sailing at night...need help with school project!!

B

bestbob1981

New Member
Joined
15 Feb 2008
Messages
1
Visit site
I'm currently a high school student, and I need your help for a class project. Any help would be TREMENDOUSLY appreciated!

I'm trying to find out how often people use their boats/yachts in the dark. If so, how do you manage navigating/docking in the dark? Do you rely on high-tech devices (e.g. radar, thermal imaging, gps...)? If not, what's keeping you from going out at night?

If there was a device for boats (night vision, thermal imaging) that is available at a very low price, would you consider using it for night time sailing/boating? Can you think of instances during boating where the ability to see in the dark would be very helpful?

Any other suggestions/comments would be very helpful. Thank you so much everyone!
 
Frankly all you need is a Compass and a Chart. But there are many devices that all assist. This is kind of a big question. But here's a start.

Navigating the dark is no different to navigating in daylight; you do your passage planning, work out the best time to start depending upon the tides, work out a course to steer and off you go. I'll ignore things like weather. In daylight you are aided by navigation marks - buoys, lighthouses etc. At night, these are lit. Navigation Buoys follow a system for identification for both day and night. There are lateral marks - buoys that are either red or green; red are can shaped, green are conical - these mark either side of a channel - as you are heading into a port or channel, red are on the left, green on the right. There are also 'safe water marks' which are red and white. Next there are cardinal marks, with a buoy of yellow and black stripes and top marks to denote which side of the mark/buoy it is safe to pass. Two upward pointed cones = pass to the north, two downward cones = pass to the south, wine glass shaped cones One down one up = pass to the West and one up one down = pass to the east. At night many buoy or marks are lit and there is a system; red lights on red buoy, green on green buoys and white on cardinal marks. The lights on cardinal marks shine in a sequence to denote whether they are north, south etc. For example a north cardinal mark will shine a sequence of 3. I say shine because lights at sea fall into three categories - flashing - more dark than light, occulting - more light than dark, and isophase equal light and dark. Lights on marks flash, occult or isophase differently so you can identify what light you are looking at. So you might get the first in a sequence of green (starboard hand Buoys) flashing twice every five seconds and the next one flashing 3 times every 15 seconds. Can be a nuisance when they go wrong!

This is very much a precis of the main lights. So you would set your course, use your compass to steer and set off using the lights on navigational marks to check your progress. Most people these days use GPS to assist having plotted waypoints (positions on their passage) in the GPS to guide their progress. You don't need radar although some have these and of course these assist. Some people have night glasses tho' I think they are a bit of a gadget. On some nights at sea you would be surprised how light it is especially mid summer. On the other hand when the weather is c**p........ Heavy seas, of course, can be a real pest. Your horizon from the cockpit of a yacht is not far and so you can have fun on a bad night trying to spot the buoys when you are top of the waves hoping that the buoy also is! Then there's trying to spot navigating marks when you approaching the shore against the background of the shore lights. Imagine approaching Brighton Marina in the dark but with all the seafront light up. Spot the navigational marks them. Other hazards. Well ships. Do a Google on the yacht Ouzo for an idea of the hazards. Then if doing an inshore passage, there are the lobster pots. Inshore fisherman run a competition to put out the smallest and most difficult to spot marker or float on a lobster pot (I'm being ironic). Run over these in the dark and get it round you rudder or propeller and someones got a problem. So it pays to aviod renown lobster potting areas on a night passage. Mind you I was on a yacht crossing the Channel one summer's night and the helmsman managed to moor us to some sort of plastic buoy, smack in the middle of the channel (ran it over - thing was big enough to have been spotted from the Titanic).

What's keeping me from going out at night? Enormous wisdom gained from many years experience that tells me my bed is more comfortable! No to be serious, a night sail can be great fun. Ability to see in the dark would always be useful I suppose but just consider that if you are sailing across the Channel, there isn't anything to see except for ships you want to avoid and you are going to be spotting their lights. (Many people now use AIS - do a Google - an AIS engine linked to your chart plotter will pick up the sqwark from ships and plot their course, speed and name on your chart plotter or a bespoke instrument - not dear either) That way you can see if they are likely to cross your path pretty much as you can plot them on a radar. Great in poor visibility. But apart from ships, there's nothing much else to see at sea so how much ability to see in the dark assists is questionable. When you are closing on the land, well around here much of it is lit up so seeing it better isn't so hot. After all you'll see the lights before you could make out much on the land with assisted vision.

I'm sure many will add to this.
 
Night boating is an emotive issue to many. You either take to it, or you don't.

I'm quite happy going out at night, and find it enyoyable on the whole. I'm not sure there are any gizmo's or new inventions that will make it easier, that are not all ready available.

What ideas do you have?
 
Our club have about 5 "night races" each summer on the Swan River /estuary. In fact we had one last night.
Up until last year we did not not have daylight savings/ summer time and only last year we started puting the clocks forward 1 hr for summer. That meant that most of the 2.5 hr race was in thedark. Now it is only the last half hour.

Even so I do not use GPS radar or NV goggles or even compass. The lights on channel markers (we call them "spit posts" are really useful but you night vision gets quite good and there is always light from the city and suburbs reflecting off the clouds or starlight/ moonlight.

So usually we can complete a race without even lighting a flashlight. Just the nav lights. It is really very pleasant, my favourite far better than sialing inn hot sun.

Why do I not sail more at night. Simply cos mostly at the end of the day I am knackered. olewill
 
I would rely on the Mk I eyeball as the primary means of navigation in inshore waters. Many navigation buoys are lit. You can see quite well in the dark if you allow your eyes to acclimatise and avoid using any bright lights that would affect your night vision.

GPS would be used just as a back up to cross-check my understanding of where I am. In fact the challenging part is to avoid getting confused and disorientated by too many lights and too much information, which is where planning of the pilotage in unfamiliar waters is important but you also improve a lot with experience.

Radar is of some use where it is available as it is more difficult to judge distances accurately in the dark.

Most marinas are so well lit that berthing in them at night is a doddle. Sailing up a narrow channel with many unlit moored boats is one area where it is useful to keep a powerful torchlight handy (which unfortunately does ruin your night vision).

I have looked at image enhancers ocasionally in chandlers, but have not come close to buying one.

I would say that I've noticed that the ability to see in the dark or not varies quite considerably amongst crew, so maybe there are some who would by interested.
 
A pilotage plan is a great thing to have at night. Relying on technology is great until it goes wrong. Then as JCP says it back to the Mk 1 eyeball. I have a lamitated scan of the chart from the harbour entrance back to my mooring marked up with the lights & their details. I can easily follow this. It's far easier than the chart itself.

Seeing in the dark would be useful where I live. There's a narrow channel up to my mooring & if the tide's lowish, the mud on either side is visible. But, the depth sounder is good for following the channel & as long as I have somethjing like my passage plan showing the lights it's OK - until one of them is un-serviceable that is. It is definitely useful in a man-overboard situation & that's why lifeboats often carry night vision scopes.
 
"Do you rely on high-tech devices (e.g. radar, thermal imaging, gps...)?
Yes, absolutely - GPS and radar make a big difference to night navigation. But it depends where in the world you are. In UK waters you can trust charts and buoys. In many part of the world you can't and this makes night navigation much more risky, as several wrecks I have seen testify.

Also at night you can't see things like unlit buoys, pot buoys etc. so though offshore navigation is generally straightforward, closing a shore is much riskier. I prefer not to enter unknown ports at night, and like many people will time passages to arrive at daylight. So I might leave where I am (and know) at night, but make sure I arrive in a new port in daylight.

"If there was a device for boats (night vision, thermal imaging) that is available at a very low price, would you consider using it for night time sailing/boating? " Yes, but the value of such a device - and of course they already exist - is more limited than might first appear. Are you really going to have night vision goggles glued to your eyes all night long scanning for unlit buoy? They would be handy for going into a poorly lit harbour, or where one was particularly concerned though.

A final factor is crew tiredness. If you are tired you make poorer decisions. If you have lots of crew and can run night watches while ensuring everyone is getting a decent rest, then that's very different from if you are short handed. Again in the open sea it is less of an issue, but in coastal or heavily trafficked waters it's another factor for the skipper to consider.
 
The good thing about about sailing at night is the fact that there are fewer other boats around, and those that are, are normally more professional about how they carry out the business of getting from A to B.
Starlight or moonlight is very good light, when you get used to it, and the approach to any harbour/anchorage is normally lit to aid you as above threads have detailed.
It is magical and should be experienced by all sailors who call themselves seamen.
 
[ QUOTE ]
how often people use their boats/yachts in the dark. If so, how do you manage navigating/docking in the dark? If not, what's keeping you from going out at night?

Can you think of instances during boating where the ability to see in the dark would be very helpful?


[/ QUOTE ]

On average I sail at night perhaps once a year, that's probably 2 or 3 whole nights, mainly because the distances between ports makes 24-hour passages mandatory. On the Gippsland Lakes I used to sail at night occasionally as soon as I got to the boat, then go for a half-hour trip just to overnight somewhere different from the harbour. But since my nav(igation) lights don't work, I don't do that now - until I fix them.

Navigating inthe dark is easy with the GPS - it has an accuracy of almost half a boat-length, about 5 metres. When approaching a jetty, and pulling down the sails, it is rare that I couldn't see the jetty. Then I use the portable spotlight to confirm it's location, or the nearest land if I'm anchoring, and then I would turn on the lights at the mast spreaders to light up the whole deck, until I tied up/anchored.

Travelling at night, the GPS and the fishfinder(depth sounder) are usually on and both of these have small lights in their screens to light up the cockpit, and the compass has a small light as well. With the acccuracy of GPS and very careful checking of the coordinates, we have navigated into small coves and anchored at a certain depth & location on an ocean beach. Practice makes perfect, but caution is used extensively in this, to make sure we don't make mistakes.

I can't afford radar/AIS, but these things above have worked really well and a "night sense" is developed - just like when outdoors you vision will increase in looking at the stars the more minutes you keep your eyes away from bright lights.
 
Aloha!

I sail professionally on a sail training boat, so out every week from March until November, and i love night sailing! We'll usually try to ensure that the young folk get at least one night in the week, and we have charts, a log and a compass. We have a GPS reciever but no plotter, and endeavour to use this as little as possible.

In many cases difficult pilotage into somewhere unknown is easier in the dark as buoys and leading lights are excellent, and as for coming into harbour i wouldn't think that more advanced technology would help me massively, though i am a self confessed technophobe as i have seen so many electrical gadgets get damaged at sea.

All the best with your research!

James
 
I have GPS and Radar but quite often at night they are too bright, so I switch them off and as long as you have prepared your trip properly in the first place, your eyes without night vision aids adapt to the light(or lack of it) naturally, and that's how it was for me 35 yrs ago without these aids.
 
I am very much a night time person, I don't know why.. I am a bit of an insomniac while come 2230 my girlfriend turns into the walking dead, she is not alone.

Some people just turn off at night, it is not their fault, nor something they can learn to change, just animal instinct I suppose. I have always worked shifts, I relished nights and dreaded days, many people came on shifts for the money and did not last long.

Does this make a difference to boats, I think so, most yachts are sailed by couples who work during the week. To alter their sleep patterns and go back to work Monday morning is just not feasible, especially as many are middle aged and above. The other concern is pleasure, if you do not enjoy staying up all night then you will soon realise that taking the boat out should not be a chore.

Saying that, many sailing boats have to leave during the night, as said by another, we have to leave on the tide, if that is 0300 then we have have to go, so night sailing from our home port is very much the normal, even if it is only dark for a few hours.

There is also the sailing couple dynamic. The majority of boats are the passion of the male and endured by the wife, sorry, but this is true. Many wives enjoy sailing on sunny days with little wind, night is just not an option for many. This is not all, but a search back through threads on this forum will show you that this is the common problem faced by some male skippers who quite often sail the boat alone with the wife meeting them at the destination by car.

Another problem, and I can only speak for the uk here is the hazard of flotsam, jetsam and fishing gear. Entry to any small harbour around the uk is now a nightmare due to lobster pots. This is a cage that sits on the bottom with a line to the surface, often marked with nothing more than a pop bottle. If a yacht sails over one of these it is quite easy to get snagged to the bottom when the line is caught on the bottom of the boat. At night these can be near impossible to see and RADAR or any other equipment is not going to help either.

The entrances (up to 2 miles out) to many ports are now in such a state, I would say that a night entrance is becoming a serious risk, even my old home port which I supposedly knew, meant a creep home with crew on deck looking out for pot markers. In rougher weather this becomes really quite stressful.

Things floating in the water, trees can float just under the surface, or worse, shipping containers float about awash, at night it would be all too easy to find one and the damage to a yacht can and has been catastrophic. Risks such as these do play on peoples minds and add to the dread of sailing out at night, unless many have to, they will avoid if at all possible.

Open sea is fine, as long as you keep a tidy boat and have prepared. Boats will need red and white lights in cabins, at night red is used as it does not do as much harm to night vision. Think about walking around the house at night, leave a room and turn off the light, it can take many minutes before you can see the hall in the dark, with red lights this recovery is seconds. It requires a fastidiously tidy boat too, you should know where everything is, searching for a small item with a torch is just not on, the boat although relaxed, needs to be run almost like a military unit.

Most else has already been said, I just thought I would add to the human side of the question. NVG is interesting, but it is not quite there yet for us amateurs, the cheap units are not good enough and for some bizarre reason, the makers all add magnification to them, so the field of view becomes tiny, you could not walk about looking through a telescope for example.

hope this helps a bit.
 
<<<radar, thermal imaging, GPS>>>

Night sailing can be a lot better than sailing during the day in the tropics; cooler. no flies, mostly flatter seas, fewer people on deck at any one time, less traffic, and the list goes on.

Navigation in open water is by lights and sightings or GPS and in some cases radar, thermal imaging is not something I have ever used, thou' one crew member came on with with some night long eyes, handy when looking for a spot to drop an anchor.

Some people have a problem sailing when they can't see the water ahead of the boat. I ask them to tell me how often they have changed course to avoid a floating object and they relax a bit more.

Others panic when they see phosphorus glowing in the wake or St Elmo's fire on the sails, all very natural.

Hope this helps.

Avagoodweekend......
 
Hi Bob

I am waiting for a handheld AIS to come on the market. It will help with both day and night time ship id's - (and yachts too)

ps if anyone knows of a manufacturer please let me know.
 
The only thing that stops us night boating more than we do, is the threat of tangling with a lobster pot. Yes, I use GPS and radar. Sometimes, when it is v calm our radar can see pot markers, but this is the exception, not the rule.

To overcome this, we have been wondering if a thermal imaging system (FLIR, for example) would overcome our concerns. If it did, then night boating for us would not be a problem. In fact, one of the most exciting night crossings we had was having left Holland early one morning, we eventually crossed the Dover Straits arriving at Dover marina at 0015! The coastguard was very helpful during the crossing. The weird part was seeing a huge trawler trawling along the 'central carriageway' of the shipping lanes.

It certainly appears that in the States, use of these FLIR systems for pot avoidance is increasing.
 
I love night sailing - the only time I am would not do it by choice is if entering an unfamiliar harbour. My electronic aids consist of a handheld gps, and I am always careful to ensure I know my chart position.

My main worry is hitting floating objects, but because I am usually singlehanded that is also an issue with daylight sailing anyway. I have a longkeel boat with the prop in an aperture so I don't worry too much about pot lines getting caught, but the thump of a pot buoy in the night makes me jump!

Summer nights, meteorites, dolphins, phosphorescence, the swish of the bow wave, nice music - absolute magic /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I don't feel any need for any other navigation aids at the moment.
 
I love being out at night. Generally much less traffic. Around the coast there are plenty of well lit buoys to navigate by.

I rely on eyeball chart and passage planning. I only use GPS as a backup, usually is I'm expecting to see a buoy and can't see it or if the mist comes down.
 
I have had a lot of night watches during my time, either yacht or larger vessel. Night vision is a very valuable item, and your eyes will adapt to the dark such that on moonlit nights you dont need anything more than some 7x50 binoculars with decent lenses. Radar GPS and such electronic devices provide a much better knowledge of position than in the past, such that the largest peril now is the lobster pot buoy or floating debris. These are difficult to spot sometimes in the daytime, let alone at night. A nightvision device does provide an improved ability to see such items, but there is a downside. The standard handheld or clip device is a light intensifier which gathers existing light and magnifies it. This can be made more effective by using an infra red torch in parrallel with the beam. generation 1 versions of this are available for as little as £100 (Lidl). Generation 2 are available from russia but are more expensive and tend to be versions that are designed to clip on rifles - so are larger and heavier, they are also more expensive. Generation 3 are much more expensive. Newer devices are limited to the military. However, they all suffer from the same problem Their design demands that they magnify the light available, and this ruins your normal night vision, so once you have started to use one, you need to continue. Power consumption becomes a problem (especially if you are also useing a light source with it) and the weight on your head especially in bad weather will quickly give you neck problems.

Another technology that is available is thermal imaging. This provides a better image, but demands considerable power for the technology and also a turret of some type. It is too heavy for personal use, and will normally be found on a helicopter chin turret of mounted on a ship.

Personally I would only consider the purchase of a light intensifier if I had a known pot problem that I could not avoid.
 
The fundamental thing about night sailing, is that you have NO DISTANCE perspective.

Just think of a black canvass with shapes & dots of lights on it.
You cannot tell if a bright light is close or far away, simply by looking at it.

So, just using a MK 1 eyeball, without something to reference the distance, will always be a problem.

I sail regularly at night & use all (if any) toys available. Main problem with any hi-tec stuff, is the negative affect on your night vision - even when any screens are turned down.

Just seeing another vessel, without continuously monitoring its course/speed/etc, is difficult whether day or night, but can be done easily using RADAR/APAR (this allows you to click onto a target & the machine works out the rest). But as previously mentioned, total reliance on one system is fraught with danger.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top