“My normal day on board Northabout” by Ros

Ros Edwards crew NE passage

“Twenty four hour sailing, is peculiarly gruelling. We do two, four hour, watches each day. Mine are 0400 to 0800 and 1600 to 2000. Doesn’t sound like a lot does it? Eight hours to sleep from 2000 to 0400, and eight hours to do chores and relax.  So in practice it looks something like this:

0330 alarm goes- get up, grab breakfast- get into sailing gear and lifejacket – this in itself is exhausting in a rough sea

0400 to 0800 – take it in turns, half an hour in the cockpit each, with the other person on watch…. in the rough weather, and when on a point of sail that’s at all tricky, we are hand-helming because the autohelm cannot keep a course on the wind which keeps the boat sailing efficiently (and it sometimes loses its lunch completely and decides to tack, and at one point when I was on watch tried to jibe) Helming in rough weather is tiring and scary. I am a watch leader (although very novice, so when conditions are at all tricky one of Nikolay or Denis is always around to keep an eye and lend a hand), so when my watch partner is on deck I am still responsible for the boat and so keep an eye on the course, any boats that may be around, and whether my watch partner is having any problems.

If it is my day to cook (I have two cooking days each week) I try to do some preparation for lunch during my half hours out of the cockpit.

Ben and I are responsible for recording the trip on photograph, video and sound, so during my half hours I will also be trying to get video and photographs, and in particular be trying to send anything we have recorded back to Polar Ocean using the satellite phone. Ben does all of the sound recording and is the drone pilot, and I tend to do the stills and video recording. We often do a lot of recording when we are on watch together in the morning (0600 to 0800), and Ben will record David’s audio diaries when they are on watch together from 0800 until 1000. Because of the nature of satellite phone communication it can often take the whole of the rest of the day to transfer the material we have recorded (and only short clips of any video) back to the Polar Ocean team, who upload photos and video to youtube and website with our descriptions.

0800 to 0900 come off watch. Probably spend an hour winding down and doing further recording, editing and sending

0900 to 1200 In my cabin to switch off and catch up on sleep – Maybe two hours’ sleep

1200 to 1300 if it’s my cooking day, I may be preparing lunch If lunch is something everyone can help themselves to, or it ‘s not my cooking day, then I’ll be editing and transfering material

1300 lunch

1330 to 1530 often gathering, editing and trying to transfer more material relaxing, reading, writing, chatting, chores, possibly another nap

1530 afternoon alarm goes get ready to go on watch

1600 to 2000 a repeat of 0800 to 1200 if it’s my cooking day then some of the time not in the cockpit will be spent preparing food

we eat at 1900 so my watch time is awkward for preparing dinner, but Barbara and Constance are both much better cooks than I am, and are always ready to jump in if I’m struggling to get everything ready and do the watch

2000 to 2100 or 2200 wind down possibly do some more transfering/editing relax, read, write, chat

2100/2200 ish get ready for bed sleep if it’s calm then I’ll get around 4 to 5 hours’ sleep (If it’s rough, none of us sleeps very well).

That’s my day!