Many new cruisers are often scared of sailing through the night. They plan passages from one place to the next only sailing by day. Sailing at night is actually far easier and even more calming than it is during the day.
Read on as I related an experience we had during a night sail. Earlier that evening, Simon made dinner. After dinner around 8 pm, I said goodnight to Simon and my daughter, Sienna. Sleep is so very precious to me so getting some rest before my watch enabled me to thrive during my three hours of early morning solitude rather than crash and burn.
For ten minutes I tried to convince myself that I could fall asleep with the noise but eventually, the jar won. I got up and found a new non-rolling home for it. Before drifting off to sleep, I remembered a conversation I had two days prior with lovely Turkish women concerning sailing through the night. A bunch of boats we met during our winter stay in Sicily happened to all be at the same bay β Taormina Bay , which is on the east side of Sicily just below and north of Mount Etna.
Five of us girls left the boats, took a train to Catania, enjoyed the market, lunch, and loads of great conversation. The Turkish woman expressed her thoughts about sailing through the night. Her partner would then take over and when the sun started to come up, she would be woken to do another watch. It seems that there are no rules. You do what works best. And it seems like professional crews do three hours on, six hours off depending on how many people are on board.
Instead of sailing into the moonlight, I laid in bed trying to sleep through the passage. Sienna is only five so we still have a while before she can chip in! During rough conditions, I take an anti-seasickness drug to help me and when conditions are calm 10 β 15 knots of wind, 3 β 4 sea state I avoid the drugs. So, we ate dinner, I went to bed, Sienna went to bed and then Simon woke me at midnight.
