Night sailing+no moon+rain=unpleasant?

[Kiwifish 30]

Is sailing at night with no moon as dark as one would assume? Can you make out islands etc? Add rain is it a horrible experience pounding into completely unseen waves, following a GPS screen like sailing on a video game?

 

Or is that being a little dramatic?

 

Trying to decide on a night sail or stay home and watch the rugby???

[Battleship 100]

It is pretty rare to see nothing at all, you can usually make out shapes provided you have no bright lights on that ruin your night vision.

Of course staring at the GPS can also ruin your night vision I usually make a waypoint and then use a compass bearing to follow.

Night sailing can be a lot of fun but I would not choose to go sailing at night in the rain unless it was during a race or on a passage that had to made.

[Fogg 427]

My benchmark for this is a Fri night sail to Barrier which is far enough from the ambient coastal glow to be totally dark. With moon the entry is delightfully easy. But with nil moon it's dicey - the narrow Man O' War entrance is a real challenge even with a spotlight to gauge your distance from each side to stay central it's not easy. Often the spotlight just throws back glare from misty humid air and barely penetrates to the target you're trying to illuminate.

 

So I'd only do moonless night sails to places with good nav lighting and familiar, easy arrivals.

[B00B00 310]

I often find with no moon that near the city an overcast night is actually much brighter than a clear night. The loom of the city lights actually provides plenty of light that gets trapped by the clouds.

[harrytom 642]

depth sounder is a must. The last night sail I did was 4 weeks ago to north harbour ponui island.Thought we were far enough off the little island (the bay before)but when it read 2m new we were way to close,so changed course towards waiheke when it 6m knew we were safe.     I drive at night on country roads and love it,but out on the water it seems darker,my night vision does not work.

[wheels 543]

It is amazing how much Star Light on it's own can give you just enough visibility at night. But if there is heavy overcast, it is ink black with nothing at all able to be picked out. If you are within hills like the Sounds, it can be frightening if you have never experienced it before. The very first time we did, we had to get back inside the Sound to a mooring because we had an Anchor winch failure. It was years ago and GPS was pathetic back then. Very slow and I tell ya, the Sounds shrink in the Dark. For me anyway. It feels like the Hills come right close together and give you no room. It's not such a problem with decent GPS now and we have been through inky black several times. Although like AC above, we did decide to not risk Man-o-war passage even with the GPS because it was jet black dark, so anchored in outside bay just before the passage.
Heavy Rain and Fog is another form of scary. You always have this feeling something is going to come lurking out of the mist. I do have radar, but it is an old B/W LCD one and the dome is not in the best position. So it is not the best at returning a target. It's on my to do list to shift the dome.
This is where using the AIS on the laptop was great. At least if something did come out of the rain or most, it shouldn't be the size of a Ship.
One thing I did learn to do, was to take a Compass reading of a line out of a bay if we were in one. We had to get out of a bay one night in bad weather. Couldn't see a thing and even with a better GPS at that time, it still took ages to fire up and get a fix and then show me direction. All the time I could hear surf on the rocks each side of me, but could not hear a thing. If I had a compass fix, I could have simply steered the course out till the GPS told me what was what. The GPS also got me into another bay for shelter in the dark that night. I have no clue how one would do any of what we did if we didn't have the electronic gadgets we have today. A Torch and a listening ear I guess.
The darkest I have ever experienced was a Cave with the headlight turned off. So dark your mind plays tricks on you. You actually think you are starting to see shapes and think your night vision is getting better. Then you wave your hand in front of your eyes actually touching your nose and you see nothing of the hand at all and you realise just how dark it actually is.

[wild violet 38]

Most people stuff their night vision by staring at a chart plotter if you keep the cockpit dark you can usually pick outlines phosperence helps sometimes ive been out on very dark nights with rain .usually just tuck myself behind the dodger and poke head out every couple of minutes to look for lights.Having a good windvane or autopilot makes it bearable.And hot soup.

[Jon 360]

I think you should all stay home and safe

I love night sailing and it's a lot easier if your all safe at home

No matter how dark it is you can always see something

But heavy rain can be difficult, best to have a helmsman that just helms and a seperate person to navigate but with a good auto helm you can do both, my present boat has radar, I thought it was a waste of time until I had it

[Kiwifish 30]

Well it turns out your right, Night sailing is awesome! Three quarters of the way around Waiheke right now (5am) got lucky no rain yet. i think everyone is safe in bed no boats out so far.

[Island Time 1,235]

I'm with Jon. Night sailing is fine! Like any other time, you should never trust one form of navigation information. At night you've only lost one (sight) and then often not completely. You should still have a compass, depth finder, log, and hopefully a gps, plotter, possibly Ais, radar, wind instruments, light list, etc. All these are also aids to navigation....