Rich divided his sleep in about 6 to 7 naps per day, and nap durations ranged from as short as 12 minutes to "long" 96-minute uninterrupted ones. About a fifth of his sleep time was taken during daytime hours, and we expect this quota to increase to a more appropriate 30%. Indeed, because of the limited amount of sleep they get, our studies indicate that solo sailors can reduce the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation by taking multiple naps several times per day – a strategy we call polyphasic sleep. Some of these naps are taken in a succession, briefly interrupted by 5-10 minutes of waking time to check instruments, boat heading, and making sail adjustments when necessary (the cluster napping technique, so far accounting for 55% of Rich’s total sleep).

Relative to the very demanding circumstances of this race, and given the fact that between June 4 and 5 he was able to recuperate the exhaustion of the first days into the race, we believe that Rich is OK – but he must try to clock at least 4 hr of sleep per day from now on.

June 7 to June 10

Bravo Rich! As we expected, Rich was able and disciplined enough to recharge his sleep batteries: over the three days from June 7–9, Rich clocked an average of 5.3 hours of sleep per day. In addition, he was also able to several uninterrupted naps longer than 90 minutes, which are particularly recuperative for Rich given his chronobiological profile with a tendency toward being an "owl" (people who tend to be more alert later in the evening than first thing in the morning).

Another indication of Rich’s owl tendencies is obvious observing the minute-by-minute display of his sleep-wake patterns: notice how he tends to concentrate nocturnal sleep toward the second part of the night and early hours of the morning, just before sunrise. A morning person or "lark" would show just the opposite, that is, a tendency to concentrate nocturnal sleep predominantly in the first or central part of the night. This chronobiological tendency toward "morningness" or "eveningness" represents one of the first and most important assessments that we employ when working with solo-sailors – or, for that matter, any of our patients, from shiftworkers, to athletes, to emergency-operations personnel. With that tool we are normally able to predict and distinguish between who will adjust more naturally to ultrashort napping strategies (usually larks), and who, on the other hand, will require longer naps (owls) in order to feel refreshed. It should be noted, however, that with proper training, owls are perfectly capable of learning the art of ultrashort napping. This is the case, for example, of current Monohull Open-60 leader Mike Golding, who is a poster-child owl, and who is also wearing one of our Actigraphs (the sleep monitor).

Another interesting pattern to notice in Rich’s daily sleep chart is the succession of afternoon naps occurring at about 2 PM local (boat) time – particularly obvious between June 7 and June 10. This is an expression of our ubiquitous afternoon tendencies toward quiescence – the "siesta" is indeed a biological phenomenon present in most mammals.