Night Sailing

I love sailing at night. Its serene, yet mysterious. It even feels a little dangerous. Its not, really, but there are a few things I look out for.

UNLIT BUOYS

These things have always freaked me out. Some nights you can see quite clearly. Other nights are very dark, inky black, you can't see anything.

Whenever I would approach the location of an unlit buoy I would peer ahead and grow anxious. They would loom up out of the darkness, sometimes close aboard. Many times I would never see the buoy and remain anxious until certain it was safely behind.

One night a buoy appeared dead ahead. Only slamming the tiller hard over avoided a collision. I don't know if hitting a buoy at speed would punch a hole in the boat, but it might. At least it would require a time-consuming and embarrassing repair.

I tried for years to memorize their location. Mostly I just gave the location a wide berth. A spotlight doesn't help, it just ruins your night vision. The buoys around me have little, if any, reflective tape. They do have quite a few dents in them.

Eventually I bought a GPS. I don't see any other way.


NAVIGATION

Even local waters can seem unfamiliar at night. If the coast is dark, it can be difficult to judge your range from it. If the coast is lit up, flashing buoys can be difficult to see amidst the clutter. If the night is clear, you can even mistake one buoy for another.

You just have to be more alert. If you feel unsure, resist the temptation to keep charging ahead, hoping things will become clearer.

COLLISION

These powerboats just zip by. I can see the opearator lit up in the blue glow of a big chartplotter. I wonder if they're looking ahead. Other boats go by with every light on, floodlights on the cockpit. Can they see ahead? I spot a surprising number of boats with no running lights on at all. I don't know what's up with them.

There's no doubt that a signifigant percentage of boaters are drunk. They're coming back from a day of fishing or some waterfront bar. If you happen to be in their way, you could have a problem.

All you can do is increase your visibility. I keep a flashlight in the cockpit. If somebody makes me nervous I shine the light on the sail. You might also want to keep an air horn in the cockpit.

The factory running lights on the boat are pretty dim. If you put in a new socket they burn quite a bit brighter.

I know some guys who sail with the anchor light on. I wouldn't do that. I know other guys who sail with the steaming light on. You're not supposed to shine that light unless you have the motor on. But, 95% of powerboaters don't know what that light means. The 5% who know aren't the type of boater you need to worry about. I still haven't decided. Self preservation may be more important than complying with the rule.

You want to keep the battery well charged. However, running lights will start slowly getting dimmer long before they quit. Having an outboard with a charger is nice because you could just fire up the engine and the lights will get brighter as you head home.

You also want to keep some gas in the tank because the wind often dies at night.

MAN OVERBOARD

The consequences of a MOB can be more severe at night. Give some thought to prevention and recovery. A harness is best, at least a PFD. I really shouldn't preach. I've got all sorts of PFDs--orange ones, sport vests, float coats, an auto-inflator. I hardly ever wore one. Then I bought a Stormy Seas jacket. It looks and feels like a regular jacket but has inflation bladders and a CO2 cartridge. That one I wear. Keep a little waterproof flashlight and whistle in the pocket. Maybe a handheld VHF.

Well, that's about it. The days grow shorter now. I need to get get my fill of sailing before the winter comes. I'll be out there at night . Stay out of my way.

When I am in waters with other boats, I have my 3/4 masthead light on. The bulb is quite bright (there are two light levels for that kind of bulb as I recall and I use the brighter of the two - 1 amp, I believe) If really in doubt, or if there are freighters around, I also turn on the mast head light.

The 3/4 light illuminates the jib, and that gives plenty of visibility.

The night lights, even if used overnigt, do not significantly drain the battery. I can go about three nights (running lights, and mast lights and instruments). However, the Augohelm does do a trick on the battery. It does draw.

As for the jib, I have two sets of reef points - 20% and 40%. Haven't had to use the 40% recently, but if there is a T storm heading my way, I get rid of the jib and drop to the second set of reef points. That will handle just about anything. No need for a storm trisail unless you want to head out into Ivan to make sure your boat doesn't get blown away at the dock.

As for the jacket, particularly in the fall weather, but even in the summer when it gets quite cool on the water, consider a floater jacket (the Mustang 153?) is what I use. It is very warm, and it floats you very hight in the water if you get nailed (35 lbs floatation). It is very flexible after some use, so it does not impari movement). As for hypothermia, the greatest danger, topside or in the water, this is your best alternative.

Freighters are my biggest concern, particularly when I see a red and a green light with a bright white light between them. I have a radar reflector that looks like a num buoy, and when that goes up, you don't see a freighter in the area. I also, when in doubt, use a bright flashlight to illuminate the sails.
As a last resort, fire a flare gun at the pilot house and listen for the engines of the freighter to go into full reverse.

Visibility at night can be very deceptive - and the GPS is a godsend in this regard.

As for man overboard lights, I carry a strobe on my jacket and a handheld vhf radio. The guests have a small lens light. But I also have a man overboard pole with a big strobe light and a drogue. Remember, a man overboard situation, unless there is an immediate recovery, is almost always a mayday.

Pete,
The bridge in the back ground looks familiar.
Is it the bridge over Great South Bay in Long Island?
I think I saw it one time when I went to a wedding reception at John Anthony's on the water.

or maybe my mind is playing trick on me......

That's it--the Robert Moses Causeway. Cap'n Crunchie will know that area, ebb too.

The Causeway is actually two bridges, side by side, leading to Fire Island.

I'm probably most famous locally for having sailed my boat in between the two bridges during a full gale.

Long story.

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2003-03/6896822.jpg

Sailing by moonlight, especially a full moon, is something every sailor should experience. It borders on the magical. Night sailing in foul weather is intense and not necessarily fun, although it can be. Locally the buoys aren't much of a problem but there enough logs and deadheads floating around that you have to pay attention all the time. I'm also a big believer in being securely attached to the boat after sunset. It's the best way I know to avoid MOB practice. I run legal running lights and carry a big flashlight to light up the sails if need be. And I always assume the other guy doesn't see me and make sure I stay out of the way. So far it's worked every time.

Tom

I too, do a lot of sailing at night, all around Raritan Bay, which has some of the best sailing on the east coast. Been boating on this bay since Eisenhower posed with Kruschev, and sailing on it for the last two decades, half of that in my Ariel, so I thought I was pretty savvy, until this fall. For some unknown reason, I got a PHRF rating and started racing the Adele M, and things have not been the same since.

The lads in my club had always snikkered when they said you don't truly know your boat till you race it. "Bilge", said I, for I'd sailed in fog, squalls, gloom, searing sun - been grounded, pooped, becalmed, swamped and sunk (not in the Ariel) and felt pretty cocky overall, boatwise.
But there I was, brand new 155 genoa, outboard pulled up and out, 25 degree heel, even used the huge clunky bronze winch handles to harden those jib sheets to about a middle G pitch. And I got to find out exactly how little I know about the Ariel, and sailing in general.

As it happens, the races are on wednesday nights, and start out in the light and end in the dark. So after staggering through the medieval ritual of The Start, I found myself streaking around in perfect blackness, heeled over with NO visibility to looward, GPS batteries dying, mainsheets forever tangled around that damn tiller stem, searching for microscopic mobile marks, dodging the other samurai racers (screaming STARBOARD at me, cripes!), no time to pee, crew threatening captaincide, and suddenly realizing that in some koo-koo way this was the most fun I've had since we put the crabs in Chief Patterson's bunk back in DaNang. The Ariel is totally a party animal, and is happiest when full of spray, wind and suds, kind of like my Uncle Carl. I always enjoyed cruising her, but here was a whole new bride. And so, I tip my flathat to you west coast racers, and I am humbled.

I will always love the quiet evening cruises and their soothing moments. But once you get channel marker buoy paint on your rubrail, you are hooked, Jake.

A moonlight bay and my Ariel in October 2003 in the photo below… Moonlight is indeed magic at sea, but so also is the Milky Way on a moonless night when you are far enough out at sea to be beyond the influence of coastal lights, and the bioluminescence in your wake mirrors the thin trail of the galaxy overhead.

On one such night I was lying on my back on a cockpit seat a few miles offshore in Monterey Bay. I was steering by the Milky Way, when suddenly what appeared to be an airplane-sized bird appeared directly overhead. The huge black form obscured half the galaxy. It might as well have been a pterodactyl for the impact that sight had on me. I sat upwards abruptly to regain my bearings. The bird was a brown pelican with a wingspread of five feet or so, but while I was lying back in the cockpit with little to reference for perspective that bird appeared to be immense.

On another moonless night, I tied the tiller and let Augustine sail herself while I went forward to watch luminescent sea life appear in hazy green silhouette below me: Small and large fish darting ahead of my bow, and at one point, a ray with spread wings. Then, a sea lion chasing a school of agitated fish. The fish going off like a fan of bottle rockets, each rocket on its own course, and the sea lion twisting its body in fluid motion with green wings trailing from its front flippers as it pursued the fish.

And on yet another moonless night, I was returning to Santa Cruz in strong wind and heavy seas. It was pitch black out with the exception of distant low lights of shore. I could not see the swells coming as they took me on the beam. It was unnerving to feel the boat heel suddenly as we dropped over a crest into a trough that I could not see.

When I am sailing alone at night I like to light my brass yacht lamp that I hang over the closet. On rough nights the bottom of the lamp is restrained by a plastic cup holder that I Velcro an inch or so beneath the lamp. The lamp burns softly in the main salon with the pleasant smell of liquid candle wax. Whether it is my imagination or actual heat generated bythe lamp, the cabin feels warm when that lamp is burning and I go below. The light alone warms me even as I sit at the tiller, just bythe vry sight of it. Yes, night sailing is magical.

While my Commander is layed-up I try and sail whenever I can. Recently a friend invited me out on his 26' Ericson which I was happy to go as that boat seemed similiar to my Commander and I need more sail time. Found out after we were out that he had only sailed it a couple of times with another owner and wasn't very aware of the boat. It was fun at first learning the ropes so to speak such as the joy of a jib furler and self tailing wenches etc. However it was becoming dark and I found out that the boat did not have any working runnings lights, that the life jackets were too small for us, that there wasn't a ladder in case someone fell overboard, that there wasn't even a radio, that there had been problems with the outboard motor, that the boat was under water last year etc. etc. The joy of sailing suddenly became a concern and my alert level jumped two or three notches. We were in a somewhat narrow river channel with large power boats going full bore, frieghters and tugs and all manner of craft. Leaving a wind shaddow caused by a frieghter into a 15 knott gust of wind from a different direction then the mild beam reach that I was on and the fact that I'm used to a tiller instead of a wheel didn't help when I tried to compensate and the boat suddenly turned 180 degrees in the semidark. I re learned some very valuable lessons that I knew as a kid boating but forgot. Things could have turned out very bad when saftey and prepardness are left to others. By the way even though the Ericson was more comfortable and modern it was very touchy and the rudder not as responsive as my Commander... though I am glad I got to use the jib furler and the self tailing wench ...only one worked. I intend to upgrade to a jib furler and a couple of self tailing wenches that work. I will never put out without checking that everything is shipshape and in good order. :eek:

A group of great posts from the past
Thread begun by CommanderPete 10/07/04....

Everyonce in awhile I internet monoculars and binoculars.
Sailing at night close in curls my toes and whitens knuckles on the tiller. Need all the help I can get.
Who reaches for their trusty night vision optics when the million watt spotlight stops working?

Monoculars tend to be cheaper.
These night vision glasses come in 'generations',
Gen 1 are affordable, but limited.
Gen 2 and 3 are what the military and security use, they can afford the four figure prices for them.

There are a growing number of Gen 1 choices around the $150/$250 range. some even waterproof.
www.opticsplanet.com has selection tips that might help to choose if interested.

But there still are many questions. Will a night vision toy pick out that unlighted bouy?
There seems to be distance limitations with these things and they need expensive batteries... are they really useful?
(EG, I was unable to find a 12V charger for the lithium bats.)


Has anybody scoped out these scopes?

ebb,

i have tinkered with a gen1 scope for a couple years (not enough time with the scope for my use to be a measure of offshore utility). i found it useful for situation awareness beyond the range of the flashlight. it is possible to pick out mooring balls and unlit buoys at a useful distance. the drawback for use inshore is the glare of floodlights around the harbor (for the near field a flashlight is more effective)

as for the batteries... they have a long life and i toss them in the recycle bin when done. the useful life is about the same as when used with a camera.

cheers,
bill@ariel231

Ebb,

As per my earlier post, all you need is the moon, or on moonless nights, the Milky Way and the stars. There is plenty of illumination out there at night for most purposes, unless you are night blind... except for foggy nights of course. With a chart plotter to warn you about upcoming floating non-lighted ATONS, you are good to go as long as the upcoming ATON is charted and on station, however, to play it absolutely safe. see:

http://www.flir.com/cvs/americas/en/maritime/

I have seen a FLIR thermal imaging system in use. This is really the best (but not the least expensive) thing since peanut butter. I think peanut butter still costs a couple of bucks a jar, Then again, all of the peanuts in the world don't help you see at night.

I enjoy sailing at night. I sort of dread it - especially when it is cold, but once out there is it amazing - and once you numb-up, it does not feel that cold :)


We've had a few interesting adventures sailing at night in the SF Bay and off the coast. We've been caught in thick fog, gotten into heavy traffic, and gotten a bit tossed around due to wind & swell at night on different occasions. We have also enjoyed the most perfect of nights on the boat... Perfectly still waters, starry skies, and warm weather...

(Most of these tales are described in detail on the Mephisto Cat thread!
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...5-Mephisto-Cat

One of my favourite exciting night time adventure is copied below: The tale happened as we were rounding Point Conception while traveling from Marina del Rey to San Francisco in late November 2009.

"The rounding of Point Conception was a great adventure. It was fairly mild (for late November!) as we were shooting for what looked like, and ended-up being a very good weather window (Certainly by Point Conception terms) but it was still a long passage and a lot of work.

We left Santa Barbara at about 7:30pm and I went to sleep at about 9:00pm. Up until that point, it had been a clear, starry night with fairly flat waters. We had some spectacular sightings of whales & dolphins a few miles west of Santa Barbara. It was particularly impressive as we experienced bright luminescence which showed the trails of dolphins as they speeded underneath us, and jumped around the boat leaving ribbons of light... It was a spectacular sight!

My watch started at midnight when I was awakened. It was quite different then... I was surprised to feel the boat moving enthusiastically in the swells and the sound of strong winds in the rigging. I went up on deck and assumed watch with Kirstin. It seemed we were feeling the swells and wind as if funneled around the point already. - A bit early according to my expectations...

It was a very dark cloudy / foggy night which had Kristin & I navigating by instruments only while Carol slept. This is not the best way to hold a steady course in such messy seas... (Our GPS track proves this!) Our intended course took us about 15 miles offshore and the scant lights on shore were long out of our sight. In fact the fog was so thick that the only light we could occasionally see was the glow from the offshore drilling platforms. This gave us at least a temporary reference to verify progress and our steered course before they quickly disappeared back into the fog... Not even a faint anything was apparent for reference after that.

There was supposed to be a bright moon out that night, but he cloud cover was so thick that the glow of the moon was not at all visible, and the oil rigs were obscured by the fog just as quickly as they appeared, but we were grateful for them as they provided the only break in the pitch darkness. We could only see the oil rig's light glow (not lights - just the glow!) from a distance of about 1-2 miles away. Further away it was just pure pitch darkness everywhere. I did the 'hold your hand in front of your face' test - I could not see a thing!

The hightlight happened at about 3:30am as a bright luminescent glow became apparent, and then grew brighter just underneath and all around the boat... This became increasingly brighter & brighter... As I lifted my hand to point it out to Kristen -who was staring at the lit GPS a this time-, this huge fin rose out of the water only a couple of feet away from the starboard rail, and up to some 4 feet above the level of the deck! (This was at about 3:30am and it was pitch dark as I described above... but I could see the large shape of the whales due to the bright luminescent glow created as its body disturbed the water.) I could not make out what sort of giant it was closest to us on that side; but it was BIG.

I tried to hold a steady course as it was now apparent that we were in the milddle of a pod of whales of some sort... I could see them swimming all around us. They were holding our exact course...

I was uncomfortable at the thought of ending-up between a cow and her calf... or having one of these giants come up directly underneath us! - Just as this thought gelled in my mind... a loud BLOW screamed loudly just at the port side of the boat. This loud breath from a whale's blowhole and the sight of a big FIN coming up from the water caused Kristin to scream and jump down to the middle of the cockpit! It was quite a rush! I was too shocked to say anything and just held on to the tiller! Then, just as fast as they had appeared, they dove and as they did so, the glow faded back into darkness...

The whole thing happened quickly, but it seemed like it was much longer... It was quite an exciting moment during this long passage! It certainly made the time pass quickly as we talked about it for the next hour or so.

Carol slept through the whole thing... (fortunately Kristin's reaction was one of excited laughter - and not fear!) We almost woke Carol to tell her about what we'd witnessed, and so she could see this in case that they came up again close to the boat, but decided not to... Warmth & sleep were so highly valued on this trip! And I was really hoping that they would not come up that close to us again! - I did not have many more pairs of clean underwear on board!

About 30 min later I let Kirstin know that it was time for her turn to have a bit of sleep, and she responded: "Are you kidding!! I cannot sleep! After that I feel like I'm high on drugs!" this was followed quickly by: "Oh, and you are not going to sleep either!!" as she quickly realized what my next thought would be...

So Carol got lucky and got to sleep through to sunrise. She quickly awoke at sun-up, wondering what could have happened for her to NOT be awakened for her next watch. She eagerly took over the steering; a task she is not only good at, but she seemed to enjoy for long periods at a time.

I performed our first refueling at-sea as the sun came up a few miles after rounding Point Arguello. We took advantage of calming seas while I re-fueled and managed to not spill a drop before the predominant northwesterlys filled in... "

Thanks for posting your rounding of Point Conception story Rico. I really enjoyed it.

Ben

:)
You are very welcome!