What is the perfect watch system?

[newtothis]

The boat I did some offshore racing on did 3-off, 3-standby, 3-on pattern. You came on watch as standby, which was cooking, cleaning and rail-meat. Then you did your watch, then slept. Seemed to work and gave roughly nine hours sleep a day. Fine once you were into the rhythm, but required the crew to do it.

 

[KellysEye]

For two of us four on four off then a dog watch of 3 hours at 6pm that allowed to be around at some dawn and sunsets.

 

[Cheery]

A long time ago when I was in the Army I read a paper on how long an infantry battalion could remain operational. My memory is a bit hazy but I do remember the conclusion.

They ran some experiments keeping a regiment on the go with 0, 2 and 4 hour rest periods. The regiment with 0 hours rest didn't last long at all. The 2 hours was quite good for a few days. On 4 hours they just kept going although weren't at peak operational effectiveness.

Based on this, any watch system needs to ensure at least one 4 hour rest period in any 24 hours.

Yep, that's how it was done. The 02.00 to 04.00 being the worst as you had to be up for 06.00 to clean the guardroom (if you were on camp guard) for the day staff. Then you did your normal day's work (as you had the day before you had to stand guard). If you were on exercise, crawling bag into your doss bag at 04.00 was horrible as you had to stand to at first light anyway.