SAILING AT NIGHT … A BLIND SAILOR PERSPECTIVE
By Urban Miyares, Co-Founder, Challenged America Program
There is definitely a difference between having a disability and being handicapped. Sailing at night is but one example. For the sighted, nighttime brings horror and uncertainty, a sudden realization of being handicapped. For me, with more than 40,000 nautical miles of sailing under my keel, half done after I went total blind more than three decades ago, nighttime sailing is sailing as usual, but with a disability.
Those who have sailed with me continually ask me, or whisper to others, “How does he do it? He knows where everything is, he trims sails, steers better than most, even works fore deck, and he can call WIND pugs, and shifts, and tell when the boat is not going right or has kelp on the keel.”
Having sight can often be a terrible thing to have when sailing. Those with sight rely, almost entirely, on what they see visually, whether it is the telltales on the sail, a ripple in the water, what their, instruments and electronics reveal, etc. In addition, when nightfall arrives, many become hesitant sailors, focusing on their instrumentation, which is awful dangerous if your other senses are not in-tune to the environment and your vessel. In most instances, offshore and overnight races are won at night, as the more handicapped your crew becomes with nightfall, the slower your sailboat will go.
Good sailors need to be able to train their other senses so they are confident in what all their senses tell them, day or night, regardless of what they may or may not see.
A number of sailing programs, both learn-to-sail and those for professional sailors have done exercises on sailing blind by blindfolding crew members to force them to pay attention to their other senses. Although this might be a great exercise in sensitivity or awareness, it really accomplishes little as, being blindfolded, does not change the mind’s problem-solving capabilities as a sighted person. Once you take the blindfold off, you are sighted again and back to the sighted world. Additional training and practice is needed to hone the abilities of the other senses to support one’s sighted impressions, and be available when sight is minimized or lost.
Okay, now it is time to confess to all … even THOUGH a number have heard me teach about how to sail blind, such as during a moonless night.
PREPARATION
I get a short haircut before each (major) race and the morning before heading to the dock, I make sure to have a close shave. To include shaving the back of my neck, even though it may not need it. This to increase my sensitivity to the wind, and it is not uncommon for me to have a tube of Ben Gay in my sailing ditty to put a dab on the back of my neck or cheeks before and during a race. To other crewmembers, it must smell as if I just came from therapy. In addition, on long-distance races, dry shaving is not an uncommon ritual I have before I go on deck.
I realize that having a beard and long hair looks nautical and seafaring, but for those relishing their full beards and long hair, you are covering up part of your body’s largest sensitivity instrument, your skin.
Additionally, I often put mineral oil in my ears) days before sailing) to make sure there is no build-up of earwax, hearing is another indicator to help me when sailing.
Helmets are becoming more frequent in both dinghy and large boat sailing and I prefer to use the bicycle style of helmet as it leaves more of my face exposed to the air, and my ears and back of my neck unblocked.
Tip: For sighted sailors, keeping one eye closed before coming on deck at night helps you better acclimate to darkness; and, when going below deck to retrieve something close one eye to prevent complete night blindness by a light.
WIND
Now it becomes fun, identifying the wind, where it’s coming from or will come from, its strength, and patterns. The wind offers invisible clues when relying on sight alone. In addition, when nighttime darkness comes, the visible clues of clouds, watercolor and even other vessels near you, disappear
It takes practice and a lot of time on the water to truly be able to feel the wind, its direction, and pressure, especially with no visual clews. Not everyone is able to do it, not even the blind.
Turning your face into the wind and feeling, it on your face and cheeks is a great indicator of the wind’s direction. In light winds, especially when ghosting along, the degree of coolness on one cheek over the other, as you turn your head, will direct you to the wind’s direction.
Note: The saying that a fast boat is a quiet boat is oh so true. And the quieter the boat and its crew, the easier it will be to concentrate on your other clue-giving senses and find the wind’s direction, as well as other telltales of the boat’s behavior.
In training the blind how to identify the wind, many will instruct student to face the wind when it comes from astern, as recognizing wind direction when running downwind is the biggest challenge, especially in light winds, without (useable) sight and at night, for everyone. I am not a big proponent of this as turning away from the boat, and eliminating a crew position diminishes others senses, such as hearing and others being able to hear you speaking. Training using the back of the neck can, turning your head from one side to the other to sense a difference in temperature on your cheeks, should be developed to enhance one’s sensitivity to the wind in darkness.
Tip: When I am trimming the spinnaker, I will position myself in front of the skipper and face astern, so we can communicate directly with one another, and I only need to turn my head slightly to instruct or hear the grinders and mainsheet/traveler crewmember. In lighter winds, I will have One hand holding the spinnaker sheet and the other hand holding the spinnaker guy, all trimming is instantaneous from when the skipper gives a new course correction (always using one syllable words, such as “Up” or “Down,” and I then wait for the adjustment on the mainsheet or traveler to make the correct adjustments. If I am not in sync with the cockpit, I can feel the spinnaker sheet or guy slacking or hear the spinnaker curl begin and then quickly adjust the sheet and guy.
With practice, gybing and sail changes become easier and less hectic, even at night, and the cockpit is surely quieter … with the boat going faster. If you now use a flashlight to check sail trim, especially spinnaker trim, you are definitely going slower than you should be. An indication of little sensitivity to the vessel and its behaviors.
Tip: depending on wind strength, I try to take as few wraps on the winch as possible so I can more immediately make sail trim adjustments. Sometimes, the sailboat’s behavior – heel, roll and motion – will be an indicator of an upcoming spinnaker curl or a puff, or lull that is forthcoming, giving an early indication of the spinnaker collapsing.
With all he electronics available today to convert a racing sailboat more into a “smart” boat, I continually discover that instruments and electronics can be wrong or only reflect history, long after the (new) wind has passed astern. Getting the feel of the boat and sails and becoming one with the vessel, is what sailing is all about, especially at night. In addition, suddenly you will discover (possibly on the helm) a new sensation about your boat, able to tell when a crewmember has gone from one side of the boat to the other, or has gone forward, even if this crew weight-shift is below-deck. The boat will behave differently. And often want you to tweak the sails a bit to adjust. Your boat will begin to talk to you.
Whether you are sailing on a wooden, fiberglass or carbon fiber built boat, its motion through the water creates a vibration on the hull. With practice, you can tell when your vessel is happy by its vibration, much like the perfect RPM on an engine. Put your palm on the (outside) hull and then change course slightly and feels the change in vibration. This is one of the ways I can tell if there is a small piece of grass or kelp on the keel of the boat, by a slight change in its vibration, even though it may only affect a fraction of a knot in hull speeds … and undetected by others.
Vibration on some jib sheets can also detect the power of the jib/genoa in some wind conditions, and dependent upon the thickness of the line. However, this is often not as accurate as a visual look, but definitely an asset at night, when you are unable to read the telltales or the sail’s curl.
In addition, the sails talk too … they vibrate, much like the hull of your boat, and on some vessels have certain types of sail material, I am able to feel the sail’s vibration talking to me all the way to the top batten of the mainsail. Tuning the sail and trim is much more than visual, as the sail speak a silent message through its vibration. When you think, you can sense this message, experiment by tweaking sail trim and then checking boat speed. One-tenth of a knot in boat speed can be the difference between a podium position and being in the audience.
Ever hears someone yell, “Puff ins 5 …4…3…2 and then the number 1 is delayed or rushed?” This is because what they saw on the water or from another boat is not exactly true. This is where a person who is experienced in using his sensitivity and experience can call puffs, shifts, and even wind holes exactly on time, even at night.
Think of wind as waves pushing whatever is in front of it ahead of the true wind. This air space in front of the oncoming wind is what I call pressure. Not being a weather forecaster or a meteorologist, all I know is that I can sense this “pressure,” sometimes as much as 3 or 4 seconds before the wind actually arrives, mostly in light winds up to 5 or 6 knots.
In some instances, that pressure – or sudden change or void feeling air – has a change in temperature or difference in aroma (e.g., seaweed, garbage, food from another vessel, fish, grass, cigar or pipe smoke, etc.).
Of course, the water temperature and air temperature, both at the waterline and at the top of the mast, have much to do with wind speed and flow, and understanding the relationship is a tremendous asset when racing at night.
Do not be fooled by an unexpected sound at night, and especially in fog. I have yet to figure this one out as the same sound can seemingly come from two different directions, without any wind present to influence the direction. I have tried clapping my hands in the fog to experiment sound and its direction, but that has proved fruitless for me. Ghosting along in heavy fog is my, personal, biggest challenge, even with my other senses honed. Sailing in Southern California, I don’t get too much of an opportunity to sail in the East Coast fog I grew up with.
In training others how to become sensitized to this wind pressure, you can tell that it is a guessing game, and far from a science. Anyone can practice, whether at sea, at the dock or at home. The more you practice and continue to test your ability, the better you will become at predicting wind puffs, shifts and even wind holes, and where the new direction will be coming from.
COURSE OR DIRECTION
Now with GPS, in addition to the traditional compass, knowing your vessels course is quite accurate to predict. However, I have been told, more than one time by well-seasoned and professional offshore racers that they were caught with no electronics or lights on a moonless night at the helm and thought of me instantly. “Welcome to my world,” has always been my response, as this same incident happened to Challenged America racing team in the 2003 Transpac Race to Hawaii when all our power suddenly went out at night, as we were running downwind, in 25+ knots of wind, surfing in Pacific Rollers. I jumped on the helm right away in the dark and kept the boat moving along at 15-plus knots for an extended length of time, and when the power returned the instruments lit up, I was steering only a few degrees from our true course.
Sea conditions, mainly waves, are a sensory indicator that few pay attention to. But for a sailor experienced is sailing and using his other senses, no matter the pattern of the sea, the direction of the waves (knowing the compass direction is critical) and being able to get into the rhythm of the waves, is a tremendous indicator of location and surroundings. Wave patterns change and you can instantly identify deeper or shallower water, possible wind direction change, a coming weather change, and definitely feel a behavior in the boat, as adjustments to the trim and backstay tension may be required. These are often areas that sighted sailors overlook or do not react to at night.
Before all of today’s’ advanced technology in navigation and GPS, I carried a Braille compass in my ditty bag below deck. In addition, when I went to my bunk, I often check my Braille compass to confirm the course, and it was not uncommon for me to yell, when I was supposed to be sleeping, up to the cockpit, “You’re 10 degrees off course!” I never told anyone the secret of my Braille compass, and kept the mystery through all those years. I am sure many, who have sailed with me, wondered how I was able to know about the need for a course correction.
SAILS. At Challenged America, we often had instruction on handling sails below deck; from tricks on being able to identify a specific sail bag without having a flashlight, to packing a spinnaker below deck and at night. On many races, where I know I would be called on the retrieve sails below deck, I would have different tactile indicators to identify a sails head, tack, and clew. as well as a marking on a spinnaker bag – if we had more than one type of spinnaker packed in the same type of bag. Of course, organizing sail bags below deck to meet the possible need in a specific race needs to be pre-arrange with the skipper.
Interestingly, in our training exercises, the blind tended to pack spinnakers quicker and more effectively than most of the sighted sailing participants and volunteers.
Team Building Exercise: Have your crew blindfold themselves and, with someone sighted alongside, find all the lines, tie the sheets/guys to the clews, hook-ups, etc. on the foredeck. Then have them set the spinnaker pole and do a (mock) gybe, at the dock, when there is no wind, of course, In addition, having the cockpit crew blindfolded will also demonstrate and provide some sensitivity to racing at night. You want your crew to instinctively grab or reach out to the right item, with or without sight, and in tandem with other crewmembers. Later, without a blindfold on you will discover crewmembers more quickly handling the lines, especially at night, and they will be more attentive to to those lines not in use … many, have gone through this training and instinctively mitigated line spaghetti in the cockpit.
SPACIAL AWARENESS
A term used in blindness is “spacial awareness,” meaning some individuals with sight loss or total blindness have the ability to know where they are at all times and be able to navigate an area comfortably, even without a long cane, service dog or assistance from others. Not everyone who is blind or legally blind has spacial awareness, and many people with sight do not have it either. Spacial awareness is a gift; an internal, biological compass. Some have it; others do not, regardless of sight or sight loss.
This ability of spacial awareness becomes most evident at night, such as in a man overboard (MOB) incident. Where others are visually searching for clues, those crew members with good spacial awareness (both those sighted and those who are blind) have a better notion of the area where the MOB is.
In one incident I was involved with at night, a crew member went overboard and when the forward sails were dropped and we came about to search, everyone assumed he was on the starboard side of the boat, and I was sure he was on the port side. In about 10 minutes of searching, a crew member alongside me spotted the MOB on the port side.
Note: Having conducted a number of MOB exercises at night, it is that spacial awareness that separates those who do well at night in emergencies. From the others who rely on (sighted) clues and assistance.
Finding that needle in the haystack becomes much easier when you have a better idea of where in the haystack the needle.is. Spacial awareness takes away much of the guessing.
Having trained hundreds who are visually impaired and total blind at Challenged America, there are only four individual who were total blind who had good to excellent spacial awareness on the water, and maybe a dozen others who were visually impaired who did well with their spacial awareness talents in the daylight, but lost most of this ability at night. Spacial awareness skills become greater enhanced by continuous practice, on land and at sea.
I am sure you know someone who has “no sense of direction; they are unable to find their way out of a parking lot or even out of a department store. This is an example of no spacial awareness.
BOAT SPEED
You know when you are getting into the sensitivity of sailing when you can accurately tell your vessel’s speed, day or night, without instruments. From the heel to the bow wave’s sound, sail enough and almost anyone will pick up the clues of telling how fast the boat is going through the water.
For me, I still need to ask how fast we are going, when I am on a new boat. I am a person on the boat and not someone yet sensitive to the boat, its behaviors and sensations. In a short period of time, and after a few tacks, I am tuned in quickly.
A good way to see how well your crew is tuned-in to your vessel’s behaviors, ask a crew member to go below deck and then, after a few minutes or a tack or two, yell out how fast they believe the boat is going. Do this more than once, to eliminate a lucky guess. The more your crew gets to feel the boat and its many behaviors, the sooner they will become sensitive to the boat and its performance and accurately tell its speed, both day and night.
BELOWDECK
When stocking your vessel with supplies, tools, emergency gear, first aid supplies, etc., having someone who is organized and has spacial awareness will surely be an asset, as it seems most emergency needs happen at night. On many sailboats I have raced on, I was asked to pack the boat, to include the sail storage – as I like to keep storm sails and heavy weather sails in a separate area, unlike others who bury them on the bottom of the working sails. With this, it has not been uncommon that I retrieved a much needed tool or fitting before a fellow crew member found the flashlight.
SUMMARY
Being sighted requires less need for memorization, continual awareness, concentration, or calculation and thought. You are entirely reliant on vision, and ignoring your other senses. Take the time to tune-in to your other senses while sailing.
Feel and smell the wind, sense your vessel’s vibrations, try to anticipate what your vessel will do before a wave or the new wind reaches you. Once you capture this feeling, sailing will be more enjoyable, even at night.
Being “with” your sailboat is more enriching than being “on” your boat.
Hope the above comments provides you one or more tips or tricks to help you feel more comfortable and safer in sailing and racing faster at night.
There are many more tips and tricks in sailing at night, and I am available for your next Volvo campaign as night crew.”
Urban Miyares, co-founder of the Challenged America program, is currently writing a book on the 39-year history of “Challenged America.” You can reach Urban at Port@ChallengedAmerica.org.
