The Watch

By Scott Dodgson
Having made two round trips from San Diego to French Polynesia by way of Peru and Hawaii, four round trips to Hawaii, one round trip from San Diego to Australia and this being the beginning of my third round trip from the Caribbean to Turkey I have settled on a watch system of two over lapping four hour watches per crew member. The first hour of their watch they will be accompanied by a crew member serving the last hour of his watch. The middle two by themselves and the last hour with a new crew member just coming onto watch. As the Captain I don't stand watch but always rise and sit with each crew member during their middle two hours. The ritual is when a crew member comes up for watch he fixes the watch captain something to eat and relieves if he needs to go to the head or just walk around. The activity and conversation keeps both crew members sharp. My visits in the middle of their watch help break the long two hours and it allows me to check out our position, trim the sails if necessary and other wise keep an eye on the entire process while teaching them about ocean sailing. During the daytime hours most of the crew is up so the two hours alone really never happens. It's during the night hours from midnight to morning that most problems occur for some unknown and mysterious reason. So I tend to rest more during the day than at night. Once the routine is established it is just a matter of covering the miles and in this case 2500 nautical miles as quickly as possible. I am four days behind schedule. These precious four days are my cushion days, so I can still make it on time to pick up my charter in Rhodes Greece. I still have five rest days built into the schedule and with an inexperienced crew they will definitely need them.
I set the main, mizzen, staysail, and my magnificent 150 Genoa in search of the Westerly's some 600 hundred nautical miles NNE. The crew's mood was happy with a touch of trepidation.