Wayne.B wrote:

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 05:38:00 -0600, Geoff Schultz
wrote:


Anything more than 4 hours at night is too long.


I agree. My wife and I usually change watches on a loose schedule
based on when we get tired or when we wake up. This usually works out
to be about 3 hours at night.

Guy's,

I must not have explained it very well in the
other post.

Go back and look at what I wrote again. There are
_four_ people on the boat. During passages, there
are _two_ people "on" for 12 hours and then the
other two people take over for 12 hours. Each two
person team gets a full 12 hours off each 24 hours.

A typical scenario would be that Bob and Anne are
"on" from 3:00 PM to 3:00 AM. They can split that
twelve hours up any way they choose. If they want
to do 1, 2, 3, or 4 hour rotations during their
joint shift, they can. When Bob is at the helm,
Anne is available to make coffee and sandwiches,
or to help with a sail change, or to just hang out
in the cockpit and read a book.

Meanwhile Don and Nancy--who are "on" from 3:00AM
to 3:00 PM can sack out in the aft cabin together,
and know that they won't be disturbed unless there
is an "all hands" emergency. After ten hours of
sleep, they can get up, get cleaned up and
dressed, and then hang out for another hour before
they go "on" shift together.

Don W.