So who loves sleeping on your boat in a gale force wind?

[rsn48]

A buddy has just moved onto his new to him 32 Nordic Tug in Comox. Tonight they are suppose to be hit by a gale force wind. I think this is his first time in a substantial wind on a boat sleeping. All of his boating has been summer sailboat cruising.

I actually sleep better in a gale force wind than normally. I know anchor dragging anxiety either on your boat or the other guy is a pucker factor, but how do you sleep?

 

[SteveK]

at the dock or at anchor? I would not want to be at anchor on a new to me boat. Best wishes to him. Had a look at windy and only see gusts of gale force with sustained wind in the 20's. It will be an experience.

 

[FF]

Many live aboard folks weather winter winds dockside with little effort .

The scenery looking out , especially during and after a heavy snow is a delight.

A sea kindly boat underway will frequently have genuine seagoing bunks ,,,,,(no not a king sized walk around)

dry,snug, well secured, well ventilated with easy access underway.

 

[Gabe n Em]

I've done it at the dock and on anchor in our boat. I've also been offshore on the work boat in gale force (and hurricane force, but that's not the question). I never sleep well. Too much to listen to - dock lines, anchor drag alarm, rain, waves. The bunk is comfortable and it has to be really big for the bunk movement to be the problem.

 

[High Wire]

On a mooring ball? With ear plugs in the aft cabin.
At anchor, no ear plugs with anchor drag alarm set at 100 ft, keys in the "ignition" and everything ready to go. A large print puzzle book of your choice helps pass the time.
Sleep comes when the wind calms down a bit.

 

[menzies]

Sleep like babies most of the time.

Easier at anchor where fenders aren't against a dock or people walking by.

Having a center master helps a lot.

Also helps being in empty or near empty anchorages (e.g. Exuma) where you put out 100 feet of chain in ten feet of water!

We were standing on the bow once on a multi-day anchor off Hawksbill a couple of years ago (three was the most boats we have ever had in there) and my brother asked me why I had so much chain out.

My answer: why not?

 

[jgwinks]

We've ridden out many storms on the mooring. Won't say I love it, but it doesn't bother me much. Only concern is if it got bad enough to want off the boat, no way I'm getting in the dinghy. Ridden out a couple at the dock, that was no fun at all. Beam to the wind and heeling over. Boat slamming into the fenders or snatching up on the dock lines. And again if it's bad enough to want off, you might not survive the jump to the dock. At anchor, kind of in between. Boat rides ok but concerned about dragging or getting dragged into.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

On the dock not that many worries. On the hook, I tend to put out more rode and have an anchor watch. My MFD is also in track mode so I can see if we are dragging.

 

[Jeff F]

Fine, except for motion sickness which I'm prone to.

My wife compared it to sleeping in a tent. A few sleepless nights at first, but eventually you can sleep through gangs of raccoons snarling next to your head.

 

[Northern Spy]

I go down to the boat once a month or so and sleep on it if a decent gale is coming in.

Might even go tonight. Gales 30 to 40 knots forecasted.

 

[Moonfish]

As liveaboards, we have slept through MANY winter nights with winds in excess of 45-50 knots. Of course, most of those nights have been in our end-tie slip at the outer end of the marina. I will say that we do sleep in those conditions, just not very soundly!

The few times we have been at anchor in gale conditions we have slept less soundly than when on the dock in the same conditions. To which many of you will say, "duh!"

 

[Nomad Willy]

Who dosn’t?

 

[rgano]

You would think with a lot of US Navy and US Merchant Marine years at sea that sleeping aboard a boat would come easy to me. Well, it does at a pier and in flat calms at anchor. In a blow at sea, I never slept well in ships at all, except perhaps in my last ship in the Navy which was a 58,000-ton battleship. However, even in that ship during one memorable night with waves crashing over the main deck and then up against the exterior bulkhead of my stateroom under turret II, there was no sleeping. Rolling heavily in destroyers, nope, poor sleeping. In my trawler at sea, I never slept more than maybe an hour during our Gulf of Mexico overnight crossings, and that was on the settee within touching distance on my nervous wife who never got used to standing a night watch in twenty years of our owning the boat together. In our 30-footer downeast style Mainship, I have spent too few nights at anchor with the waves chuckling under the spray rails to get used to sleeping well aboard, especially with the ever-changing loading of the generator during air conditioning weather. With the new Micro-Air soft starter on my also new 10 KBtu Dometic Turbo ac unit, the stopping and starting noise of the ac and consequent load change noises on the genny are very much reduced, and we have a newly modified mattress to try out too. Now to find a waveless anchorage.....

 

[Russell Clifton]

If we are anchored and blowing over 30, I am up. I don't worry so much about my anchor dragging, I worry about those newbies up wind from me who I watched anchor. I can tell by just watching them how much anchoring experience they have. If they drag into me and tangle our anchor rode's, we are both screwed. It's really hard to see in the dark how they are twisted together, and add some rain, forget it.

 

[Simi 60]

Sleep like babies most of the time.

Easier at anchor where fenders aren't against a dock or people walking by.

Having a center master helps a lot.

Also helps being in empty or near empty anchorages (e.g. Exuma) where you put out 100 feet of chain in ten feet of water!

Thats us, sleep like the dead in near anything

We were standing on the bow once on a multi-day anchor off Hawksbill a couple of years ago (three was the most boats we have ever had in there) and my brother asked me why I had so much chain out.

My answer: why not?

Chain doesn't work when left in the locker.
Paid for it - use it.

 

[FF]

"Chain doesn't work when left in the locker., Paid for it - use it."

And scrub the mud off after every departure to avoid living with the low tide smell.

I am too lazy for anything but 5 ft of chain , unless in coral.

 

[rslifkin]

"Chain doesn't work when left in the locker., Paid for it - use it."

And scrub the mud off after every departure to avoid living with the low tide smell.

I am too lazy for anything but 5 ft of chain , unless in coral.

Or put a gasket on the chain locker door in the forward cabin and make sure it's got outside ventilation and good drainage. My locker drains overboard and has enough ventilation through the windlass chain pipe, etc. Door closes tightly but isn't sealed. I just hose the gunk off the chain as the windlass pulls it in and I've yet to have a smell issue. My normal anchor retrieval position is standing on the bow, windlass remote in one hand, washdown hose in the other.

 

[Fish53]

There isn't a better way to sleep, alone anyway.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

NOAA predicting up to 60' waves on the east coast......

 

[Wayfarer]

NOAA predicting up to 60' waves on the east coast......

That would probably keep me awake.

If I'm tied up to a dock, I'll sleep like a stump when it blows. If I'm anchored, I usually sleep well enough as long as the seas stay tame. I've had a couple of nights where the wind and waves picked up, and I had a hard time sleeping.

At work on the big boat, I used to sleep like a baby when things got windy. That all stopped when I started sailing captain. I just can't enjoy it as much anymore. As soon as she starts rolling, I wake up immediately.

 

[rsn48]

NOrthern Spy, not much to see but this was me on my boat a couple of months ago in a decent blow at Comox Valley marina. Sound up:

https://www.facebook.com/rick.nicholson.14/videos/10224416100212070

Had one of my best sleeps that night.

 

[Simi 60]

"Chain doesn't work when left in the locker., Paid for it - use it."

And scrub the mud off after every departure to avoid living with the low tide smell.

I am too lazy for anything but 5 ft of chain , unless in coral.

Deck hose, perhaps you've heard of them?

Ours is nothing more than a 22 LPM Johnson pump connected to cheap garden hose with the plastic nozzle it came with.
Works a treat.

 

[Lou_tribal]

We had 2 nights at anchor with wind over 30/40 knots and turning from one direction to another. First time I did not slept very well and was waking up every hour or so to check out if everything was fine. Second time was like "deja vue" so why to bother. Looks like we get used to everything. We were alone in our favorite bay so that helped also.
My wife slept well in both occasion but she could continue to sleep even if the house was collapsing so...



L

 

[BandB]

Fine, except for motion sickness which I'm prone to.

My wife compared it to sleeping in a tent. A few sleepless nights at first, but eventually you can sleep through gangs of raccoons snarling next to your head.

Zero speed stabilizers or a form of stabilization to limit rocking protect against the motion sickness.

At a marina, no problem for us. Anchored, someone will be on watch if we do that. Otherwise, give me all the equipment to monitor in the world, but I'd not be able to sleep.

We love sleeping on the boat and the motion doesn't bother us.

 

[markpierce]

I always recheck position while at anchor when the bladder awakes me, which occurs several times.

 

[FF]

"Deck hose, perhaps you've heard of them? "

Sure , but we go pleasure boating , for personal enjoyment , not to become an unpaid deck hand, every morning..

Different strokes ,for different folks.

 

[Simi 60]

"Deck hose, perhaps you've heard of them? "

Sure , but we go pleasure boating , for personal enjoyment , not to become an unpaid deck hand, every morning..

Different strokes ,for different folks.

95% of anchorages (sand) it never gets used.
Those that it does (mud) is several minutes blasting on the way up.
If its after 10am, it could well be with a beer in hand.
That's about the toughest job of the day apart from doing the dishes.

 

[South of Heaven]

Okay, I'll bite. I'm not superman! When I was a liveaboard I did it many times (on the dock). I hated it. Don't like the up and down and crazy violent movements. I also didn't like all the new loud sounds from the docks, bells, buildings etc dealing with the wind.

 

[Simi 60]

Okay, I'll bite. I'm not superman! When I was a liveaboard I did it many times (on the dock). I hated it. Don't like the up and down and crazy violent movements. I also didn't like all the new loud sounds from the docks, bells, buildings etc dealing with the wind.

You're in the wrong part of the world.

 

[rslifkin]

"Deck hose, perhaps you've heard of them? "

Sure , but we go pleasure boating , for personal enjoyment , not to become an unpaid deck hand, every morning..

Different strokes ,for different folks.

That's why I bought a big pump for my washdown. 95 percent of the time, just keeping the hose pointed at the roller is enough. Most of the mud gets knocked off by water running down the chain and the rest gets blasted off by the direct high-pressure spray. It's pretty rare that I can't get the chain clean enough with the windlass retrieving at full speed. It's usually the anchor itself that takes a little more work.



Getting really fancy would be to build a permanent mount sprayer below the roller like some Nordhavns. Then you just turn the pump on and start retrieving and it should all come in clean.