We are often asked what we do at sea; don’t we get bored with nothing to do all day? In response, here is a short resume of your correspondent’s latest watch. There being only two crew, watches at sea on VS are (nominally, see below) four hours on and four off, 24/7.

0145. Woken up. Get dressed: underpants, thermal leggings and shirt, long johns and jacket (it’s cold at night at sea, even at 40S) and full foul weather outer layer. And lifejacket/safety harness, triple-ended safety line, and headtorch. And glasses.

0155. On deck. It’s pitch black and drizzling, with flat sea and light wind. Yesterday morning it was again pitch black, but blowing a full gale with big seas - conditions which are a different kettle of fish altogether. Briefing from off-going watch – nothing much to report, entering coastal shipping lane, one ship seen in distance a while ago.

0200. On watch. Check horizon, such as it is, for ships’ lights. Nothing seen. Check chart plotter for position and potential hazards (with electronic charts it’s important to zoom in to see detail, sometimes important, missing at larger scales – that’s how the Clipper crew put their multi-million dollar racing yacht on a properly plotted reef  in perfect conditions in Mauritius recently). Nothing of note seen. Some coastal shipping on plotter. Coast not visible (30nm off).

0230. Drizzle stops – it’s raining hard instead. Lovely. Wind has increased, so decide to reduce sail by putting first reef in genoa. On VS this is a one person operation carried out in safety from the cockpit (while strapped on). But one does get wet if it’s raining. Genoa sheet is slackened by hand first, then hydraulic furler operated by push button. This requires some dexterity and careful positioning to see the reefing marks in the sail using the headtorch (you can’t use a torch through glass at night, especially if it’s raining, so it is necessary to crane over the deckhouse roof). Once the sail is nicely reefed the sheet is retensioned using a hand winch – good exercise. Then tidy up ropes. Check plotter.

0300. Wind has dropped again. Decide to let reef out. Procedure reversed. Get wet again.

0345. Rain stops as soon as work finished. Perhaps there is a God? Check plotter.

0400. Cup of coffee. Check plotter. Ship approaching on potential collision course. VS is fitted with AIS (Automatic Identification Ship), a VHF radio-based system which produces an icon on our plotter screen showing all commercial vessels in VHF range, their ID, course, speed and crucially, their CPA (Closest Point of Approach)and time to CPA. If CPA is less than a mile, get interested. In this case it was predicted to be less than 50m, in 36 minutes – so get very interested. Normal visual range from the cockpit of VS is about 5nm due to curvature of the earth. AIS sees much further as it is operating from the masthead. So the dangerous ship was seen at 11nm.

0410. Ship’s lights seen coming over horizon.

0415. Monitoring plotter continually. CPA still very small. Ship is huge, travelling very fast (25kts). As a sailing vessel VS has right of way, but as always this depends upon the other guy a) seeing us, and b) doing the right thing – not always a given at sea as on land. The beauty of AIS is that it also gives the name and ID of all commercial ships (but sadly and stupidly, not fishing vessels). This enables us to easily contact the bridge by radio, early. It is vital to give big ships as much warning as possible as they are difficult and slow to manouevre when travelling at full ocean speed.

0416. Contact ship by radio. Professional mariners are very courteous over the airwaves. Everyone is called ‘Sir’, and pleasantries are exchanged. Ship very friendly & agrees without hesitation to alter course to pass safely astern of us. Relief.

0418. Ship calls back. Now intends to pass ahead, but safely clear. This leads your correspondent to assume that we had in fact not been seen earlier, a view strengthened by the ship asking for our course and speed. Ahead is OK, but it’s going to be close.

0435. Ship passes clear ahead, by just over half a mile. It’s a huge container vessel. VS hit by big bow wave. No problem.

0445. Wind changes. Course altered. Sky clearing; perhaps it’s going to be a nice day. Check plotter again.

0500. Wind changes again. Course altered. Trying fruitlessly to identify stars & planets (brushing up for sextant refresher). No dangerous ships on plotter. No lights.

0510. Wind increases. Genoa reefed again, as above. Check plotter.

0530. Cup of coffee. Dawn beginning. Wind drops so genoa let out again.

0545. Briefly consider waking sleeping beauty for her watch. Decide against. Hard won experience has shown that she (much) prefers the sun to be up and about, with his hat on, before she stirs from her slumber. On this occasion the sun is himself idling in bed – there is a large cloud bank along the Australian coast obscuring his rise. And we’re now off the South Australian coast. For some entirely unfathomable reason SA works to a time half and hour (!) behind the Australian east coast. So clock put back half an hour. The other half of the crew prefers that these time changes happen while she is safely in bed, resulting in the watches of yours truly being prolonged as required.

0555. Do log (every six hours). Check barometer, battery voltage, bilge (to make sure we haven’t sprung a leak), note time, distance travelled, wind strength and direction.

0600. Note exact position for chart. It is going to be a lovely day. Time now 0530 again.

0600 SA. Still no sign of the sun. Other half of crew fast asleep.

0610. Breakfast. There are no horizontal surfaces in a sailing vessel under way. And not only are flat surfaces not horizontal; they are constantly in movement, bucking around in an unpredictable manner. This makes it tricky to pour milk into the cereal bowl without a disaster. But it is possible, while one is carefully wedged in a kitchen corner, to pour the milk into the bowl held by hand, then place the bowl safely onto the gimballed stove while the milk is returned to the fridge (the most likely time of disaster). Mission accomplished without incident.

0635. Sun rises above cloud bank. He has his hat on, and is coming out to play. Beautiful.

0700. Light enough in the cabin to plot the 0600 position onto the ocean chart. Good progress visible.

0720. Sleeping Beauty awakes spontaneously (always the best way). She was either a dormouse in a previous life, or is going to be one in the next.

0730. Off watch. Now do Blog update and get weather via Iridium satellite phone. Then free time to read or sleep. On watch again at 1000.

 

And repeat.