Is Singlehanding >24 Hrs. Morally Wrong?

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Small boat single handers in boats under - let's say- 40 feet are a danger to no one but themselves.

I beg to differ. I have seen videos of collisions between sub 40' sailboats that resulted in loosing a mast and/or major fiberglass damage. I see a potential for serious injury in the case of a headon or t-bone collision.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by olaf hart

Let the person who has not dozed off on a night watch cast the first stone...

Never happened to me. Had one crew member fall asleep on watch and that was the last time he sailed on one of my trips.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by markpierce

Boating single-handed is fine as long as an effective watch is maintained. On the other hand, sailing in the open seas out of shipping lanes while asleep poses little risk.

Little risk but not zero. I did once have to dodge another sailboat hundreds of miles from the nearest land. No idea if it was singlehanded or crew just asleep but the boat had no lights on a moonless, pitch black night and no one on deck. If I hadn't been keeping a really good watch we would have collided pretty much head on with a closing speed of 15 kts or so.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

It was suggested today that singlehanding more than 24 hrs is morally wrong.

Personally, I don't see it that way, and I am aware it has been discussed at length in a number of previous threads.

I'd appreciate it if we can all be respectful and friendly in the posts...

To be very clear, I think we need to respect the singlehanders, and provide support for them just as much as we do for other cruising sailors. For the singlehander, it is the bits close to land, with its rocky outcroppings that are most dangerous.

I have written elswhere on CF about unlit boats, and they're the bane of my sailing miles. Singlehanders, not so. We entertain them on the beach and boat, and would try to avoid them when going the same direction.

Maintaining a proper lookout has worked so far for us, and I do not begrudge attentiveness to anyone out there (except those unlit boats! )

There is basis in the Colregs for suggesting that the long term singlehander cannot maintain an effective watch 24/7. No one disputes that. But is it immoral to singlehand because it may place other people at risk?

The eternal question!!

You asked for everyone's opinion, so here's mine:

NO, it's not immoral, if done with care.

Just because we put others at risk does not automatically make it immoral. Everything we do, almost, puts others at risk. What is immoral is an UNREASONABLE risk to other people, which single handing does not create in my opinion if done with care.

"Done with care" means to do it in a seamanlike way. Although you cannot comply with COLREGS rule about watchkeeping, you can fulfill its purpose and spirit.

Some points to consider:

* Don't pass through areas of traffic, especially not coastal areas, if you are not physically capable of keeping a good watch and responding to risk of collision situations.

* Don't sail at high speed when you are napping or not capable of keeping a good watch (RTW racers will not agree with this one).

* Get enough sleep to have reasonable reactions and a clear head. Different people have different physiologies, so there's probably not a single rule which can apply to all, but speaking for myself, I would heave to, show NUC (although it's not technically called for by the Rules in this situation), and get a good sleep in. Other may cat nap with an egg timer -- if it works for them.

* Use technology. If you are hove to in the open sea away from traffic lanes, radar guard zone alarms and AIS alarms are very adequate -- in my opinion -- temporary substitutes for a visual watch. I think that this is a quantum leap above the egg-timer-and-frequent-horizon-scan method. The radar never blinks, never oversleeps, etc. etc.

OK, that's JMHO, and others will of course have different views, but you asked!

[chris95040]

I originally misread this as "is it ok to stay awake >24 hours?" but ok, really the question is "is it ok to not maintain an active human watch at all times."

Of course all of us do this for brief periods, even day sailors, you grab a drink, you go tinkle, you take your eyes off the road. So folks who answer "no!" just have different threshold for this than folks who answer "yes".

For me where that threshold lies, how long it's safe to have our eyes off the road, is some complex soup of boat speed, boat size, boat instrumentation, location/traffic, etc..

If some tiny boat is instrumented up the wazoo with stuff useful for collision avoidance I guess I don't care how long they are asleep. If it's a 60 foot tank zipping through traffic with no radar, I think it needs someones full attention.

[GTom]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

A small boat will get under your radar guard zones and many small boats don't have AIS

OP Ann wasn't talking about day/night/day passages... she was talking about serious passage making.

PS... don't try sailing offshore Peru.... small ***unlit*** boats out to 200 miles....

Actually radar should pick up even a floating container.

[Paul L]

Here's some interesting comments from.a judge in a case about a freighter and singlehander accident

*450 The obligation to maintain a proper lookout falls upon great vessels and small alike. Matter of Interstate Towing Co., 717 F.2d 752 (2d Cir.1983) (failure of "small pleasure craft" to maintain proper lookout held to contribute to her collision with barge under tow).

In the case at bar, Granholm's decision to go below during the nighttime was negligent. His own testimony reflects an awareness that this was so. I have previously quoted the relevant portion; Granholm said that "as a rule I made it a habit to take my resting periods during daytime and when the conditions were such that I could afford having some rest." The reasons are obvious. At night a sailboat, even displaying the proper lights, is not nearly as visible as she is in the daytime, when underway under sail. Granholm was sailing near a recognized transatlantic route for large vessels. He should have adhered to his own practice and rested only during the daytime. It may seem unfeeling to condemn single handed transatlantic sailors for sleeping at night. But they pursue this hazardous avocation voluntarily, and are not exempt from the requirements of prudent seamanship.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Small boat single handers in boats under - let's say- 40 feet are a danger to no one but themselves.

Big round the world racing boats being singlehanded? ... quite a different matter....

We're sailboat people. Generally we don't kill others, just ourselves. Power boaters generally kill others. Granted, these are generalizations but there is some truth to them.

The ocean racer that just hit a fishing boat and killed one or two fishermen wasn't singlehanding, yet they killed someone.

Additionally, there are no activities that don't have some level of risk. What's the difference between this and diving long distances? What's the difference between this and flying long distances? There are stories a few times a year where a plane crashes into a home or onto a highway and kills someone. There are cases where someone who is racing a car on a track or on a rally and slides off the road and kills a spectator.

Life is full of risks. One is far more likely to die falling down the stairs than from a single handed sailboat. I live here in New York City and you should see all the ways one can get killed, from bricks falling off of a high rise to idiots whose heads are so far up their phones that they walk in front of cars. We recently had someone killed in Central Park by a bicyclist who was moving at a good clip. Some woman who wasn't paying attention was just killed by an autonomous car in Arizona.

Strangely, we tend to focus on absurd things like this, or a plane crash, yet these are rare events contrasted to the every day mundane causes of deadly accidents.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by GTom

Actually radar should pick up even a floating container.

Yes/no.

Dependent on sea state and radar power.

For our little Furuno 1622 to operate adequately in watchman mode with any real seastate the radar must be tuned to sufficiently suppress surface reflections.

Otherwise the false alarms make the radar useless as a watch keeper for large floating metal objects several feet/meters above the surface of the sea.

[jrbogie]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

Yes. No one has the right to put others at risk. All the justifications and poor analogies you will receive on this thread are no more than excuses. No further explanation required. It is just that simple.

right, but nothing immoral about single handing 23 hrs 59 minutes 59 seconds.

[akprb]

Do nothing, that is the safest alternative and what a small portion of our population would like to see another large portion doing......nothing.

"Morally Wrong", well that has been addressed above very well.

Here's one, is it morally wrong to encourage a person with no sailing experience, next to no resources, a 23' daysailer and a dog to cross the Pacific Ocean solo?

That happens here every 3-5 days :-)

Full disclosure, I've singlehanded a 50' cat all over the Pacific and just sailed from Mystic CT to Nassau, Bahamas single handed. I'd venture to say my watchkeeping standards at night are as good or better than most with 3-5 inexperienced crew aboard to "learn the ropes", the kindle analogy made me laugh, so true!

[mvmojo]

Morality aside, it is illegal and potentially dangerous to oneself and others! I've heard the "logic" about 20 min naps, egg timers, radar alerts, AIS, etc., and on the surface of it, they can make some sense. But, on more than one occasion, we've had to alter our course for boats at night that didn't appear to have anyone on watch, didn't give way when they should have, didn't answer their radio and didn't respond to a spot light. There is an inherent element of danger in going to sea at all, why exacerbate that by intentionally not maintaining a proper lookout for other boats? Sort of like texting while driving!

[conachair]

Originally Posted by GTom

Actually radar should pick up even a floating container.

Flat calm maybe. Once the wind pipes up you need to turn the gains down a bit otherwise the alarm just goes off all the time and you'll get no sleep for days. A *much* riskier activity than the very small chance of bumping into something out there with small radar return and no AIS on the majority of the routes we would be on.
Still picks up decent returns though, but struggle with a little wooden or plastic sailing boat with a next to useless passive radar reflector fitted.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by mvmojo

Morality aside, it is illegal and potentially dangerous to oneself and others! I've heard the "logic" about 20 min naps, egg timers, radar alerts, AIS, etc., and on the surface of it, they can make some sense. But, on more than one occasion, we've had to alter our course for boats at night that didn't appear to have anyone on watch, didn't give way when they should have, didn't answer their radio and didn't respond to a spot light. There is an inherent element of danger in going to sea at all, why exacerbate that by intentionally not maintaining a proper lookout for other boats? Sort of like texting while driving!

Sure they were solo? In general from experience the single handers I've met are better at using tech to keep an eye on things. Were you transmitting AIS?

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Sojourner

I doze off every night watch.... for 20 minutes, until my egg timer goes off

There are modern aids to navigation (like AIS and RADAR "guard ring" alarms) that help in this respect...assuming the dozing notwatching-stander wakes up in a timely fashion! But that won't help the person who hits an adrift container that otherwise would have been easily spotted, or runs into an awash reef. Such a person may then "hit the big red button" and invoke SAR services where available, which may be needed elsewhere and which inevitably involve risk to the personnel doing the saving. Another issue is the harm done if the person not on watch loses a boat that pollutes a reef or dumps a few hundred litres of oils and fuels, fouling an environment. There's been a few cases of poor watchstanding (USS Guardian) where ships or even crewed boats have left a leaking wreck run up beaches or reefs causing a great deal of harm.

There's really no excuse for these things. Out of the shipping lanes, however, heaving to or laying to a sea anchor (i.e., "stopping to rest") is the time-honoured and proven best course for the single-hander. For one thing, a boat forereaching at one knot might survive a crunch with a reef or even a container that would sink it at six or seven knots. So I can't justify the "moral hazard" of being underway while alone and asleep. You are in every sense "not under command" (who hoists that signal these days outside of an RYA course?) which is the definition of your vessel being a hazard to navigation and something to which you should give a wide berth.