Somewhere around 3AM I have real trouble keeping awake so I use a 'Salton' kitchen timer something like the photo and generally set it at 15 for 30 minutes depending,,,. Of course I've also got the radar alarm and the AIS set. For the most part the timer's set not for other traffic but for weather changes or perhaps (if we're motoring} to check the engine instruments. The only problem is that when it goes off it's really loud and I don't want to wake up the Admiral so I put it under my pillow to muffle the sound. When it goes off I get up, look around, set the timer and back to sleep. Every hour I go below and poke around the nav station.

Using the egg timer started after we were almost run over by a container ship. We were about 200 miles from land at sunrise with me on watch and the Admiral sleeping. She woke up hearing some VHF radio noise in some language she didn't know and since you don't hear a VHF that far out there she got up to look around. Here I was stretched out leaning against the rear cockpit coaming snoring away with a container ship about a mile behind us closing and about to run us over.

Yeah, I woke up and made some fast moves. I think it was all her cursing and screaming at me. (beyond dumb)

That's when she got the timer for me. She never falls asleep on watch.