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Post by hoppy on Jul 25, 2015 9:15:45 GMT
im tied up to some dirt and can now happily state that I survived my first overnight solo sail  It was a frustrating sail as the winds died out at night and spent half the evening struggling to sail and half motoring. I had the AIS set to maximum range and a 5nm radar zone. It was so quiet out there that those alarms never triggered. I managed to have a few short naps waking to either the 25 minute alarm or the AP complaining about wind shifts. I have a feeling that if I was to do a many day sail if probably be trying to have the short naps day and night.. The huge downside of the SO40 is that the cockpit seats are too short when sleeping, I managed to do it, but the SO37 with the single helm sould be better One very annoying thing is that my AP went in to standby 3 times. This has only ever happened once before, last week. I was controlling the AP from my Raymarine e7 MFD. I upgraded the software recently and I suspect that it may be s bug introduced in the new version. Will write RM I need a shower and a sleep |
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Post by On y va on Jul 25, 2015 11:19:19 GMT
Well done! I tend to sleep sitting and leaning onto the cockpit roof where the winches are, as on the SO40 seats, I find it too uncomfy. I will be doing a solo overnighter next week again (approx 22 to 24 hours). By the way, have you looked at your insurance, solo overnight sailing is covered? As a lot of boat insurances do not cover this. I had to get a policy amendment for this.....lots of question about the boat and me.....and than after all this, it was an additional 25 euros a year!!! And the funniest of all was that they asked whether or not I had navigation lights for night sailing!!!!!  |
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Post by vasko on Jul 25, 2015 13:09:07 GMT
Congrats!
Too risky for me I even don't like overnight driving , altought when driving and get tired you can stop and get along nap...
The other thing that I hate about overnight sailing even with crew is that usually I do not get any sleep no matter that someone else is at the helm... and next day everyone is happy except me with red eyes and dreaming for nap...
The other issue is that everyone is staying to around 4am and after that no matter what they say everyone is sleeping and I'm on my own..
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Post by hoppy on Jul 25, 2015 17:14:58 GMT
Well done! I tend to sleep sitting and leaning onto the cockpit roof where the winches are, as on the SO40 seats, I find it too uncomfy. I will be doing a solo overnighter next week again (approx 22 to 24 hours). By the way, have you looked at your insurance, solo overnight sailing is covered? As a lot of boat insurances do not cover this. I had to get a policy amendment for this.....lots of question about the boat and me.....and than after all this, it was an additional 25 euros a year!!! And the funniest of all was that they asked whether or not I had navigation lights for night sailing!!!!! I cannot sleep sitting which has always been a killer for me when it came to long flights to Australia. I can only sleep on my side. I only successfully managed to sleep if I flew business or first (those days are gone  ) Eventually I found it I wedge my head into the cabin I can bend my crappy knees and lay on the seat. I did try the floor but that was not so good. My insurance company is Panteniaus and I did check that solo was ok and I had to extend my coverage to include Turkey (cost nothing) but never thought about overnight. Given that they are big with cruisers, I hope it's included but you have me wondering now. Not going to lose sleep over that for now as I probably will only have day trips coming up. Last night I was wondering what people do in conditions like that mid ocean. Take advantage of the calm conditions and slow progress and take longer sleeps? The AP and other things usage really cut into my battery capacity. By 1am the battery meter was already showing 70% of my 440ah house bank. Really need to figure out what is the big consumer. Last time my nav lights were it but now they are LED. |
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Post by hoppy on Jul 25, 2015 17:28:10 GMT
Congrats! Too risky for me I even don't like overnight driving , altought when driving and get tired you can stop and get along nap... The other thing that I hate about overnight sailing even with crew is that usually I do not get any sleep no matter that someone else is at the helm... and next day everyone is happy except me with red eyes and dreaming for nap... The other issue is that everyone is staying to around 4am and after that no matter what they say everyone is sleeping and I'm on my own.. Only done 2 other overnight sails, one 30 years ago in a race and in the same waters 2 years ago. It was 2 of us and we did 2.5hr shifts and I struggled to sleep. Perhaps it didn't help that it was in light changeable conditions so there was a lot of sail adjustment and tacking noises. I suppose as skipper/owner your ability to sleep partly depends on how confident you are with the crew on watch. It will be worse when the watch is someone with limited experience. At least solo you don't have the watch to worry about  |
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Post by vasko on Jul 25, 2015 17:49:34 GMT
You are right....
When I sail with people that has sailed around the british isles - I'm relaxed and I can trust them as they take safety seriously...
but when been in Greece with group of friends who are really thinking that sailing is only fun... no matter what they promise I haven't managed to sleep on the way or in a bay without anchor alarm on ....
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Post by On y va on Jul 27, 2015 16:28:28 GMT
Yes, having a good crew aboard is quite a difference in regards to asleep. Problem I have, is that I tend to unconciously listen all the time. Especially when I started to do overnighters (with crew). I am just a light sleeper, still am.
I envied my friend who used to come along, who is a dutch trawler fisher. When his ear hit the pillow, he was asleep. When I did my watches with him on our way to England (the famous Pin Mill run), I always thought he was half asleep on deck too. But, everytime I asked "what about that ship??" he just murmeled "that will go way in front of us" or "no worries, we will be passed him well in time". Once we came pretty close to a big cargo ship during the night. He didn't blinck or got worried. We could smell what the cook was cooking and waved at him..... Funny enough, I wasn't worried, as my friend was so laid back and confident.
But I suppose if you have done 25 years, 5 days a week of trawler fishing in all weathers and situations, you are used to this way of life.
Sailing alone is a different thing completely. I tend to prepare as soon as I think I have to and not wait till things get difficult. Mainly in regards to reefing and preparing some food.
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Post by zofiasailing on Jul 27, 2015 23:31:27 GMT
Well done Hoppy. I think if you did several days/ nights single handed your body would give in to fatigue and allow you to sleep in snatches instantly. We find overnighters more fatiguing than longer passages. Beyond 2 days you will sleep in the allotted down time. We travel short handed and find neither if us gets into the swing for the first 36 hrs. Other cruisers say the same.
We had an occasion when we were both too fatigued in a poor sea state so we hove-to riding a parachute anchor for 12 hours. We turned on the generator and lit every deck light we had. ..just so we could be visually seen from a distance. AIS was on of course too..
Good luck on your journey.
SV Zofia
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Post by chuckr on Aug 8, 2015 12:43:34 GMT
There are just 2 of us and we never take crew and have done a number of overnights. But my first year out was just me and I did a few long overnights along the USA east coast and found I did not have an issue staying awake for about 36 hours. Then I needed to rest. We just did 2 overnighters getting around the boot of Italy to save Schengen days. I did nap maybe 2 hours and she napped maybe 4 hours. Most of our single overnighters we are both up all night. Why I don't know just the way we worked it.
On our Atlantic crossing we made 2 mistakes and one of those was not getting into our usual rhythm of sleep, eat, watch sleep eat ect. We got tired and hungry so we heaved to for 6 hours or so and slept and had a great meal then set sail with a new attitude and never had a problem after that.
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