Sailing Question...

I've got a question about the specifics of sailing - especially at night. For whatever reason, none of the books I've got on the subject really answer this question.

Given the basic premise of an oversea voyage in a moderately big sailing vessel, let's say a 90 foot 3-master (a caravel or similar ship) - what is the normal procedure for sailing at night? I know that often, ships would sail close to land, dropping anchor at night along shore, but what if they are crossing the sea and will be at sea for several days? Do they cut back to minimal sail and keep watch to make sure they don't run into something? Do they stop entirely in mid-ocean?

I'd imagine that if they had very good charts and navigation aids, they could sail at full speed, but that would be pretty rare, and only the best sailors would try it.

Any ideas on how things were handled?

You will be surprised at how much you can see at night just by starlight when there are no other lights nearby within miles. A lot of it was done that way. Light has traditionally been put through red glass, thus allowing for tasks that require a little more light like reading compass or cooking a meal.

Check with tall ship sites and if you email them questions they will probably be able to answer your questions further.

Having spent 9 years in the Navy (granted I was on a modern ship and not a historic sailing vessel) I remember being able to see out on deck pretty well on nights that the moon was full or unobstructed by cloud cover (burning oil rigs helped in the Gulf, but I doubt that would be typical in a D&D game). We used mag-lites with red lenses to see when it was really dark as stated above. As for speed, I remember we did usually slow down a bit at night, but if need be we would cruise at a nice clip. The number of look-outs remained the same at night though. "Stopping" in the middle of the ocean is nigh on impossible. You instead would be DIW or Dead in the Water. Anchoring out in the ocean/sea is extremely dangerous even with modern technology. If you mis-calculate and drop anchor in some underwater gorge you can easily lose the hook, parting the anchor chain and likely end some poor fools life early. My buddy was on-board the USS Sacremento when this happened, suffice to say it wasn't pretty and the captain was relieved as soon as the replacement could be flown out. Anchors Aweigh and all that

Kid Charlemagne said:

I'd imagine that if they had very good charts and navigation aids, they could sail at full speed, but that would be pretty rare, and only the best sailors would try it.

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If you're talking about crossing oceans, why not? Unless you're up in the North Sea, or some other place highly frequented by icebergs, it isn't like you're going to hit anything! The deep oceans are several thousand miles of absolute nothing!

As I understand it, period navigation was not about starting from point A, and going directly to point B with little error. Instead, you start at point A, sail in the right general direction for a long while, and when you get somewhere near the right continent, then you worry more about the details. Their maps weren't really accurate enough for anything else.

Umbran said:

As I understand it, period navigation was not about starting from point A, and going directly to point B with little error. Instead, you start at point A, sail in the right general direction for a long while, and when you get somewhere near the right continent, then you worry more about the details. Their maps weren't really accurate enough for anything else.

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That's pretty accurate, yes. As for sailing at night... it was commonplace in the past (as somebody else mentioned, anchoring in the middle of the sea is still unsafe today, and way back when it was nearly impossible). Navigation at night was largely handled by approximation of position based on astronomy - even my grandfather, hailing from a relatively younger generation of sailors, possessed as much knowledge of astronomy as many college professors who teach such subjects.

I think this has been de-emphasized in recent years as technology has improved (my father was a Marine Corp officer and, while he had some familiarity with astronomy gleaned from time at sea, it didn't even come close to rivalling my grandfather's knowledge on the subject). Sailing at night is still fairly common today, but technology has made learning to navigate by star positions fairly pointless (in fact, I'm not sure if the Navy of today still teaches such things).

One other thing to note is that the D&Dism of anchoring at night so that the crew can sleep (or relax) is just that - a D&Dism. Sailing was, and is, a full-time endeavor and requires a large crew working in shifts to safely get from one place to another upon the tide. Dropping anchor for the night so that the whole crew can bed down just didn't happen very regularly (if ever) in real life. Indeed, hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation are thought to tie in with tales of sea monsters and mermaids that riddle ancient maritime legend.

Growing up around several generations of sailors has given me some unique insight into how the profession has changed over the last century (I represent the first generation of Hargrove in nearly six to not have some direct tie to the sea).

jdrakeh said:

(I represent the first generation of Hargrove in nearly six to not have some direct tie to the sea).

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Well, we can fix that. Quick, someone slap an octopus on his head!

Thanks for all the info! All the sourcebooks I have on the subject indicate the crew requirements for sailing at night, but I was more interested in the specifics of how it was done, for more of a "setting the scene" sort of purpose. I think I've got a good start on it now...

I imagine that the only real threat from sailing at night is running aground on something the watch might miss at night as opposed to day. Replace the night watch with people with low-light vision and you've got that covered.

Kid Charlemagne said:

Given the basic premise of an oversea voyage in a moderately big sailing vessel, let's say a 90 foot 3-master (a caravel or similar ship) - what is the normal procedure for sailing at night?

Any ideas on how things were handled?

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Yes.

A ship sailing offshore operates around the clock. A ship's crew is broken up into two or possibly three watch groups. Watches generally lasted four hours. Time is kept with sand hourglasses and bell is rung every half hour to signify the passing of time. (Ring once after the first half hour, twice after the second half hour, etc, 'til "eight bells" at the change of the watch.)

Offshore navigation is mixture of dead reckoning and celestial determinations of latitude.

Dead (from deduced) Reckoning is simply plotting the course you've traveled knowing the speed you're traveling and the direction (courtesy of your compass).
Speed was checked every 1/2 hour with a chip log (A piece of wood attached to a rope is thrown over the side. You let out more rope as the ship sails away from the piece of wood. After a set amount of time -- noted on a small sand hourglass -- you reel in the rope and measure how much you let out. To help measurements the rope was knotted at set intervals, resulting in nautical speeds being referred to as "knots".)

The mate in charge of the watch kept track of speed and direction every half hour on a pegboard known as a traverse board, and the captain or navigator would convert the info to a chart plot later.

Latitude was determined by observations of the sun at noon or of polaris at sunrise/sunset using an astrolabe (or quadrant, octant, sextant) Longitude by the stars was a lot tougher, and not widely used til the 1700s.

Accuracy of charts isn't really important if you're offshore. Charts showed latitude and longitude and approximations of the coastline. More important when operating along the coast were "rutters" -- books of diagrams and sailing directions. The diagrams were sketches showing what a given part of the coastline should look like from your ship when you were safely approaching a port -- how the mountains, trees and other landmarks lined up. The written directions including warnings about hazardous rocks, reefs, shallow sandbars etc. Needless to say, these books were highly prized and considered company secrets by merchantmen.

As for practical navigation closer into shore, you're relying on other tools. One of the biggest is a leadline, or depthsounder -- a chunk of lead on a rope thrown over the side then hauled back to determine the depth. Other signs that are particularly valuable at night: changes in the direction and speed of breeze closer to land, changes in cloud cover over land, the smell of the air if the wind is coming from the shore, and the ominous sound of waves crashing on the shore.

As for sails, it depends on the weather, the skill level of the crew and your sense of urgency. You can carry the same amount of sails at night as at day as long as you're confident about the crew's ability to strike sails quickly if a squall comes up. For an experienced crew, setting and striking at night or day makes no difference. If you're short-handed, or if the crew is more inexperienced, you're likely to reduce sails overnight as a precaution. Better to lose a couple knots of speed for the night than to lose the rig in blow.

If you're operating along the shore though, you are likely to reduce sails and speed in order to make it easier to cast the leadline, and give yourself time to get out of a bad situation.

Hope that helps.

Carl