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Tuesday, September 6. 2022

Sailing at night


Sailing or boating at night is mysterious, dramatic, beautiful. At least one person on board needs to be alert though. While that applies during daytime, much more so at night. Need radar and eyes.


 Night Sailing Doesn’t Have to Be Scary





Posted by The News Junkie in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 15:42 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

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Be very very careful. The first thing to go at night is your ability to visually pick out hazards in the water. You're just not going to see them - so the first rule, is accept it on faith that you're probably not going to hit something, but if it happens to be there, you're not going to miss it. therefore, excessive speed is your enemy. That's something you decide before you set out, accepting the consequences in advance. All of the other stuff is true - get a red or blue penlight so you can see proximally in the cabin and study the charts before you set out.

I went out on a big lake with family and friends to watch fireworks one July 4th, and I suspected the boat owner/captain had very little night piloting experience. I brought a very strong flashlight. Heading back to camp, it quickly became apparent to all how easily disorienting night skippering is. Nobody knew where we were on a very familiar shoreline, for quite a while. Luckily the light brought us in safely, but the captain was clearly uneasy. After we got back from the trip I got him a nice multipurpose boating light like the one below. They're cheap now! Very bright, very powerful, good battery life.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CC44TR3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
#1 Aggie on 2022-09-06 16:23 (Reply)
I love night sailing, I've done about 300 NM of it this year alone, half racing, half cruising. I find it really enjoyable.
Things happen slowly, slowly, then very quickly.
Driving the boat obviously requires concentration. This year for racing I tried something new and that was actually using the Autopilot quite a bit, it was light pretty steady conditions and I found the Auto was on balance doing a better job than I was helming in a straight line and so our performance overall was better.
Me, I have on deck binos, a big assed spot light, and my three speed head lamp with bright, gentle and red light which suits most scenarios I encounter. I also have my personal strobe on my arm in case I end up wet. MOB during the day is bad enough, at night in weather it's nigh impossible without some lights involved.
Suffice to say I take full advantage of chart plotters so I know where we are and what I'm approaching, combined with a proper depth gauge I'm pretty well sorted.
Doing night work in a near urban environment can be challenging without either experience of that area or a decent chart plotter and an understanding of what you are looking at. Navigational lights get blotted out and distractions abound. With traffic you've got to keep your head on a swivel. If proper size marine traffic is about I also keep the handheld VHF handy. A world of problems can be solved in advance by dialing up that barge you see a mile away and having a friendly chat to be clear on everyone's intentions and constraints are.
Always clear your halyards after a douse and keep your lines neat on deck and in the cockpit, when shit goes sideways at 4:00 am, it'll be way easier to deal with.
May your coffee be warm and your midnight chocolate sweet
#2 Old Canuck on 2022-09-06 17:00 (Reply)
Good comments.
I will do neither night mor fog boating again if I can avoid it.

Seen too many problems, and not expert enuf.
#3 BD on 2022-09-06 17:28 (Reply)
I forgot my other secret weapon.

A proper prescription for my glasses. Makes everything about 60% sharper in low light and at distances. There's a whole world of detail out there awaiting you with good glasses
#4 Old Canuck on 2022-09-06 17:34 (Reply)
I was mostly a fresh water sailor and for years I lived in Oklahoma City and had a Catalina 22 in a wet slip on Lake Hefner about two miles from my house. On a two mile by two mile lake with few power boats at night and a lot of sail boats on lovely evenings it was great fun with a few close calls getting blown off the lake with crazy storms that boiled up fast. I knew my lights at night and landmarks and thought I knew a lot about sailing until I spent a week sailing out of Galveston.

I got caught up the ship channel when it got dark and I was sailing against an incoming tide with lots of oil platform workboats working around the clock and I had my wife shine a large flashlight on my main sail because I did not want to be run over by one of those boats. I learned a lot that night about fresh water lake sailing and real sailing close to shore in a heavy traffic area. The rest of the week I was back in a slip tied up well before dark.
#5 OldTexan on 2022-09-06 18:11 (Reply)
Big water vs Small water. Big difference.
#5.1 The NJ on 2022-09-06 18:56 (Reply)
x Navy. did a lot of night sailing. had radar. very different animal sailing at night in a 40 foot kettenbery sloop off the coast of Baja.
#6 Curtis on 2022-09-09 13:22 (Reply)

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