's probably not nearly as hard as you think. It's very, very hard to read lights at night in a place with a lot of them -- like the Central Solent, or Poole Harbour. If you don't have a chart plotter, then this is an extra challenge, and you'll need to memorize the charts of places like that and put notes into your PP. Otherwise there is nothing really difficult about it, and as someone above quite lyrically (and accurately) described, it's very pleasurable.

Concerning pots -- you usually can't see them at night at all, so when night sailing you should avoid places where you know they are going to be (sailing to Poole it means sailing far S of the rhumb line course). Besides that, your only recourse is a good line cutter on your prop, without which I would not sail at night.
 
PhillM,

I tend to agree you're taking it a bit too seriously, but that's an admirable trait !

One bit of advice I picked up from a programme featuring the ex-editor of Yachting World Bernard Hayman and his boat ' Barbican ' was, keep white flares near the main hatch as if you need them for collision warning it will be even more urgent than red for distress...

I'm sure you won't need them though, flasks of soup and coffee will be far more important.

Have Fun and try to include the experience of dawn at sea !

Andy
 
Dockhead said:
I personally think you are way overthinking this.

QUOTE]

Perhaps, but I enjoy the planning as well as the doing. Also, my boat did not come equipped like many other are so I cannot take for granted what others perhaps can. That's not a complaint, just a statement.

I took on a project boat and so I have spent three years growing my sailing experience in the summer and working on her in the winter. Almost every part of the boat has had to be thought through, just to make sure I don't make a decision that either renders the boat un-sea worthy or unfit for purpose. All from little experience.

That is one of the reasons I love this forum and all on here who have helped so much over the years. Really, I could not have done it without you all. I know I have askes some unrealistic questions, (like how to setup for 10+ days endurance at sea, etc) but at the time it was important to me because I had to make decisions that could affect future performance.

Re the night sailing, I don't see it as hard, but I do want to learn so that when I do go out, the boat and I are properly prepared.

I went down today to review the electrics / lights. This had not really been a priority before because I have only really been day sailing between marinas. Looking at the very nice stern light I realised that the "period feature" is actually useless because it is directly behind the tiller, so that will need to be replaced. Ho hum, so that's another job for the to-do list.

Thanks again for all your help.
Click to expand...
 
PhillM said:
Re the night sailing, I don't see it as hard, but I do want to learn so that when I do go out, the boat and I are properly prepared.
Click to expand...

I am sure that when you do it you will think (a) this isn't too hard and (b) this is great fun, precisely because you've thought about it. None of sailing is particularly difficult, but a wee bit of preparation always helps.
 
Last edited:
PhillM said:
Looking at the very nice stern light I realised that the "period feature" is actually useless because it is directly behind the tiller
Click to expand...

?

Do you mean it's directly forward of the rudder stock or something? I can't see why being aft of the tiller would be a problem.

Pete
 
Phill

Agree with allot on, Western Solent would be easier starter.

Having scanned through this thread I cannot see one suggestion. Sounds like your based at the top of the Hamble, I guess your familiar with the river. Why not just motor to the mouth and back one evening?

If you live local to the boat you could just go for an hours run after work (starting at dusk?), ideally with crew or even on your own (there is no shame in turning round). From memory its not the easiest river (only remember doing it in daylight and not for afew years). IMHO it would iron out a few wrinkles and could be a pleasant confidence building trip or a OMG I am doing it with crew next time.

Allot of night sailing is getting familiar with your surroundings, learning to look at things in a different light (excuse pun) not rocket science but a little adapting goes a long way.

If you want to answer the meal question you could even try cooking whilst trying to preserve night sight whilst safely alongside (then you can discover the Fenkel defect in safety).
 
Onsea, great idea. I might well give that a try this week. As you say, its easier to get out for an hour one evening than find the time to a do a whole night.

Pete, the light is forward of the stock. From directly aft you cannot see it - which if course is the problem. Originally the boat did not have any lights and I think a previous owner put this on to tick a box. Now I actually want to use it, I had better make it actually visable. I put on a new tri, steaming and bow as part of other works but didn't pay any attention to the stern light because that was not an area of the boat we needed to work on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

R
My boat trip hopefully in May Around Scotland
2 3
Replies
54
Views
1K
ProDave
ProDave
P
Bringing my new boat from Netherlands to Ireland next year
2
Replies
33
Views
1K
xyachtdave
xyachtdave

Share this page

Top