Captain's Log #8: Night Time

once read that over 85% of the world's population sleeps at night. Not so for a Captain on a sailing vessel going across an ocean. We have 6 onboard, which breaks down like this: 3 four hour day shifts, 4 three hour night shifts. Each shift has two people except mine, which I man alone as Tamera has graciously taken over pumping fuel into 5 bottomless pits, and putting her on watch as well would be cruel and unusual punishment. The schedule rotates so each day you get something a little different - one day bad, next day good - each getting a share of the pie equally with either 6 or 7 hours off between shifts. My crew, all very adept pupils and eager to learn, nonetheless have extremely little experience; so by day we learn about weather, trimming sails, using windvanes (a beautiful self steering mechanism that uses the wind and water for power), Man-Overboard drills, sinking drills, etc.

So at night, my watch completed, I usually head utterly exhausted down below for some much needed z's. A pattern has developed just as I begin twitching into unconsciousness that goes like this: BANG! Then again, BANG! Remember in all the old western's when the most skilled gunfighter never sleeps with both eyes closed and never looks at the fire? I am thus equipped, but with my ears. Any noise that doesn't fit rousts me, in the buff to the cockpit in under 2 seconds (if I'm slow). Then I look at two pairs of eyes that seem a little wild. A conversation takes place:

Gavin: "What is going on?"
Crew: "Not too sure"
Gavin: "Sounds like the boom is banging"
Crew: "Yes, that is it"
Gavin: "Pretty hard on the sail and gear, right?"
Crew: "Yes, definitely- as you have told us every day"
Gavin: "Right, so in order to stop that banging and save my rig, we do what?"
Crew: "Not too sure"
Gavin: "We fill the sail with the wind, which means you have come off course, the same course we have been travelling for 6 days- 216 degrees magnetic."
Crew: "Right"

That emergency taken care of, I wobble back to bed. But in short order I find myself scantily clad once again in the cockpit.
Gavin: "What is going on?"
Crew: "The wind has really changed! It is incredible!"
Gavin: "Hmm, well that could be it, OR and I think more LIKELY, is that you are now heading us to Guam, which would indeed change where the wind is apparently coming from. Given that we are in the trades, and the wind hasn't shifted more than ten degrees in 150 hours, I believe you have been deceived. Now, don't get me wrong, I have heard that Guam is nice, but we are going to the SOUTH Pacific."
Crew: "Right"

We get a good barometer of our progress when each day, we log our 24 hour run, which is usually in the neighborhood of 150 miles, but curiously, we have only made 120 miles good- that is, for exactly two night watches each night, we head for Guam, Hawaii, Panama, Japan- but never Tahiti!

Today's lesson plan: Travelling at night.