Tiredness

Daydream believer said:
I have 2 timers & can get 15 mins kip sometimes but try sailing from somewhere like Grimsby to Lowestoft with not a few but hundreds of lobster pots.
Or channel islands to newlyn with all those d..d ships about. Same goes for the roundabout by the Elatma buoy

Another thing about a Hanse cockpit is that there is no where to lay down. The cabin is low & i cannot rest my head on that either. So sleeping involves nodding off then falling over & immediately waking up. Oh for a nice deep cockpit!! With somewhere to rest without fear of falling overboard
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The price of "aft cabins"
 
awol said:
Kitchen timer with a "ping". The idea is that the horizon is about 10nm away; a 20kt ship will take 20 minutes to move nearly 7 of those miles; you may have moved 2 of them; so if you set the pinger for 20 minutes and doze, the ship will still be 1nm away when you wake. Quite a bit of safety margin 'cos ships are visible well over the horizon.
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All well and good, except that on a small boat your horizon is not going to be more than 3 miles away. I don't count on seeing any ship before it's got to within 8 miles and even then it's just the top of the superstructure. You're ideas are sound but the distances and therefore the timings are quite far out.

Best advice I can give the OP is to get a Radar and set it up with an alarm and a two mile radius. As for lobsterpots, I don't give them much thought, you can't see them at night so you're not taking too many extra chances by not being especially alert for them during the day.
 
bitbaltic said:
Got no chance against a well found 301 though has it :p

I can't understand the self tacked myself. Why not just set the headsail on the cars so you can heave to. (as an aside my sailmaker told me the other week that the jib on my 301 won't set right on the cars as it is designed for self tacking. Is this so? I've never noticed...) But if so and you have another headsail use that. Overall, if singlehanding, why not set the boat up so it will hove to before leaving?

Of course it's another thing if you think the boat won't hove to well whatever sails you fly- that's also my opinion of mine, but I have never tested it.

Cheers
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You are right about the 301 being good. Best boat for its size ever made!!
However Inspiration Marine had a 311 along side when I viewed & the wife said it was a done deal. I just wish they had a 341 there as well because knowing what i know now i would have had a 34 . Would not buy the latest offerings though
My sails set really well on the st track & i point higher with it on the track. I have haulers of course. but the short fin & unbalanced sail plan just will not heave too
 
might it be better to plan your route so most are day sailing with a max of say 12 hours between ports so you can at least get a decent kip a few times a week?
 
Daydream believer said:
You are right about the 301 being good. Best boat for its size ever made!!
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I am going to start qouting you on that! ;)

However Inspiration Marine had a 311 along side when I viewed & the wife said it was a done deal. I just wish they had a 341 there as well because knowing what i know now i would have had a 34 . Would not buy the latest offerings though
My sails set really well on the st track & i point higher with it on the track. I have haulers of course. but the short fin & unbalanced sail plan just will not heave too
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yes I suspect exactly the same about heaving to- the boats are not designed with it in mind. The 301 similarly carries too much mainsail and has a short (in my case shoal draft wing) keel. I have never fancied my chances of successfully heaving-to.

I can also agree that you can point higher on the self tacker- just on the set of the sail- have not tried the ST enough myself.

Cheers :)
 
robp said:
:) Then sweets, chocolate, caffeine, bananas and matchsticks! Good luck.
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+1 but I play music and sing along too, I dont let myself get cold, it saps the energy, and I dont get hot either, lulls me to sleep,
 
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AIS with a guard zone and alarm will help you sleep. It won't pick up all, but helps with the bigger ships that tend to be the quicker of the traffic. You should go for 10 to 15 minute naps only if alone, but it only takes a few of these to be able to cope with a couple of days.
 
Would running a line from the cockpit to one end of the ST track or even reeving a single lazy sheet through the deck track and sheeting the jib to windward help .
We have tried a similar ploy using two sets of sheet ie both self tacker and deck led whilst sailing down wind especially with wind nearly aft to stop the ST flopping from side to side.
 
Chocolate puts a person to sleep. The whole theory of supper with a hot milky chocolate drink is why children are fed such things.

Be careful of eating anything if you must stay awake. IMO of course. No science, just experience of nodding off after a good meal.

In the military I was advised to take one shoe off to give the brain something to puzzle over to keep it awake. "why do I have one shoe off and one shoe on?" asks the brain to no-one in particular.
 
BlueTwo said:
In the military I was advised to take one shoe off to give the brain something to puzzle over to keep it awake. "why do I have one shoe off and one shoe on?" asks the brain to no-one in particular.
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Surely you then reply to yourself "It's a strategy to try and maintain concentration" and, the question successfully answered, drift off to sleep.
 
chrishelen said:
might it be better to plan your route so most are day sailing with a max of say 12 hours between ports so you can at least get a decent kip a few times a week?
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If only they'd put a few islands in the North Sea and Western Approaches!

In addition to some of the suggestions above, try singing (or shouting) at the top of your voice, and running/dancing/jigglingg on the spot in the cockpit.

Ultimately, you reach the stage wheere none of it works and you have to sleep. I used to set a kitchen 'pinger' for 5 minutes (perhaps a litle over cautious?) repeatedly to keep going (quite gruelling, mind). Worked for me for passages up to 36 hours single handed, but I've always been a 'night owl' and was rather younger then.

With the benefit of hindsight, I always under-estimated how long it would take to recover from such long passages even after a long sleep - in fact it's days. During this period I would feel down, and be irritable and listless. Spoiled my enjoyment of some of the places I visited, and a couple of times got fed up and headed home again a few days later, much earlier than planned. Had I realised, I would have accounted for the effect and allowed myself to take it easy, go with the flow, and stay put for a few days on arrival instead of expecting to push on within 24 hours of arrival.
 
I don't try to maintain concentration!
At night I stick my head up, do two 360 scans, check instruments and time, takes all of two minutes, then back down to my armchair, wrap quilt round me and rest my eyes for another ten to fifteen minutes.
During the day, if it is warm and sunny I find somewhere in the cockpit to relax, do outstanding jobs, or cook. If it's wet out I go into the night routine.

 
Coffee. Not the instant ****. Perced in my camping perculator. I like it black.
Cold fresh air and more coffee. as time goes by it becomes harder to keep concentration. Take the wheel and steer. 24 hrs used to be easy now as I get older less keen on the idea. especialy when I am cold and tiered.
 
Real coffee made in a stainless steel cafetiere, but I often ship a couple of cans of 'relentless' or similar. Tastes foul but can be drunk immediately if a real need arises. Generally of more use on the drive to/from the boat.

While sailing I prefer most of the previously mentioned short nap strategies.

I have been known to throw the hook over the side if hove to near the coast.

I have even been known to anchor properly for an hour or so... It's amazing how shallow much of the sea is around here.
 
Daydream believer said:
I have haulers of course. but the short fin & unbalanced sail plan just will not heave too
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Have you tried reefing the main before heaving to? You will still make a fair bit of way with the underwater bits you describe but you should definitely be able to heave to if you balance the sail plan.

As for surviving more than 24 hours without sleep, it depends on your personal make up. I vcan manage 36 hours but thats it. There are no strategies apart from dosing yourself with drugs, varying from caffeine at the mild end to the sort of thing they sell to kids in the pubs. Not a good idea in my view.
 
Apples are reviving, and I find it hard to sleep if I need a pee, so a full bladder can be useful too. Refined sugar gives you a low after the high, so unless you want a lift only for the last half hour before sleeping, I'd avoid it.

The best instant revival for me is a short 'vipassna' meditation. Sitting unsupported in the cockpit (so you wake up if you nod off entirely), focus on the bodily sensations (temperature, feeling of clothes, wait of body on bottom, etc) from head to toe and back again, taking a bout a minute, for the 'journey'. In this way, I managed to sleep for only 5 in 48 hours, and felt OK. BUT judgement is suspect, and a tired body is more prone to injury.
 
awol said:
Kitchen timer with a "ping". The idea is that the horizon is about 10nm away; a 20kt ship will take 20 minutes to move nearly 7 of those miles; you may have moved 2 of them; so if you set the pinger for 20 minutes and doze, the ship will still be 1nm away when you wake. Quite a bit of safety margin 'cos ships are visible well over the horizon.

As for energy, sugary sweets and chocolate work; No-doze caffeine pills or chocolate covered coffee beans keep me awake; tea and coffee are essential as are cup-a-soups when it's cold.
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Cat naps work. Used to do the above but set a 'pinger' in my head. Bit of a problem switching it off when wishing to sleep on reaching harbour! (vodka works) ;)
 
LittleSister said:
If only they'd put a few islands in the North Sea and Western Approaches!.
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Nothing on earth would persuade me to have a kip while within reach of these shores, which is why I support the "re-routing" advice given before.

We have done Lowestoft-Ijmuiden as a day-trip quite easily, in our incredibly slow HR (though why Hanses seem to always end up astern is something of a mystery). Also, Salcombe - Channel Isles or even parts of Brittany is also a day-sail. If I were in Falmouth and wanting to cross single-handed I would choose to shorten the route.
 
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