Night Passage Advice

[powerskipper]

You need to plan a bit

Have a good look at your chart for your intended route.
The last thing you want to be doing is trying to read a chart by torch lihght, it can take your eyes ages to see clearly again in the dark.
Spend time making a pliotage type plan of that but using the flashing sequences of the buoys and there color of light for identification, remember that going slower will make the tide affect you more, so do take note of the tide direction and speed, a course to steer would be great to do. Don't cut corners and avoid know areas of pots.
Take your time and Plan it and you will be fine

 

[jfm]

Julie, I'm intrigued. Not picking an argument here at all, just surprised. Do you really recommend/teach experienced boaters to pick out specific lights/buoys at night? TargaLout mentioned the same

I don't subscribe to that, and teach my kids not to. I think people should know all about buoys and stuff as back up, but on a normal night passage my approach is to avoid doing distracting tasks and keep eyes mostly on the road and the radar. For postion fixing, I would always use a decent chartplotter. This does exactly the same thing as your bouy/light spotting, namely tell you where you are, but it does it faster, more accuratley, with less chance of error, and burns up less of your concentration capacity in the process. So I'm intrigued to hear that anyone on a medium/big boat with big plotter screens would determine their position the "long way round" by picking out buoys. Happy to be convinced otherwise though!

 

[rr_123]

Julie, I'm intrigued. Not picking an argument here at all, just surprised. Do you really recommend/teach experienced boaters to pick out specific lights/buoys at night? TargaLout mentioned the same [cut]

The more involved you are with your location the safer you are.

Yes, yes, yes, to using the GPS, but you are bound to be better off with a "gut feel" for where you are.

Not wishing to start a "GPS is totally reliable" drift, but belt AND braces at night!

R

 

[MapisM]

belt AND braces at night!

Agreed, as long as belt is the primary chartplotter and braces is a backup gps.

On a side note, my 2 cents to the OP, since he seems to usually cruise at 25 kts.
Imho, the best suggestion re.night passages is forget them.
25 kts at night is a nonsense, and 10 kts (which would be fine for a night passage) is a nonsense as well, on a planing boat. That's the best recipe for sea sickness.
Of course, unless you have a dead flat sea and a crystal clear night with a full moon right in front of your heading.
It's a shame that this happens soooo rarely.

 

[Kawasaki]

Agreed, as long as belt is the primary chartplotter and braces is a backup gps.

On a side note, my 2 cents to the OP, since he seems to usually cruise at 25 kts.
Imho, the best suggestion re.night passages is forget them.
25 kts at night is a nonsense, and 10 kts (which would be fine for a night passage) is a nonsense as well, on a planing boat. That's the best recipe for sea sickness.
Of course, unless you have a dead flat sea and a crystal clear night with a full moon right in front of your heading.
It's a shame that this happens soooo rarely.

Hey up!
Let's rewind here.
PS knows the score.
Gave good advice.
OK
It is not good to dash about at night at 25 kts for obvious reasons.
It is not good to out at night without knowing the basic types of lights of other vessels.
It is not good to out at night without knowing the 'fingure print' or 'pattern' of the bouys and lighthouses etc one will come across on said voyage.
Radar is a great , almost neccesary piece of kit for a night voyage.
Else how do you know you aint gonna collide with another vessel?
Deffo at 25 kts!!!!!!
Plan the trip properly as per PS's post.

CTS for each leg.
Distance and time.
Plan the passage at a speed the vessel will be most comfortable at.
IE , say 14 kts if the vessel is comfy at that velocity.
Tidal set and drift is minimal at 25kts.
But please don,t attempt that speed at night on your first dark trip.

Believe Me, I had a few dark trips as a child of the 60's but that's another storey!!!

Oh yeh
Tidal set and drift WILL come into the equasion at speeds of 8 to 16 ish thats for sure.

So make sure you have a decent grasp of all of the above
Then you will find it challenging and fun to boot!

 

[Firefly625]

Agreed, as long as belt is the primary chartplotter and braces is a backup gps.

On a side note, my 2 cents to the OP, since he seems to usually cruise at 25 kts.
Imho, the best suggestion re.night passages is forget them.
25 kts at night is a nonsense, and 10 kts (which would be fine for a night passage) is a nonsense as well, on a planing boat. That's the best recipe for sea sickness.
Of course, unless you have a dead flat sea and a crystal clear night with a full moon right in front of your heading.
It's a shame that this happens soooo rarely.

To be quite honest I am just sitting here and thinking about the night passages I have done...all on Sail boats and just considering the difference of going a steady 6 to 7knts and 25knts... well there's the lobster pots of course... but been over a few of these at night (spotted last second, or hearing a bump and seeing one popping up at the stern and thankfully the rope cutter has either done its job, or the rope has missed the prop...) Otherwise typically we have done night crossings because the weather has been rubbish during the day and there been a need to get somewhere. Never had a bad crossing though ... in probably circa 20 +....... sometimes a bit of a swell, lots of time to spot bouys flashing... but that's at Captain slow speed...An accurate Chartplotter and regular manual plotting... but somehow on a sail boat everything just goes on the same whether you are in harbour or in a F8... you get very used to standing and really peculiar angles doing the most complex chart work and thinking nothing of it... With Mobo's I think its is very much more about planning...and a bit more speed!

Best time is when the moons up and visibility is not that bad... worse time is when the moon goes down and then it gets ever so dark... but then after a while the suns up and you are at or nearly at your destination... coffee and bacon rolls all round. Quite jealous really!

 

[jfm]

Yup, agree all that rr 123. I dont want to start a chart plotter reliability debate. Fact is, good kit (duplicated often) is very reliable, no doubt about that.

Yes I agree you need a gut feel and shouldn't follow the plotter without engaging brain and constantly applying common sense checks. But I would do that, and would expect any experienced boater would. There would be a very strong gut feel as to location, even without the plotter. So in those circs, I'm saying I don't "get" why people bother to count/identify buoys. It doesn't give you any better a location fix than your plotter and gut feel. Indeed, if your buoy count doesn't tally with chartplotter, the plotter is likely the correct one.

If, tonight, all the buoys were stolen by aliens and taken to Mars, would we replace them? I doubt it. Quite a few would get replaced, cardinals and isolated dangers, but the large majority would be happily left with the aliens I reckon

 

[Elessar]

For postion fixing, I would always use a decent chartplotter. This does exactly the same thing as your bouy/light spotting, namely tell you where you are, but it does it faster, more accuratley, with less chance of error, and burns up less of your concentration capacity in the process.

Interesting - thats what I do in the day - not at night though I put the cover on it. It kills night vision and lulls me into a false sense of security. At night speeds are slower too so the immediecy less vital.
However, this could become a lifejacket or anchor thread. Everyone is different and not many people total boats fortunatley!

 

[hlb]

I dont do much night stuff, cos either I've all ready got there, Or I'll run out of juice.

But I think theres a load of difference between where Julie and Kwackers sails and Say the Med or even Cornwall. Julies up and down the Solent, Kwackers the Mean E I straits.

Crossing the chanel or where ever. The radar and chart plotter will show the way. Radar will have picked up the ships, long before lights are visible, so you will have missed them by miles.

 

[Elessar]

I am casting off tonight at 2330, I have reservations about it.

well - after all that did you go?

 

[PilotWolf]

Radar good, plotter good BUT they require power - batteries fail and fuses blow and you need to be confident and competent in their use or you'll spend more time working them out than you will counting flashes and identifying bouys on a chart or passage plan.

Night vision requires 30 - 45 mins for your eyes to adjust. A recent cameraman on board nearly had his light shoved where it wouldn't shine in the early hours...

W.

 

[AndieMac]

Close coastal: The biggest issue IMO at night is judging distances off, even in familiar territory. Fully understanding and using an efficient radar in combination with your usual nav. equipment is very important.

Open sea/2 miles offshore: Commercial shipping! These guys still move around at normal cruising speed (17 to 25 knots) regardless, and come down on you very quickly. Its just another day at the office for them, and sometimes their radar watching/radio skills leave a bit to be desired.

 

[rr_123]

Night Passage Story

Close coastal: The biggest issue IMO at night is judging distances off, even in familiar territory. (cut)

On a night passage coming out of Gosport:

Skipper to Helm: "I'll take it, get the almanac, not sure but I think that occulting light is the Ryde hovercraft"

Me (just call me eagle eyes): "I don't think we need to worry about that, it's a dustcart!"

(c;

 

[oceanfroggie]

I love night nav. Dim everything down to nearly black on board except nav lights. Use radar, gps (dimmed to almost off) and use eyeballs to see navigation aid lights, and it's surprising how much you can see with ambient light. Keep good lookout. Never use a search light except for mooring as it blinds you. If you virtually black out the helm area you can see more that you might expect. Sensible speeds for where you are (ie 5-10 miles offshore nowhere near pot markers you can push on, in confined waters or near traffic or hazards appropriate slower speeds obviously. We carry plenty of battery powered hand held backup devices for nav, comms, etc. As suggested for 1st few night passages bring an experienced night navigator with you. It's better to limit it to nice weather as heavy sea in the dark is a very tiring pita, and anyway may gurantee your family crew give up boating. Done properly though it's one of our favourite boating experiences.

 

[Searush]

Not much to add to that lot, some excellent advice (and anyway, too late for daka now - whatever he did!)

BUT, no-one has mentioned night vision monoculars. These are pretty cheap now (I got mine from aldi for under 100 squids) and very effective. BUT (mind that goat) they also affect your night vision so use very sparingly & if you use with right eye, close it for a while after using it so that the image from your other eye isn't swamped by the dazzled one. They are very good if you think you have seen pot or unlit bouy or need to distinguish dustcarts from hovercraft.

OK Daka, time to tell us how it went now. Not much moonlight as it is a 4 day old new moon & I would guess a lot of cloud to blank out it & stars. So go on, post the tale.

 

[Tidnock]

Not much to add to that lot, some excellent advice (and anyway, too late for daka now - whatever he did!)

BUT, no-one has mentioned night vision monoculars. These are pretty cheap now (I got mine from aldi for under 100 squids) and very effective. BUT (mind that goat) they also affect your night vision so use very sparingly & if you use with right eye, close it for a while after using it so that the image from your other eye isn't swamped by the dazzled one. They are very good if you think you have seen pot or unlit bouy or need to distinguish dustcarts from hovercraft.

OK Daka, time to tell us how it went now. Not much moonlight as it is a 4 day old new moon & I would guess a lot of cloud to blank out it & stars. So go on, post the tale.

said in jest, I hope he answers soon have you seen what happened to his first Mobo

 

[powerskipper]

Jfm

I am navigating at night mostly with in the Solent. When I do night exs , the chart plotter and radar are covered up but on dimly, they are there only as an emergence back up.
The idea is to get students to look and keep looking outside of the boat, check on there plan where they are as they go, by doing the pilotage plan they begin to get a chart in their head and a feel for the waters they are navigating in. So hopefully they know roughly where they are at all time and will continue this in their everyday navigating.

 

[AndieMac]

I know it seems incredible, but there are still folks that insist on boating at night with no navigation lights on our local estuary, and not always totally sober either. Mostly in dinghies or small craft. Yes they are in the wrong, but if an incident/fatality occurred, it doesn't bear thinking about.

For me the radar is mega important, and tuned so sensitively that it will pick up swans taking flight.

Not that I'm training students though, thats a different ball game.

 

[splosh]

Julie, I agree with you. Chartplotter and Radar on. Passage plan and identifying marks written down. log zero'd. Lifejackets on. Crew briefed. Vessel checked and nav Lights on. VHF on correct channel. Shore contact alerted. There's no way I would just rely on electronic nav aids solely at night. No one would drive their car just by looking at the SAt Nav?
I use me eyes and ears, but then your boss taught me and i wouldn't argue with their theories.
I can remember on a night exercise with someones superiors when I was using just the chartplotter trying to go into the Beaulieu River that they decide to pull the fuse on it.
It was a good job that we were taught to make a written plan prior that we could use and fall back on!!!. and not rely on your electronic nav aids.

 

[MapisM]

There's no way I would just rely on electronic nav aids solely at night.

Fairenuff, but night is NOT by far the most critical condition.
Zero visibility is it, regardless of whether at day or night.
And mind, you can decide whether to go for a night passage or not, but you can find zero visibility conditions against all odds.
And when that happens, which alternative do you have?
I'd rather teach people to helm in a glorious sunny day with a blanket on the windshield and using only instruments, than the other way round.