​Many sailors will rarely do more than short day-sails throughout their sailing career. And that’s fine. For the more adventurous, the idea of longer voyages soon becomes appealing. In fact, many students consider their night sailing to be the highlight of their course.

Even then, many night sails don’t require a watch system. But if your voyage is going to be over 18 hours or more, it’s worth putting in place some sort of watch system, especially if conditions are challenging. This helps keep people safe from exposure on deck and allows for equal rest for all, even if that isn’t always sleep.

In this short video, we bring it back to basics. Once you have appraised what you need in terms of charts, pilotage books and almanacs, etc it's simply a matter of working out how long the passage is likely to be (an estimate based on the distance divided by an estimated boat speed).

Once you have that, work out the critical tidal windows and when you will meet them and then you will be able to plan the passage based on when you want to get there and/or when you want to leave.

Remember;
Appraise - Plan - Excecute - Monitor
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