Influence of a conservative sleep management strategy during a solo Pacific Ocean crossing on anxiety and perceived fatigue: A case study

Abstract

The aim of this case study was to determine whether a sailor's deliberate choice of a conservative strategy to manage sleep deprivation would allow him to cross the Pacific Ocean and to minimize his state of anxiety and perceived fatigue. The participant, who had more than 10 years' sailing experience in severe conditions, was tested on a small catamaran without any living quarters during a solo Pacific Ocean crossing. Estimations of sleep hours, state anxiety, and perceived fatigue were self-reported by the sailor on a daily basis using a specific questionnaire. The most important finding is that the sailor's deliberate sleep strategy, 5.4 h sleep per day (24% less than on-shore), was enough to keep his anxiety and perceived fatigue within acceptable limits and enabled him to achieve his goal, which was the first crossing of the Pacific Ocean on a catamaran of less than 6 m. In conclusion, our results suggest that the sailor observed in the present case study was able to minimize anxiety and perceived fatigue with adequate sleep to optimize his performance, security, and to achieve his goal.

Field study of anthropomorphic and muscle performance changes among elite skippers following a transoceanic race

“…Previous studies demonstrated that professional sailors incur severe sleep loss with marked performance impairment [8][9][10][11]. In case of prolonged sleep restriction, the balance between sleep homeostasis and circadian rhythm process is disturbed, which induces an adaptive response.…”

“…Indeed, CFFF has been used with success in several models of extreme exposure such as divers [28,30], pilots [31] or parabonauts [32] and has been seen as a global index of cerebral arousal, however with an easier set-up. Since, it was demonstrated on short races that it was possible to minimise anxiety and perceived fatigue with adequate sleep to optimise performance and efficiency [8], it implies that an improved arousal may be a surrogate of an improved performance. We therefore advocate introducing CFFF measurement into skipper's individual assessment to better identify the optimal moment or need for sleep.…”

“…Unfortunately, the distance from onshore health facilities and lack of professional presence on board might explain why only scarce scientific data are available. A review based on a systematic search of medical databases employing predefined criteria, using the terms offshore racing/sailing, solo sailing or open sea racing could only identified less than 20 publications on the subject over the last 40 years [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. All those studies only included a very limited number of subjects (case report to a dozen individuals), albeit a very specific population (Caucasian males in their mid-thirties) and were mostly focused on energy expenditure/intake and sleep deprivation.…”

Cyan Moon Crew Preparation for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

“…Physical preparation of competitive sailors is vital to their personal and team success, with studies included exploring the nutritional status and injury prevention of sailors (Bernardi et al, 2007;Crunkhorn et al, 2022;Fearnley et al, 2012). Psychological preparation of sailors included focus on sleep, stress management and visualisation (Budnik-Przybylska et al, 2021;Hagin et al, 2012;Nieuwenhuys et al, 2008), while technical preparation focussed on muscular condition for grinding and hiking positions (Bourgois et al, 2016;Pearson et al, 2009). The tactical component of preparation explored visual search and movement behaviours whilst sailing (Pluijms et al, 2015).…”

Assessing sleep, travelling habits and jet lag in kite surfers according to competition level

“…Other authors evaluated sleep habits of German athletes before an important competition (Erlacher et al 2011); sleep habits of Brazilian Paralympic athletes before the 2008 Olympic Games (Silva et al 2012); the pre-competitive sleep behaviour of marathon runners (lastella et al 2014a); sleep habits of male endurance cyclists during training phase, before competition and during competition (lastella et al 2014b); sleep complaints of elite Australian athletes (including three gymnasts, whose gender or discipline of gymnastics is not mentioned) 1 month prior to and 7 months following the 2012 Olympic Games (Juliff et al 2015); and poor pre-competitive sleep habits of high-performance gymnasts (Silva & Paiva 2015a). A case study with one sailor (who had more than 10 years sailing experience in severe conditions, and whose goal was to be the first person to cross the Pacific Ocean on a catamaran of less than 6 m) concluded that the sailor's deliberate strategy of sleeping 5.4 h per day was sufficient to achieve his goal (Hagin et al 2012). On the other hand, Galvani et al (2015) evaluated eight male sailors (46.3 ± 3.4 years; 85.4 ± 12.5 kg; 180 ± 13 cm) during a double-handed offshore competition of 500 nautical miles and observed that they slept 5 ± 1.4 times per day for 36 ± 9 min each sleeping period, which indicates that there would have been a build-up of a considerable sleep debt, presumably with negative consequences for performance.…”