All this talk about what to listen to on watch has me thinking about watch schedules. I haven't been on watch for a couple of years (temporarily landlocked) but when I was, after a few nights of "4 on 4 off" we switched to what I think is called the Swedish watch and loved it. We no longer were exhausted all the time. The crew had an opportunity to socialize a bit rather than just pass in the companionway, and we almost always got to eat at least one meal together.
Here's how we did it: We divided the day into daylight hours and nighttime hours. What those times are would depend on your latitude and time of year. We used 8am to 8pm for daylight and 8pm to 8am for nighttime. The daylight hours are divided into two 6-hour watches. The nighttime hours are divided into three 4-hour watches. So it works like this: A-Watch: 8am-2pm 8pm-12am 4am-8am 2pm-8pm .and so on. It's not a problem doing 6 hours in the daylight. The watch "swings" so everyone gets to experience the various times of day which we found kept us fresh and made for a more interesting passage. You get at least one good 6-hour sleep a day - big difference from just 4-hours. We felt fully rested and ended up able to spend time together before and after change of watch. Has anyone else used this watch schedule? Or are there others that are less tiring than 4-on 4-off? Marce
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