How do the sailors manage their sleep?

“I have just woken up and feel good,” said Baptiste Hulin (AMIPI - Tombelaine Coquillages). At the start of the race, nights were very short or did not exist at all. When sailing double-handed, each duo finds a way to manage watches. They take it in turns at the helm and resting. They look after each other and the boat. In a race like this, there is no way to get a night’s sleep. In general, the skippers grab naps lasting 1/4h and up to three hours. 

"We found our rhythm after the front at the start of the race,” explained Violette Dorange (DeVenir). "We managed to settle into a good rhythm. We do watches lasting two hours and feel much more rested than at the start of the race." In the low-pressure systems, the watches are in general much shorter, as Pierre Quiroga (Viabilis Océans) explains, "We get about an hour, which isn’t much. We got about an hour each. Since the ridge of high pressure, it’s been easier.” 

Not the same pattern ashore

Our nights are divided up into sleep cycles. There are three phases: 

• Light sleep, as in a nap
• Deep sleep, which allows us to regenerate our cells and build up our energy, sort out our memory and clear out the brain
• Paradoxical sleep: the dream sequence.

"The quality of sleep at sea is very different from ashore, when we sleep between 6 and 9 hours," explained Dr. François Duforez. "They have understood the usefulness of a nap."

We have to remember this is a double-handed race. "We base it around how the body works,” said Denis Van Weynbergh (D’IETEREN GROUP). "It works well because Gilles doesn’t have the same cycles as me, so we complement each other."