On Jul 24, 8:38*pm, "David Marchand" wrote:
...
So, I guess I will tough it out with the radar alarm watch on and a kitchen
timer set at 15 minute intervals. I don't really expect to get much sleep
during a 24-36 hour run up the coast. ...

The radar alarm is less than perfect. We recently had a container
ship slip through two alarm rings in weather where I would usually be
pretty confident of getting a hit. Keep in mind that you need 6 min
to do a proper radar plot (by hand) and closing speeds may be ~30
knots. Sleeping 15-20 min between visuals will pretty much guarantee
that you'll sleep through some contacts that you ought to plot but the
ocean is big and with a little luck you should do okay. I have an AIS
system on order so I can't say how well it works, but the idea is
good. The largest and fastest targets should be AIS equipped.

On our last passage I tried caffeine gum and found it very useful. I
used some Canadian Army surplus stuff that tastes terrible to me
(bought it through Amazon.com) so there was no chance of an overdose.
I found I could reliably control my caffeine dosage so that I had
enough to keep me alert through the watch but not so much that it
disrupted my sleep. YMMV. But, I was surprised at how well it worked
for me.

-- Tom.