Cal Massey of Park City, UT, asks:

Jeff and Crew, could you describe a watch, and the typical duties during the watch. What log book entries are made and how often are they recorded?

Jeff Leishman responds:

Hey Cal (Cal is one of our newest Nordhavn 40 owners), I'd be happy to describe our watch procedures.

We run a schedule that I described some time ago at the beginning of our leg, that consists of six 3-hr. watches from 6am to midnight, and three 2-hr. watches from midnight to 6am. We keep the same schedule the whole time, there is no rotation. I find that this works best for me being able to get into a set routine.

Before we began the ATW Jim gave a lot of thought to the actual watch routines. He was unable to find a log book that was acceptable to him from any book stores, so he created a really comprehensive one on his own. At intervals of 1 hr. the watch stander records the following data:

Lat/Lon
Course
VMG
RPM
Engineroom check
Net amps (tells if your charge rate is keeping up with your dc demand)
Alternator output
Wind direction
Wind speed
Barometric pressure

Every hour we fill in the blanks and do a visual engineroom check. We look for trouble developing, chafe, weeping fittings or hoses, oil leaks, stuffing box, etc.

Then at noon each day we do a complete inspection of the boat. There is a detailed list of all the inspection points to be checked. For a 24 hr. period the log contains three sheets. I'm sure Jim would be happy to share it with you. In between the hourly sign-in, we read and do things like this e-mail, but we are always in the wheel house. The early morning watchman (Justin) has the added duty of flying fish removal.

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