A passage plan settles four things before you slip: can boat and crew do it, when must you be where, what could stop you, and where you go instead.
1 · Plan and skipper
What a plan must answer
What does SOLAS V require a yacht skipper to plan before a passage?
Under SOLAS V everyone going to sea, small craft included, must plan for the weather, tides, the limits of boat and crew, the dangers on the route and a plan B, such as ports of refuge.
SOLAS V expects everyone who goes to sea, small craft included, to plan: weather, tides, the limits of boat and crew, the dangers, and a plan B. The trip's purpose and the weakest crew set its scale: a family cruise wants short daylight legs.
Passage plan: what SOLAS V asks
Weather: forecast and window
Tides: heights, streams, gates
The boat: her real limits, fuel, gear
The crew: experience, watches
Dangers on the route
Plan B: ports of refuge
The skipper answers for boat and crew: planning can be delegated, responsibility cannot, and a vote changes nothing. A Yachtmaster Coastal commands yachts to 24 m, day or night, in moderate conditions, up to 60 miles offshore. Check the insurance limits, and clear in at a port of entry under the Q flag.
Brief the crew on the route, watches, forecast and plan B: the skipper may be the casualty. Leave the plan ashore with your ETA and an alarm time, and report changes.
2 · Times and gates
Work back from the fixed points
How do I work out what time to leave to make a tidal gate?
Work back from the fixed points: slack at a headland, a sill open around high water, daylight at the entrance. Time is distance ÷ the speed over the ground you really average, hour by hour where the stream changes.
Time = distance ÷ speed over the ground, at the speed you really average. Fix what cannot move: slack at a headland, a sill open around high water, daylight at a strange entrance, the wind's arrival. Then work back to a departure, hour by hour where the stream changes.
Take a race at slack or with wind and tide together, or stand well off. Be in before a forecast increase: a GRIB shows no gusts. Rather than reach an unknown harbour in the dark, slow down or leave later; write its pilotage plan before sailing. At night choose a lit route over a short cut, and moonlight for new crew.
3 · Route and refuges
Check every leg
Should I put a waypoint right on a buoy?
No: put waypoints in safe water, never on a mark, and check the whole leg between them, zoomed in on the plotter or with a route check whose corridor is wider than your cross-track alarm.
Put waypoints in safe water, never on a mark, and check the whole leg between them. On the plotter zoom in along each leg, or run the route check with a corridor wider than your cross-track alarm; set that alarm inside the distance to the nearest danger. A leg that disagrees with the paper plan hides a mistyped position. Auto-routing needs your true draft, a reversed route a fresh check, and on autopilot the watch confirms each turn.
Route round firing ranges, pot buoys and fish farms; cross a port's deep-water channel quickly, at right angles, listening to its VTS. Note when each light should appear: a strong one at its rising range, a weak one only at its nominal range. A light that does not match: fix your position.
A port of refuge must be safe to enter when you would arrive: enough tide, shelter from the forecast wind, lights at night, soundings and buoys to follow in fog. Keep the plan on paper too: courses, distances, lights.
4 · Fuel, water, food
Enough to arrive, plus a reserve
How do I calculate how far my yacht can motor on the fuel aboard?
Count fuel in hours: usable litres, less a reserve, ÷ litres an hour gives the hours, and hours × speed over the ground gives the range. 80 L at 2.5 L/h is 32 h, or 160 M at 5 kn.
Count fuel in hours: usable litres ÷ litres an hour, times speed over the ground for range. Keep a reserve. Slower burns less per mile; a catamaran on one engine, less still.
Fuel and water sums
Tank 100 L − 20 L reserve = 80 L
80 ÷ 2.5 L/h = 32 h · × 5 kn = 160 M
Leg 30 M at 5 kn: 6 h × 2.5 = 15 L
Water: 4 crew × 2 L × (2 + 1) days = 24 L
Upwind: 6 kn × cos 30° = 5.2 kn made good
Dead upwind, compare speed made good. Cook the first night's meal in harbour and keep snacks and a flask by the companionway. Carry drinking water with a day spare. Load for the plan and a margin: weight slows a catamaran most.
5 · Watches and the night
Round the clock
How do I set up a watch rota for a night passage with a small crew?
Two watches stand four on, four off, with 1600–2000 split into two dog watches so the rota rotates; three watches give each person eight hours on deck. Each watch needs a leader who can handle the boat at night.
Each watch needs a leader who can handle the boat and traffic at night: never two novices alone. Two watches stand four hours on, four off, with 1600–2000 split so the rota rotates; three watches give each person eight hours on deck. Staggered changes keep someone on deck who saw the last two hours. Two-handed, never both sleep. With a big crew the skipper stays out of the rota.
Two watches, 4 on, 4 off
0000 Port · 0400 Starboard
0800 Port · 1200 Starboard
1600 Port · 1800 Starboard (dog watches)
2000 Port
Seven watches: tomorrow they swap
Night orders say when to call the skipper. A handover gives position, course, the next turn, traffic, sails, weather and those orders. Log time, log reading, course, position, wind and barometer hourly and at each change, and plot on paper, so DR can start if the electronics die.
Skipper's night orders
Course 245°M, 2 M off the coast
Call me: wind over 20 kn
Call me: a ship with CPA under 1 M
Call me: visibility under 2 M
Call me: before the turn at WP5
Call me: any doubt at all
Below, dim red light; on deck, lights only for the job. Clip on before leaving the companionway; nobody goes forward unwatched. Seasickness eases in fresh air or a low bunk amidships; a crew who cannot keep water down needs the nearest harbour. Too tired for a strange entrance, stand off until dawn.
6 · Shipping lanes
Crossing a separation scheme
What heading do I steer to cross a shipping lane with the tide setting me sideways?
A heading at right angles to the lanes, accepting the stream's set, as Rule 10 requires: it is the quickest way across. Never wait in the separation zone; adjust speed to pass astern of ships.
Rule 10: cross a traffic separation scheme on a heading at right angles to the lanes and accept the stream's set: the quickest way over. Never wait in the separation zone; adjust speed and pass astern.
Fog before the lane: wait outside, in water too shallow for ships. Fog halfway across: the shortest way out is ahead; hold the heading at a safe speed, watch the radar, sound your signal.
7 · Plan against reality
Deciding on passage
When should I give up on the plan and divert to a port of refuge?
At the decision point you set in harbour, rested, with the tide worked out: say, not past the headland by 1400, then port C. Act on it however keen the crew, with a plan B that suits boat and crew now.
Check progress at set times. The plotter's ETA assumes the present speed holds: work the streams ahead yourself and ask what speed the remaining miles demand. Start the engine while it can still save a gate.
A decision point is set in harbour, rested, with the tide worked out: not past the headland by 1400, then port C. Act on it, however keen the crew. Plan B must suit the boat and crew you have now: without an engine, an anchorage you can sail into; with a gale coming, a near harbour on a reach.
1200: will you make the gate?
Gate 20 M ahead, it shuts at 1600
Now 4.4 kn: ETA 1633, too late
Needed: 20 ÷ 4 = 5.0 kn
Start the engine now
If not through by 1600: port C
Practice questions
Questions from this topic, as the app asks them. Open one to see the answer.
Your passage plan
Route and waypoints — done
Tide times and streams — done
Forecast and windows — done
Dangers on the route — done
You are about to take a crew of four from Dartmouth to Guernsey, and your plan covers the items on the card. What else does SOLAS V expect you to have thought through?
The menu for each meal and who cooks it
Ports of refuge and what you do if it goes wrong
The marina's berth fees on arrival
The crew's passport numbers and nationality
Show the answer
B. Ports of refuge and what you do if it goes wrong
SOLAS V: weather, tides, the boat's limits, the crew, the dangers — and a contingency plan with ports of refuge.
All 100 questions of this topic are in the app: practice by topic with the reason after every answer, your mistakes brought back, and a timed mock exam. Free, no sign-up, in the browser or in Telegram.
