BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

Wayne.B

On Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:16:22 -0400, wrote:

That never really occurred to me but I guess you do need port and
starboard duty sections on a cruise with only 4 people. How do you do
it, or do you stop somewhere every day.
I suppose you could just dial up Rio on the autopilot and set the
depth alarm but that would be wrong ;-)

I've done a lot of offshore and overnight sailing in my past life and
my wife and I still do some long passages on the trawler. Typically
you set up a watch keeping schedule, sometimes 4 hours on and 4 hours
off but there are many variations. Basically you just keep going.
On a small sailboat, and many larger, you just take over the bunk that
was vacated by the person going on watch. On the 50 footer that I
used to sail on a lot we typically raced with a crew of 12 or 13.
The bunks were stacked 3 high and each had its own block and tackle
arrangement for adjusting the bunk to a level position. On a long
race you'd get to the point where you could readjust your bunk after a
course change without ever really waking up.