Watch Keeping

Tilman’s system:

Crew of five.

Four watch keepers and a cook.

Each watch is two hours, on your own. The cook takes a single two hour watch each afternoon, to move the watches round. In bad conditions, the watches are doubled, with two in the cockpit.
 
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14K478 said:
Tillman’s system:

Crew of five.

Four watch keepers and a cook.

Each watch is two hours, on your own. The cook takes a single two hour watch each afternoon, to move the watches round. In bad conditions, the watches are doubled, with two in the cockpit.
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In bad conditions? From what I remember of reading Tillman that was a large part of the time.
 
john_morris_uk said:
In bad conditions? From what I remember of reading Tillman that was a large part of the time.
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HWT would heave-to if things got bumpy and if there was sea room, which there usually was, so the atmosphere on board was quite relaxed. But he absolutely insisted on the watch keeper being in the cockpit. He never ever broke watches, even with six lines ashore in good shelter.
 
14K478 said:
HWT would heave-to if things got bumpy and if there was sea room, which there usually was, so the atmosphere on board was quite relaxed. But he absolutely insisted on the watch keeper being in the cockpit. He never ever broke watches, even with six lines ashore in good shelter.
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I also recall that not many of his crew went back for a second trip.
 
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FWIW, We sail 2-up almost always, as a couple. We do 3 on, 3 off (so don't see a lot of the other!) over night but less formal in the day. Usually it's (in ship's time ~= local time which we adjust while sailing W or E):

8pm - 11pm
11pm - 2am
2am - 5 am
5 am - 8am, but if I'm the one on watch I frequently give my wife an extra hour in bed
8 (or 9) am - 10am: both up. Breakfast and tour of deck, discuss plans for the day and boat maintenance
10am - 1pm, whoever went off at 5am is on duty. The other can go to sleep or read or do maintenance.
1pm - 2pm, both up. Lunch and social time
2pm - 5pm, whoever wasn't on watch from 10am is on duty. The other can go to sleep or read or do maintenance.
5pm - 8pm, both up. Dinner, cockpit drinks, cooking, washing up, enjoying the passage etc.

We've done this in the arctic and the tropics. 1 day or 21 day passage. Rough or calm, up-wind or down. Sail changes / reefing we can usually do on our own, but sometimes have to wake the other.

The off watch between 8pm and 8am has to brush his/her teeth, get undressed and go to bed! Ship's rule.
 
Two hours on and off during the night and 3 hours on and off during the day.
Both of us up during the evening meal prep and eating.

We have no issues with the person on watch coming down to boil a kettle or go to the loo or whatever- they will have looked around and have a sense of what is going on.
 
The other thing we do is if the solo watchkeeper has to leave the cockpit at night, they'll wake up whoever is below to let them know what they are doing.

Also we use all the harness leashes. 2 at the forward end of the cockpit, 2 at the aft. The trebles on the jackstays and on the old boat, one right aft so one could reach the vane gear. This means one is never unclipped.
 
As you will have seen by others comments, different arrangements and different length of watches suit different people. Some can only stand 2 hours, others 3 and others 4 hours. Of course it does depend on weather and conditions and whether you have to hand steer. Personally I prefer 4hour watches because you can get a decent stretch of sleep in, but I have sailed with others who preferred 3hrs so that's what we used. I reckon you need to experiment and find what suits you best and also be adaptable to the conditions.
 
dansaskip said:
As you will have seen by others comments, different arrangements and different length of watches suit different people. Some can only stand 2 hours, others 3 and others 4 hours. Of course it does depend on weather and conditions and whether you have to hand steer. Personally I prefer 4hour watches because you can get a decent stretch of sleep in, but I have sailed with others who preferred 3hrs so that's what we used. I reckon you need to experiment and find what suits you best and also be adaptable to the conditions.
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A very sensible answer IMHO
 
dansaskip said:
As you will have seen by others comments, different arrangements and different length of watches suit different people. Some can only stand 2 hours, others 3 and others 4 hours. Of course it does depend on weather and conditions and whether you have to hand steer. Personally I prefer 4hour watches because you can get a decent stretch of sleep in, but I have sailed with others who preferred 3hrs so that's what we used. I reckon you need to experiment and find what suits you best and also be adaptable to the conditions.
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Yes, we are all individual.
Short (<4hr) watches don't usually work for us, probably something to do with sleep cycles. But from reading this thread, it clearly works perfectly for other people.

One thing I've found very useful is to load my phone up with slightly boring podcasts. In Our Time is great for this. Set the phone on the pillow on a low volume and I'm guaranteed to be out cold within five minutes.
 
We did four on four off right across the Atlantic, mostly hand-steering (autopilot was using too much juice) - no problem at all, very restful really - the person coming on watch would cook/ make drinks/ whatever before coming up, the person coming off watch would wash up and do the log before turning in. Easy peasy, when else would you sleep the best part of 12 hours a day?
 
Bristolfashion said:
We're coastal cruisers, although do the Orkney/ Shetland/ Ireland / Bass Strait type of passages.
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Isn't all the preceding discussion of watch systems a little overkill for the kind of sailing Bristolfashion is asking about? It takes me 3 days just to start getting into the watch system. Prior to that I'll just not be able to sleep until I'm tired.

For this type of sailing 2-up yes someone is always on watch but it's just informal. If I'm skipper it's generally me on watch unless I need a break.

Watch systems for longer passages are a different question.
 
On an offshore race with a biggish crew, we did three on, three off, three standby (usually railmeat or cooking for the on watch). Felt hard initially but after a day it's natural. And you got nine hours sleep in every 24, which is more than I usually get on land.
 
I reckon, from 'watching' a lot of diverse crew over the years that 3 hours seems to be optimum. And as has been pointed out, we are all happily different!
 
laika said:
Isn't all the preceding discussion of watch systems a little overkill for the kind of sailing Bristolfashion is asking about? It takes me 3 days just to start getting into the watch system. Prior to that I'll just not be able to sleep until I'm tired.

For this type of sailing 2-up yes someone is always on watch but it's just informal. If I'm skipper it's generally me on watch unless I need a break.

Watch systems for longer passages are a different question.
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I'm happy to learn - I may venture out of sight of land for longer periods at some time.

Anyway, I've been up all day time for a n ..... a ..... p....... zzzzzzzzz
 
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