night navigation

[lionelz]

Well it's not been a bad season for me and my wife, and we have managed to tick a few things of our bucket list. However with the nights now drawing in I want to make the most of what's left of the good weather. One of the things on my bucket list for next season is to be out on the water on our own and wait until the sun goes down and just sit and enjoy the wonders of the world. I know it's only a small thing but it's one on my list. I have some very limited night hours (the minimum to pass my yachtmaster). I was also not 'in charge'. My wife is keen to do it but wants me to gain more experience first. So I am after some tips of the trade to make the small adventure safer. I do intend to do some night navigation around the solent to start with, and then make it a bit more challenging. So any tips would be much appreciated.

Lionel

PS I do have a friend who is going to be a crew member for me, if there is anyone out there that wants to improve their night navigation you are more than welcome to join me and maybe we can improve together. I'm based in Gosport. Date to be arranged and am pretty flexiable

 

[gregcope]

I am not in the trade, but have some experience;

Learn Cardinal Mark flash sequences
Learn some simple boat light configs
When planning a passage, list/make notes on lights you want to ID. I usually have a plan that "a this point I should be able to ID light A, sequence X on bearing approx ABC."

If you planning on using a chart plotter/Radar things get different.

Think about deck activity - Do you need crew on deck? Being a raggie I / crew clip on when dark/foggy/bouncy. Torches (big and small), head torches handy.

If your sailing to/from Gosport then you are learning in a great area. Busy / populated is harder than quite places, as you have all the shore background lights to filter out, fishing craft, Commercial (ferries etc...) and lots of bouyage to be able to ID (and miss!).

Lobster pots in the dark are always fun.

Go for it.

 

[alant]

I am not in the trade, but have some experience;

Learn Cardinal Mark flash sequences
Learn some simple boat light configs
When planning a passage, list/make notes on lights you want to ID. I usually have a plan that "a this point I should be able to ID light A, sequence X on bearing approx ABC."

If you planning on using a chart plotter/Radar things get different.

Think about deck activity - Do you need crew on deck? Being a raggie I / crew clip on when dark/foggy/bouncy. Torches (big and small), head torches handy.

If your sailing to/from Gosport then you are learning in a great area. Busy / populated is harder than quite places, as you have all the shore background lights to filter out, fishing craft, Commercial (ferries etc...) and lots of bouyage to be able to ID (and miss!).

Lobster pots in the dark are always fun.

Go for it.

Night passages require courses to steer (with times of each leg particularly when at speed)/ pilotage plan. Background lights, particularly when in a busy harbour area like Southampton Water, can disorientate, so do not plan to "head for that green/red/flashing", these could be on shore, not for navigation. Yes, lights are important, but easily confusing when near a town background.

 

[piratos]

Well it's not been a bad season for me and my wife, and we have managed to tick a few things of our bucket list. However with the nights now drawing in I want to make the most of what's left of the good weather. One of the things on my bucket list for next season is to be out on the water on our own and wait until the sun goes down and just sit and enjoy the wonders of the world. I know it's only a small thing but it's one on my list. I have some very limited night hours (the minimum to pass my yachtmaster). I was also not 'in charge'. My wife is keen to do it but wants me to gain more experience first. So I am after some tips of the trade to make the small adventure safer. I do intend to do some night navigation around the solent to start with, and then make it a bit more challenging. So any tips would be much appreciated.

Lionel

PS I do have a friend who is going to be a crew member for me, if there is anyone out there that wants to improve their night navigation you are more than welcome to join me and maybe we can improve together. I'm based in Gosport. Date to be arranged and am pretty flexiable

Night passage is not that difficult. As you are not used to it start with passages where you are familiar with the passages in daylight.
Ideally a night passage in Full moon, and if possible the moon from behind. You will really like it

 

[oceanfroggie]

You will enjoy it. Start with short passages to get your steering and eyes used to it. I've been doing night trips for over 15 years. There is a heck of a difference between busy areas with a lot of onshore lights and total darkness (or thick fog). Learning to steer in total darkness or dense fog is a new skill, easy to pick up, but just needs a bit of readjustment. A good autopilot is a great aid freeing you to concentrated on navigation and look out.

Radar is essential. Again in poor vis take time to get used to interpreting it. Nowadays chart plotters, radar and AIS really take the stress out of night nav in busy traffic areas. A remote control spotlight is handy for the last hundred meters or so approaching a mooring or if needing to pass very close to a surface hazard, harbour entrance, etc. Personally I prefer an almost totally dark cockpit so my eyes can see better in the ambient light (ie LCD panels and instrumentation brightness turned right down or covered). Mobile phones are banned at our helm at night unless offshore. Exposure to one bright LCD wreaks my eyesight for 5 to 10 minutes.

It is a lovely day experience. Also for first attempts try it at displacement speeds so you've more time to see and understand what's going on. Less stress to in harbours. Next you'll be heading down to marina late on a Friday night, cast off and head to the nearest anchorage for isolated peace and quiet. Set the anchor, turn the anchor drag alarm on and sleep like a baby. Wake up to a Saturday morning sunrise free from a sterile caravan park marina. Enjoy.

 

[Nigelpickin]

Not sure why you'd want to come home in the dark, stay out at anchor and have a peaceful evening on the hook. Wake up at sunrise and come home in the half light.

However - we always set a track on our mobiles and Raymarine in and out of harbour, this we we can have a pretty good idea that if we follow the track the next day, even in darkness - we should be pretty safe in terms of pots and rocks.

We've been introduced to overnighting at Anchor, (always used pickup lines and bouys before), and it's a delight.

 

[TQA]

Have at least one head torch and one hand torch with fresh batteries. A hand held spotlight can be useful. Make sure your anchor light is operational. If possible light up your cockpit as well, speedboats running around at night look forward not up.

Know the COMPASS COURSE to follow if you have to leave the anchorage in an emergency. Write it down next to the wheel.

The chandlers sell nice laminated booklets of the different arrangements of lights. Buy one and keep it by the wheel. Mine saved me from crossing behind a tug towing an oil rig on a long tow.

Radar and AIS might be nice to have but I would rather rely on a good look out. Mind you fog is unknown where I sail.

 

[lionelz]

Not sure why you'd want to come home in the dark, stay out at anchor and have a peaceful evening on the hook. Wake up at sunrise and come home in the half light.

However - we always set a track on our mobiles and Raymarine in and out of harbour, this we we can have a pretty good idea that if we follow the track the next day, even in darkness - we should be pretty safe in terms of pots and rocks.

We've been introduced to overnighting at Anchor, (always used pickup lines and bouys before), and it's a delight.

Again one on our to do list, however we need to sort out a recharging system for our boat, its only small (30ft) and we don have a generator, just concerned at the batteries running flat. Until I get this sot not chancing it as wife is Satan in disguise in the morning until after her first coffee, and I don't have a lot of places to hide on my boat

 

[alant]

Have at least one head torch and one hand torch with fresh batteries. A hand held spotlight can be useful. Make sure your anchor light is operational. If possible light up your cockpit as well, speedboats running around at night look forward not up.

Know the COMPASS COURSE to follow if you have to leave the anchorage in an emergency. Write it down next to the wheel.

The chandlers sell nice laminated booklets of the different arrangements of lights. Buy one and keep it by the wheel. Mine saved me from crossing behind a tug towing an oil rig on a long tow.

Radar and AIS might be nice to have but I would rather rely on a good look out. Mind you fog is unknown where I sail.

Head torches are dangerous, the guy wearing one, always shines it into the helmsmans eyes as he turns around to talk to him, losing any night vision.

 

[Uricanejack]

I am not in the trade, but have some experience;

Learn Cardinal Mark flash sequences
Learn some simple boat light configs
When planning a passage, list/make notes on lights you want to ID. I usually have a plan that "a this point I should be able to ID light A, sequence X on bearing approx ABC."

If you planning on using a chart plotter/Radar things get different.

Think about deck activity - Do you need crew on deck? Being a raggie I / crew clip on when dark/foggy/bouncy. Torches (big and small), head torches handy.

If your sailing to/from Gosport then you are learning in a great area. Busy / populated is harder than quite places, as you have all the shore background lights to filter out, fishing craft, Commercial (ferries etc...) and lots of bouyage to be able to ID (and miss!).

Lobster pots in the dark are always fun.

Go for it.

Some very good simple advice.
I would add the tip already given, start with a familiar trip.
Make a quick note of which lights you should expect to see, particularly the characteristics. is good idea.

Try thinking the other way around though.
Look around make a note of what lights you can see. Color, sequence and time
Then look for them on the chart.
A hand compass is good tool. If you know where you are. You see a light take a bearing. compare to chart, now you know which light it is. combine with characteristics.
With practice you can do this without the compass using "points" on the bow or clock face.

One of my favourite things about sailing at night was seeing the looms of the big channel lights at night before they came over the horizon.

Twilight just after sunset is a nice time to be on the water and you can still see normally but you can see the lights as well.
A good start is return to home port during twilight.

The hardest thing about a night passage is staying warm, comfortable and well rested. I like to put the kettle on regularly. You may find a flask works better. Make sure you have had a good rest first being tired and cold is not fun.

Have fun its easier that you think.

PS. I am a little strange, for longer trip instead of leaving early morning and arriving late. I quite often leave later in the day sail overnight and arrive in the morning.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Head torches are dangerous, the guy wearing one, always shines it into the helmsmans eyes as he turns around to talk to him, losing any night vision.

I have plenty of torches on board but can't remember using one when on a night passage, too much light destroys night vision in an instant. Do you have any red lights you can use, these do not have the same negative effect on your night vision. And on that theme, check how much light your instruments emit, some may prove too bright so you'll need a way of reducing the glare. Try turning everything on at night when moored up and then practice turning down the background lighting. And are there any unwanted reflective sections that cause problems? Driving from inside can be quite different to outside.

As already mentioned it is very easy to mistake lights onshore with navigation lights. I remember bringing Eos in to the Exe one December night, my mate and I know the river pretty well having boated there for 20 years or more, but we we hadani interesting discussion about a port light showing in the shallow swatch way; it turned out to be a rear/brake light on a vehicle ashore! As with fog, darkness can be very disorientating, even with gps and chartplotters.

 

[oceanfroggie]

A head torch is a not welcome on our vessel. In the past 10 years or so I use the flux-compass/autohelm + chart plotter as the primary nav aids at night and only use nav aid lights for corroboration. Obviously other vessels nav lights are important to corroborate with radar targets. Its not rocket science.

As somebody suggested a great way to start is record a track log during daylight of a familiar local short passage and then follow that track log some evening or night. When recording track logs during daylight for future re-use, it is good practice to give hazards a wide berth so that at night your steering and course doesn't need to me millimetre perfect when following the track log (i.e. you have a bit of lee way for small track errors).

 

[lionelz]

Well guys just to let you know i done a passage and I am so pleased that I did. I had one uptake from this forum and we set of together with a friend of mine who done most of the helm work whilst Terry and I done the shouting and punching him we decided to set off and make our way to the needles and then navigate back in the dark. We used good old fashioned paper charts and navionics to plan the route. We put the route on navionics but that was just back up but done most of the navigation by the lights and the notes we had made.

The lessons learnt by me (or remembered) were

The lack of depth perception and distance. Often lights that were further away appeared closer than the nearest light.

It was very easy to get very close to the navigation marks. The real judge of distance for me was seeing the reflection in the water of the light.

We were very lucky with the weather however, just past Hurst point it was the going into the unknown with the waves and the unexpected drops into water (quite unnerving for me as I have some bad memories of military service where on a number of occasions I had ditched armoured vehicles but that's another story not for here)

We used white light to look at our notes, personally I did not find this an issue as I very quickly got my night vision back, however when my friend used his camera and forgot to turn of his flash off that was a different story.

I have a indicator to show my outdrive position, when docking I could no longer see it, which did make docking that bit more difficult.

Make sure that you know how to adjust your lights on the dash

Make sure you know how to change the back light on your MFD

the light from steaming light was very bright and lit up the water to the rear of the boat, we went with my canopy on but I am sure that it would have lit up my cockpit too.

Make clear and concise notes and tick them off as you go along.

The yellow markers are very badly lit and we almost hit one as none of us saw it until the very last moment.

Our cruising speed was 6-10 knots which for me was plenty fast enough.

Lighting getting to portsmouth was very confusing, we all knew where we were going however it would have been much harder had we not.

Can't believe the two channel markers in the mouth of the harbour are not marked, we knew they were there but still struggled to see them.

Wear Life jackets Al all times on a night passage!

Make sure you have plenty of warm clothing as it can get much colder on the sea at night.

Stick to main channels to hopefully avoid lobster pots.

Finally a big thanks to Terry and Andy for indulging and helping me gain more experience. We will without doubt do it again and I would recommend it for anyone. The total distance was just over 40knts and we done it in just over 4 hours.

 

[Nigelpickin]

Well done, quite the adventure and a great addition to what's been an adventurous season for you. Thanks for posting.

 

[henryf]

Being on the flybridge is much easier as you can see things clearly.

Manage the light levels in particular chart plotter which needs to be much darker than you first think.

Relax, using radar, chart plotter and your eyes chat through what you are expecting to see and identify the marks early. This will also help you avoid yellow racing marks.

As has been said memorise cardinal lights, they are a great asset as identifying them is quick & easy.

The solent is much quieter at night. You will see fishing boats and pilot boats, know their lights, in particular fishing boats. A good moon almost makes it feel like you're cheating !

Henry

 

[Piers]

We always do the following:

Check all nav lights are working
Check all instrument lighting can be dimmed
Torches in pockets
Book of lights to hand

Plot the route on the chartplotter from the marina entrance to exactly where we want to end up.
Use the radar extensively (we call it being on weapons) to watch other vessels and to spot pots.
Use the EBL on your radar - it's the best alternative to the mark one eyeball.
We run at 7.5kts

From experience:
Be aware of lights that can catch you out such as a vessel towing another. You don't want to go between the vessels! Relevant when in 'small waters' such as the Solent.
Be aware that lights can confuse:
E.g., A fishing boat is Red over White. But if looking at its port side, it may appear as red over white over red (restricted in its ability to manoeuvre); a bright light is not necessarily
closer than a dim light so their relative movements can be confusing.
Be aware that some leisure vessels have lights that are not aligned correctly fore-aft
Be aware that most pots are in laid in 10 to 15m contours and around underwater hills and wrecks and plot your route to stay away from them. On the other hand, the Solent's main seaways tend to be clear of pots.

Having said all that, we set out, slowly, watching radar, watching our track on the chartplotter, and seeing what lights we can see and identifying them. If we have to alter track, watch the chartplotter so you stay safe.

Be prepared, go confidently allbeit with butterflies in the stomach, and make it a fun exercise. Once you've done it a few times, it becomes a lovely way of cruising with few leisure boats around. Really satisfying.

 

[benjenbav]

Nice vid - only spoilt by the shot of the back of yours truly's head at 17seconds .