Comparison of Royal Canadian Navy Watchstanding Schedules

Abstract

Introduction: Life on board a naval vessel is exceptionally demanding. Workdays for naval sailors can quite easily become 18+ hours long when watch schedules, training, and drills/evolutions are taken into account. Rotating watches and short off-watch periods can force sailors into a biphasic sleep pattern that is not sufficiently restful or a rotating pattern that is impossible to adapt to. Materials and Methods: Six different watch systems were evaluated over four separate at-sea trials. Engineering and tactical/combat departments have had different watch systems in the past because of constraints related to the specific environment in which they work. Therefore, two of the watch systems were engineering-specific watch evaluations, three of the systems were specific to tactical/combat departments, and one watch system was evaluated with the entire company of the naval vessel. Results: Both two-section (1-in-2) watch systems and three-section (1-in-3) watch systems were evaluated, which involve two or three shifts of sailors rotating through a full continuous 24-h day, respectively. Moving beyond three rotations of sailors is impossible on Canadian naval vessels due to bunk space and other limitations. The best watch system that we evaluated with respect to fatigue and quality of life at sea was the 1-in-3 straight 8-h shift system that was tested for the entire ships' company. The system has a single 8-h daily watch obligation (red watch, 4:00 am-12:00 pm; white watch 12:00 pm-8:00 pm; and blue watch, 8:00 pm-4:00 am). The best 1-in-2 system was the 8-4-4-8 system in which sailors are on-watch for 8 h, off-watch for 4 h, on-watch for 4 h, and then rest for 8 h. Both of these two systems have the advantage of equitably sharing the Window of Circadian Low (from about midnight to about 8:00 am), especially when melatonin concentration in the body is usually at its peak, between 2:00 am and 6:00 am. Conclusions: The goal of this work was to comprehensively evaluate both submarine and surface fleet watch systems. We were able to develop alternative watch systems that increased Royal Canadian Navy operational readiness and improved the quality of life of our sailors at sea.