It is not always necessary to start with watches. On many voyages the Tecla sets sail in the morning to be at anchor or moored somewhere new every evening. This way, all can be part of the sailing and the anchor watches are done by the professional crew.
It becomes necessary to ‘do’ watches as soon as one or more nights are to be sailed through and more than 24 hours are spend out at sea. This way, there are always enough persons on the deck to handle the sails and keep a look out
Red White and Blue
The Tecla works with a three watch schedule, this means you will be on watch for 4 hours, have 8 hours of watch and then again you will be on watch for 4 hours. So within 24 hours you will be on watch for 8 hours.
The watches are divided into the Red, White and Blue watch.
Red: 00:00 – 04:00 and 12:00 – 16:00 hours
White: 04:00 – 08:00 and 16:00 – 20:00 hours
Blue: 08:00 – 12:00 and 20:00 – 24:00 hours
Each watch has a watch leader, one of the permanent crew. The crew will give you instructions during your watch. For example: your first watch might be filled with instructions on what watch keeping is. You will be told what is expected and you will be informed about the navigational equipment on board.
Next watch you will get more confident in steering the vessel on your own and the longer the watches will continue, the more you will learn.
Watch keeping means being out on deck, awake and helping out where is necessary. You will sit on the aft relaxing, being on the lookout or with bad visibility you will be on the front of the Tecla on the lookout. You will be steering the vessel in turns. Getting grip of where the ship is going and feeling that you are doing that! Three watches means that the watches are never bigger than 6 people.
For the comfort of all those on board there is a schedule and we will try and stick to it. While watches are in progress, breakfast will be at 08:00h, lunch will be at 12:00h and dinner at 18:00h. In between there will be tea, coffee and some snack. Hot ones if the weather is bad!
