Race 3 - Day 14
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 14
06 November
Night vision. Necessary for all Dare To Lead operations from sunset to sunrise – every night, three watches, without fail. Our cockpit is blacked out. The foredeck is dark unless we’re flying a Code sail. The helm is dark except for the faint glow of the compass and wind instruments. How do we function in this low light environment?
It just so happens that we humans are blessed with two types of vision cells in our eyes – cone cells for colour vision and rod cells for low light. Sadly, the rod cells cannot see colour (more on this later) but they are wonderfully sensitive. There is a chemical in the rod cells that enables them to see in low light – rhodopsin. Rhodopsin is inactivated by white light and takes some seconds to regenerate. This is why when you step out of your kitchen into the dark night objects seem to slowly materialise out of the velvet darkness. Rhodopsin remains active however in low-intensity red light (and a few other colours as well).
So, if you want good night vision, but also have need of illumination then red light is just the trick.
After dark on Dare To Lead, all white lights are extinguished and red lights are illuminated instead. We convert our merry little yacht into a floating red light district. The same fixtures that provide white light also can, with the flick of a switch, shine red.
Our colour vision cells, the cones, need more intense light to function. They’re positively useless in the dark. Those exquisite rod cells, so sensitive to faint light, cannot see colour. The world is transformed.
Our colour palette is wiped clean and replaced with 50 shades of pink. That delightful rice with green and red peppers, carrots and peas you were eating is transformed into an amorphous mash of pink grains, pink cubes, pink stripes, and pink beads. All writing appears in black or grey irrespective of the colour ink. Excepting of course any writing in red ink – that disappears entirely. This is unfortunate for signs that may have used red to emphasise the danger, for example.
In the red light crew mates appear to glow faintly radioactive with dilated pupils. No, we haven’t been partying, it’s just the red light.
In Amsterdam, the red light district is a sailor’s diversion. On Dare To Lead it’s just our galley and a contractual obligation.
ps.
We happily celebrated our crew members Lucia and Graeme`s birthday today with an awesome chocolate cake prepared by Stuart!
