Great video for those less experienced, and even with my 40 years of sailing I still listen as shared experiences may save your life. Let me also share one: Sailing downwind the Malaka strait at night, no moon, very dark. No other ships around. I suddenly see a shadow of an island with some palm trees on top. First it does not ring to me but then I think “I cannot remember any islands here on the map”. I try to figure out if I had a failure in my equipment, get the paper map… no islands and according to our equipment we are where we are supposed to be. I have a feeling something is off. Furl the genoa to take my speed out. Start the engine. Wake up my partner to say there’s something off. My course was how it should be. I have a feeling I need to slow down. We are still doing 4-5 knots. What’s that island doing here? I see the reflection of a window. Get a torch and find it to be from a caterpillar on top of a hill. Strange island, like a pile of… it suddenly hits me. It is not an island, it’s a barque, a tow. I do not see a towboat. No boats on ais, no lights. Then in the air I see a sparkling, a light reflection of something. A cable at some 10 meter height and its right in front of us. Engines full into reverse, we come to a hold with me pushing the horn as if I want to push back the boat. The cable is above our bow when the boat finally starts to back off. The horn had woken up someone. A bit further a small white light appears in what’s seems to be the hut of a towing boat. I try the radio, but no response. We are still going backwards. Until we can go behind the “island” and find our normal heartbeats again. That could have gone so wrong. Just another ten meters we would have de-mast-ed our boat. Sailing in Asia be alert and if you can avoid sailing at night. (black flags on fishing net markers are a great example why I say that) People steel the batteries form the buoys, switch of their one white light to save battery power or just reason that they can see you, hence you see them also. COLREGS? Well yes for the larger ships they may have it all, but the locals? They do not think with their brain as my (Asian) wife puts it. They feel with their heart. Make sure you stay safe! BTW the tug boat had no ais, no lights except for a small one in the cabin (which was off) no nav lights, no reflective stripes...black boat.. Do not trust on your western ideas with COLREG in mind.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, and what a good one it is, the perfect example of why most of us try not to sail at night out here. Thank goodness you were OK, getting caught up with a tug and its load is my biggest fear... Liz 🙏
@@followtheboat We have seen many unlit tug combinations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Make sure you keep a sharp watch if you need to sail at night. (most do not have ais either)
By the way, our night time battery drain isn't as bad as we made out in this video. Turns out me leaving my computer on standby overnight uses about 20% capacity 😂
No, surely not. 20 year lifetime on LiFePo (or so everyone tells me!!) 😄But you do remind that our L/A batteries are now 5 years old and will need replacing before we go off again. We turn everything off at night except nav lights, plotters and auotpilot.
Wow nice half dark video, your the first to do that and still get viewers. Nice to see how you both work together . It’s all about love 💕 isn’t it.😊. I picked up some great tips form you guys. Tanks for sharing. My problem in the night is orientation. To me things like shore lines can be deceiving. Pointy rock formations like islands look very close and towering. And ships in a lane to cross, look closer than they appear. My add to your expertise on night viewing. During my pilot trading we received very good information about how the eyes work. It’s apparent that in the dark you eyes have blind spot. This is the optic nerve connection, what is surrounded by cones of all sorts on the retina. (Long story) The basis , at night your eyes use peripheral view. In the dark you can’t stare to one point. On most cases you focus point is blacked out by the optical connection. To keep a view you must change that focus point round the thing that you like to see. You can do some eye training to find that back darkened spot on your retina and learn to see more. Obviously people having glasses may have more trouble. Contact lenses can be the fix.
This is fascinating, thank you! Funnily enough we noticed this phenomenon only recently when we were trying to discern a blob of land that shouldn't have been where it was (we were in strong current so our heading was different to our course by 30°). I kept have to look away from the object in order to make it out.
An obvious one: don't night-watch under the influence. Awesome tic-tac between the two of you, with the clear different time (night & day) but smoothly transitioned into a great podcast+video..
TBH, NEVER sail under the influence, day or night... Over the last 20 years, we have had a drink only once when sailing, and that was to celebrate Jamie's 40th birthday (I had a tot of whisky and J had a small beer). Cheers! 🥃🍺 Liz
Jamie & Liz, you guys are to be congratulated....pure professional sense! It is so refreshing to see/hear you speaking about watchkeeping like this, when so many U-tubers seem to delight in displaying dangerous ignorance!
@@followtheboat As an ex Captain of a heavy lift cargo ship, ex live-aboard 46' ketch and still very much involved in the SE Asia marine scene, right on! At least the fishing boats further up the S China Sea no longer use red lights as a political statement! If you are passing through Singapore give me a shout....!
Power packed informative and clearer than day information Liz and Jamie you're both absolutely the best sailing RU-vidrs!! ❤ Java sea sounds more challenging than the Melaka Stait
Thank you! It all depends on the time of year. Malacca this year was a joy (minus the traffic) because we sailed the entire way and the seas were small, but get stuck in Malacca with no wind and squalls and that 2kn current can be a nightmare.
Truly excellent episode, Liz and Jamie, and the intercutting let us hear you both, clearly. Thank you! Have you considered getting a cheap night vision device? I use a Sionyx (least expensive one; an 'Aurora' from memory) with a set of decent Fuji 7 x 50s; I know you have these. But the Sionyx gives another view, entirely and adds to the essential information. Best wishes, KL
When we first started this kind of kit was specialised and expensive but I know they are much more accessible these days. We really should consider picking up a pair, they'd certainly help out at night.
@@followtheboat The Sionyx I have is a monocular and it's hardly bigger than a pack of cigarettes, but it can practically see in the dark. My old one is low resolution, but channel markers and the like can be seen clearly when the 7 x 50s can't see at all. And you can see other vessels, too, out at sea. I will be buying the next generation Sionyx, I believe. Something else - I remember the first lengthy night passage I made with a co-skipper (who told me that he thought the night sess will be practically empty) - and he was shocked to see how many vessels were around on the east coast of Australia. It can be very busy offshore, and much busier where you are. Thanks again.
Very, very, good, informative piece. I have to start downloading some podcasts. There is nothing better than doing, though. Today I relocated harbors ahead of a one week liftout, and was buddy boating with a larger boat not hauling an underwater forest as mine is, but we were communicating on VHF 77. I’ve never used the VHF for real before, but with that small amount of usage helped me get my head organised on the process. Doing doing doing is so important. Also accepting help is vital. I am very independent and like to figure things out as I go, but for this short trip I took all of the advice for both leaving the home berth, and then maneuvering into an impossibly tight parking berth, requiring a side on manipulation that wasn’t working till we realized it wasn’t deep enough to come fully alongside, so I had to raise the keel about a meter to get fully in.
Never be too proud to ask for help or advice. We would not be here today were it not for the litany of stupid questions we ask our peers. And don't be afraid of constant hailing on the VHF, which happened to us last night when it took three crew on a container over half an hour to get them to engage with us. You feel dumb being the only person in the shipping lane breaking radio silence with constant pestering, but I'll keep hailing until I get a response.
Good stuff. What I want to see is if anyone has set up their chartplotter/radar/AIS midocean with alarms for distance and then just had great nights of sleep. You're not going to see that almost submerged container no matter how alert you are. Reefing is a great tip. I always wanted to do it. It wasn't my decision. The most testing sail changes was reefing at night. Solo night watch I always tried to keep my PFD on with my safety lines. I once had to go on top of the hard dodger in 33 knot winds to tie an emergency third reef to the end of the boom. I thought, "This would make a great video, but it's not dangerous." I was tied in, the boom was tight - but bouncing. I was leaning into it. Safe as houses. If I didn't know to lean into it, one of those bounces could hurt. My experience in Asia, fishing boats off the Philippines and in Japanese waters, is that some AIS is the end of a fishing net, some are the boats. The boats will turn on AIS until they decide you're not a danger and then they turn them off. Off California I've seen large ships do all kinds of things. A car carrier last month was making circles and figure 8s. Earlier it was blasting a distress horn of some type. Wasn't difficult to avoid. I once almost paddled right behind a tug pulling a barge in the fog. I didn't see the barge and there were no lights, flags, balls on the back of the tug. No one came on deck and waved a light. I've seen a few barges being towed with no indications. Last year I sailed for three months doing a 4 hour day watches 3 hour night watches. One person watches, four people on board. Every day we naturally shifted to the next watch. Worked great, but I sleep really well on a boat. What I noticed at night was if nothing was happening I'd listen to audiobooks, but that third hour would always drag.... so I'd switch to music and dance on deck. Kept me alert and got a bit of exercise. (Just don't lift your feet.) Good sleep is critical. (My tips for sleeping are good pillow, right amount of covers, always warmer on top, black t-shirt to keep out the light. Sleep on my side - breath better, less snoring, better sleep. And if you just can't sleep on a boat, find a situation where you stay awake for 24 hours. Then as soon as your head hits the pillow you'll be out. Do that a few times and you should solve any sleep issues. (The people I've known who are terrible sleepers have zero discipline. They'll get off a plane from Asia at 3 pm and instead of sticking it out until at least 8, they zonk right out. Two weeks later they're still screwed up.) Hallucinating is a sign. Also going wall eyed, depth perception vanishes. (Driving I start seeing overpasses that aren't there.) Something to know about the 'nods'. Your chin drops, you pop awake.... Here's the problem. They did a study back in the 80s or 90s. When the test subjects had a nod, when they popped up they were asked, "How long do you think you were asleep?" No one said more than 5 seconds or so, most said a second or less. Some of them had been asleep for ten minutes. From this while driving any hint of a nod, I pull over and go to sleep. I've never slept longer than about 45 minutes and then I've then been good for about six hours. Could save your life. On a boat? Around a lot of ships? Not sure how you'd do this. And look over the side with a flashlight. In the north Pacific near the Dateline I did this and there were thousands of jellyfish. I also learned on cold nights with the B&G chartplotter turned to the inside, the autopilot is sharing this screen. If you spin the dial to zoom in our out and it's on the autopilot frame? You've just randomly changed course. So I keep a small notebook, write down the heading at the start of watch. I always took a 'noon position' and later entered them all in Google Maps and flagged them. Shooting in low light? One of the better DSLRs are usually great. My Nikon D850 sees a lot more light than my eyes, or my phone. I've got a hand compass that can take a bearing. Never use it. I use the chartplotter, but I'll also use any two parts of the boat as a front/rear sight. The most potentially hazardous situation is when a target doesn't move left or right of that sight, this means it's stationary, moving away, or ... moving towards you. And when I do move to get out of even an imagined possible close call, I don't move a little, I move a lot. Clear intentions. I know who has the right of way, I also know the big ships can't change course as easily as any boat I'm sailing on.
Thank you for a great post, I hope people can learn from your experience. Talking of boats doing weird things, last night while in the shipping lane, we approached the entry to Malaysia's busiest port. Boats going everywhere but all orderly and obeying the rules. And then a local fishing boat, with AIS and an all-round red light, enters the north flowing lane and heads south, right down the middle. Once he'd passed us, he dropped his speed and presumably starting fishing. Right in the middle of the shipping lane pointing in the opposite direction, forcing containers behind to alter course to avoid him! What kind of a nut job does that in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes?!
Thank you again for the awesome detailed info.. Im in no way as experienced as you. I crewed on a boat from Mexico to Hawaii a couple years ago and relied heavily on my hand held vhf/AIs receiver. When I would come across the occasional ship I would contact them with the DSC function they would always answer and It was awesome (for me) to hear their sweet sweet voices and know there intentions.. Fast forward, I now have my own beautiful boat and I was hoping to keep this in my toolbox. Is this something applicable where you two have been? Thanks again for your one of a kind awesomeness., Brandon
Hey Brandon. Yes, once upon a time we used DSC a lot, but recently had to remount our VHF, which is no longer connected to a GPS. DSC is preferable though as it's difficult to ignore! Commercial skippers are some of the most considerate users of the ocean, though I'm sure the odd ship we've passed have been asleep on watch 😉
Thankyou for this episode I love it.. I am just about to do my competent crew and day skipper course and I am struggling a bit with navigation. I just purchase the compass you showed and hopefully someone will help me understand how to use it and build my confidence.. always loved your channel and followed you both for years… FTB!!!!!
Oooh, you'll have fun learning. The comp crew course is a great intro and you'll learn all about bearings, hopefully. If not, ask your skipper to show you. Fair winds!
_"In western Europe boats are well lit according to Colregs..."_ but the big danger here is large fishing boats that turn off their AIS so their competitors do not know where they are fishing and they are not that well lit either. The port and starboard lights are so puny or poor that they are rarely visible to the naked eye and even in binoculars they are difficult. It is sometimes very difficult to know which way they are facing. Totally agree with reefing down for the night just to maintain steerage. Our best night time experience was unfilmable when a spread of torpedoes came past us leaving luminous trails just under the surface. It turned out to be dolphins swimming past us and the bioluminesence in the Irish Sea was making trails behind them. It was like a WW2 movie. It was even in "black & white" 😄
Haha, we dream of nav lights on fishing boats! Or any kind of light that means something. Or any light at all for that matter! AIS is the exception rather than the rule here. Just a few hours ago I was on watch and sailed Esper through a fleet of randomly-lit fishing vessels of all sizes and shapes and lights. In those situations you aim for a gap and pray. Sailing's better than motoring because you're less likely to foul the prop, but if we're motoring, we're very, very careful. Liz 👍🙏
Thing about observations at sea. On a large ship you are observing from a higher altitude than a sailboat, what you and they see is not the same thing. As always the little guy should always try and stay in communication though in my experience you can’t always expect them to even speak the same language as you and just stay out of the as best you can with the information you have. Occasionally when out of high traffic areas i’ve felt they were either asleep or not on watch at all.
Agreed. And we definitely get the impression a few are either not on watch or even drunk. Only in the last couple of days have I had conversations with people that make me doubt their knowledge or experience, just by the way they ask questions about what to do. Sometimes I believe we are talking to crew on watch, not the captain.
I hate moonless clear nights! that or NASA has to plant a AIS unit on Mars... I won't even get into the night I was freaking when this boat with its spinnaker all lit up coming down on me wasn't showing up on radar (no ais) well that was until I realized it was a quarter moon rising...
Got it: FADs are b@$t@rds (quite right) but the Moon is your friend! That I guess is the equation: the calm of the night mixed with the anxiety of night sailing. Great talk, guys. All best.
My computer is a mini tower and its internal battery that keeps the time has failed. Keeping the power on, but not booted up, saves me having to reset the clock on every boot-up, so I got into the habit of leaving it plugged in when not in use. It was only after recording this podcast that I discovered how much power this is consuming!
@followtheboat Do you know your way around that computer? There is usually a watch battery on the motherboard which can be replaced. If its helpful and you can't get them locally I would be happy to post some to you?
From what you're saying it seems that solo sailing at night in that area would be untenable? I have AIS and a chart plotter which will tell me the CPA of another AIS target. However my chart plotter doesn't show me where the point of intersect is. So if I'm unhappy about how close a vessel is going to come to me, I generally don't manoeuvre because a change of course could actually make it worse.
Agreed. I won't change course until I have spoken to the other vessel(s) because it can cause confusion. We know plenty of solo sailors who do these passages, they're just all a bit mad, that's all 😉
