Wheat Googling #2

How do I let the sailors get more sleep?

Hello! Today I am trying to work out how I can let the sailors in the Age of Sail game I’m writing get enough sleep.

What did they do in real life?

The British Navy had a problem. Their giant, beautiful ships required a team of upwards of 100 people to crew them at a time. And they had seriously limited space. You might squeeze 200 people onto Captain Aubrey’s HMS Surprise, but you wouldn’t manage 300. And since one team of 100 needed to be on watch at all times, they were nearly always stuck with only two teams having to somehow cover the full 24 hours on deck.

So here’s what they did. The day was divided into seven ‘watches’, like this:

The watch system used by the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars

The two teams (called the Starboard Watch and the Larboard Watch) would alternate shifts. The genius of those two ‘dog’ watches was that it meant there was an uneven number of watches, so neither group got stuck on the graveyard shift two nights in a row.

I mean, it isn’t great. You can’t possibly get more than four hours’ sleep at a time. And because even cramming in enough people for two teams involved massive overcrowding, the admiralty only required that each sailor be allocated 14 inches to sling their hammock. Of course, half the crew was on deck at all times, so really each person got more like 28 inches, but that’s still a lot narrower than a single bed. On top of that, the sleeping area was also the crew’s dining and rec room, so hammocks had to be tidied away during the day. No chance of slipping off for a nap.

The navy did occasionally use a ‘three watch’ system (with the teams called ‘Red', ‘White', and ‘Blue’), in which everyone worked two watches on, one watch off. That’s a full eight hours off, two nights out of three. Much more humane, but almost never achieved.

What does the navy do nowadays?

These days, the Royal Navy does its best to give people a sensible amount of sleep. They know that most people need about seven hours, and they’ve even heard about circadian rhythms (it turns out that changing shifts on a constantly rotating cycle is significantly worse even than being permanently on the night shift).

Where possible, they favour a ‘four watch’ system: three hours on, nine hours off. Those nine hours aren’t always consecutive, and you’re working at least 12 hours out of 24, but it’s still a big improvement. The shifts rotate every three weeks or so. Over a long commission, everyone still spends an equal amount of time on the horrible shifts, but their bodies aren’t being constantly asked to adjust.

What shall I do?

But what if your top priority was crew wellbeing? The game I’m writing is loosely set in the Age of Sail. Think Master and Commander, or Hornblower. But there are a lot of differences. One of them is that, for reasons I will probably come to in a later newsletter, crew morale is the single most vital factor for the success and safety of the ship. The navy in my world is obliged to go to serious lengths to keep crews happy. But they do still have to have a team on deck round the clock.

So this is what I’ve come up with.

Proposed 'six watch' shift rotation system

OK. You’ve seen it. Now’s your chance to run screaming for the hills before I pin you to your chair and make you listen to me explain my diagram.

You’re still here? Incredible. Would you… would you like to be my new best friend?

OK diagram! The outer circle, coloured brown, shows all 24 hours of our day, with midnight at the top, and noon at the bottom.

The bells

The next circle in shows the bells system they used to keep time. At noon, they took the noon observation, the captain declared it officially 12pm, and they turned over a half hour sand timer and rang the ship’s bell once. When the timer ran out, they turned it over, and rang the bell twice. Next time, they rang the bell three times, and so on up to 8 bells, which always signaled the start/end of each watch.

The next circle in shows the names of each of the watches. I have combined the two dog watches and called them the evening watch, like the merchant navy did, but it’s otherwise the same as the picture I drew you earlier.

The rest of the information the diagram holds is about the shift pattern I’ve invented. Here’s the same stuff in table form in case that’s easier to read. Sorry the Owls are pink. For some reason I don’t have orange as an option.

I’ve tried to make the different shifts a bit varied so that most people can find one that roughly suits their preferences. The Larks might appeal to introverts, since their off time is when most people are working, and they are asleep through the most gregarious watch. Starlings, by contrast, are usually off at the same time as the largest number of other people, so might suit extroverts. The Doves and Swifts can stay in bed for 16 hours, if they like!

I have ringfenced midnight to 8am as quiet time. No-one is working or off, so everyone who isn’t on watch should be able to get some sleep. By contrast, between noon and 8pm, no-one is sleeping, so noisy work should be done then where possible. 8pm - midnight is the sociable watch. No-one works, most people are awake. Noisy fun happens here and I’ll just have to make sure the Larks’ hammocks are as far away from it as possible.

Other rules

• Larks and Owls are paid an extra 15%. Nightjars get an extra 10%.
• Everyone gets the option to change shifts every dark of the moon.
• Larks and Owls get first dibs on changing, followed by Nightjars.
• Ideally, vacated spots are filled by volunteers, but failing that by whoever took a night shift longest ago.
• Outside of the requirements above, no-one has to switch shifts.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Grace xx

PS: Which shift would you choose? I think I’d want to be a Starling.

Next time

Obviously, the above plan would require a crew of 600 to be squeezed onto a ship that can only accommodate 200. So next time, I will try to work out what innovations could allow for a much smaller crew requirement.

This week’s interesting link

An article about the Bio Bank study into sleep from Cambridge University (link)

Fascinating, and refreshingly undogmatic.