jesterchallenger
New member
I've just returned from my annual two week cruise, which this year I used as a warm up for next year's Azores Challenge. I thought a few comments might be helpful to other Challengers, but please excuse me if this is all rather obvious! I planned to sail nonstop from Harwich to Plymouth, but found getting into a sleep pattern impossible until well past Dover. By this time I was so tired that I found it difficult to catch up on sleep and eventually stopped in Brighton for a few hours shuteye. Perhaps if I had perservered things might have improved. From Brighton I kept to a pattern of 10/15/20 mins asleep with 5 mins awake, and despite interruptions from shipping, fishing boats, yachts, crab pots, sail changes etc arrived in Dartmouth (prettier than Plymouth!) feeling fresh and rested. It seems important to start the routine immediately, not wait until tired out.
I have an AIS radar and found it excellent, giving a clear alarm of any ship in plenty of time. More importantly it tells you the ship's position, cog, sog and usually the name and MMSI no. It doesn't work for fishing boats or yachts, but I found it invaluable for shipping, especially in thick fog (all the way back!).
Before I left I bought a Nitetraker 2 million candlepower searchlight, which proved its worth one dark night in a NE7 from a collision with a ferry doing 19 knots - I didn't mess about with flashing it on the sails, straight between his eyes on the bridge! It worked and he swerved to avoid me, passing 1/4 mile behind. And no, I wasn't asleep, he was just making a very slow course change and obviously hadn't seen me.
I have two small solar panels which work very well even on slightly dull days but struggle to keep up with things if it's really overcast. My towed Aquair generator is fantastic - minimal drag and good power output giving 6.5 amps at hull speed. After a while you forget it's even there, whilst being completely cavalier with power useage - I might even put the fridge back aboard!
I found the radar of limited benefit apart from identifying fishing boats - motoryachts seem to be invisible (a large 40 footer passed me 20 yards away in thick fog doing about 30 knots, brave man, and never showed up on the screen) and yachts seemed to be invisible at any range over 2 miles. However it may prove its worth highlighting icebergs in the JC10. Yachtie radar reflectors would seem to be of negligible benefit other than to install a false sense of confidence, although a container ship at 16 knots did alter course around me in 50 yard vis, so I assume he must have picked me up.
Hope that's of interest.
I have an AIS radar and found it excellent, giving a clear alarm of any ship in plenty of time. More importantly it tells you the ship's position, cog, sog and usually the name and MMSI no. It doesn't work for fishing boats or yachts, but I found it invaluable for shipping, especially in thick fog (all the way back!).
Before I left I bought a Nitetraker 2 million candlepower searchlight, which proved its worth one dark night in a NE7 from a collision with a ferry doing 19 knots - I didn't mess about with flashing it on the sails, straight between his eyes on the bridge! It worked and he swerved to avoid me, passing 1/4 mile behind. And no, I wasn't asleep, he was just making a very slow course change and obviously hadn't seen me.
I have two small solar panels which work very well even on slightly dull days but struggle to keep up with things if it's really overcast. My towed Aquair generator is fantastic - minimal drag and good power output giving 6.5 amps at hull speed. After a while you forget it's even there, whilst being completely cavalier with power useage - I might even put the fridge back aboard!
I found the radar of limited benefit apart from identifying fishing boats - motoryachts seem to be invisible (a large 40 footer passed me 20 yards away in thick fog doing about 30 knots, brave man, and never showed up on the screen) and yachts seemed to be invisible at any range over 2 miles. However it may prove its worth highlighting icebergs in the JC10. Yachtie radar reflectors would seem to be of negligible benefit other than to install a false sense of confidence, although a container ship at 16 knots did alter course around me in 50 yard vis, so I assume he must have picked me up.
Hope that's of interest.