How to start single handing

[Major_Clanger]

When you ave convinced yourself that your safety line system works, and you can do all the tasks involved in singlehanding your boat, then you might contact the RNLI and let them follow you out on a flat calm day for a slow safe trip around the harbour.

That is precisely what the OP shouldn't do. The RNLI aren't there to hold anyone's hand.

I'd suggest getting out on a suitable day and just 'doing it'. Necessity is the mother of invention and you'll find yourself just making a plan as the day progresses. Try different things and don't be worried of making a cock-up or two. You'll find out a huge amount about yourself and the boat.

Single-handing, especially without an engine, is a great way to go sailing. It's a different mindset really but don't expect to spend as much time on the helm as you do now.

 

[awol]

I agree with Poignard that a Plan B that doesn't require an autopilot is a necessity. I thought my Plan B was covered by having 2 off ST2000+s but on a damp and windy trip across to Barra both gave up the ghost. My present fall-back is to lie hove-to while I do whatever is needed away from the tiller and this includes reefing the main. Failure of the foresail furler and the autohelm simultaneously needs a bit of thought, though.

 

[Black Sheep]

I suspect the truth in the OP's post is that hogging the tiller will inevitably lead to single handing as crew get fed up and leave (as Chae_73 pointed out).

But as this thread has morphed into whether a tillerpilot is essential for single-handing, I'll chuck in my tuppence!

I've done a fair bit of single handing. Most of it using either a tillerpilot or a windvane. But not all of it by any means. It does depend a lot on what sort of sailing, as well as what sort of boat (and how the boat is set up).

Daysailing? tillerpilot not necessary, in my view, on any of my boats. Without it, you need to plan to either be at the helm the whole time, or to put the boat in a state where you don't need to be at the helm. That could be hove to, or lying ahull, or on a stable course (even if it's not the course you want!). And sometimes a different approach pays off - eg rather than try to raise sail while the engine is still running, switch off the donkey; let the boat settle; now raise just a bit of main, you may find that the boat weathercocks to the main, turning head to wind; raise the rest of the sail.

More extended passage-making - you'll need some way of being confident that the boat will manage itself while you cook/go to the loo/catnap/navigate/whatever. Either wind vane or tillerpilot, but you may be lucky with balancing the sails.

I very much enjoy having self steering (wind or electric), and the freedom it gives me, particularly for longer passages. But it isn't, in my view, essential for any of my boats on shorter passages.

(my boats include a trad long keel Golden Hind, as well as lifting-keel Bradwell 18 and deep fin GK29)

 

[Gixer]

I'm sorry to disagree but an autopilot is not, and should not be, essential.

I both agree and disagree.

After recently loosing my autopilot when sailing single handed I did manage to sail safely, navigate a lock and get onto my mooring without mishap. Saying this I was knackered both physically and mentally as it was full on for the time I was out.
Would I choose to go out without one single handed? No, I see it as essential to keep me in good shape.

 

[MikeCC]

You could take someone out with you a few times to just sit there while you do everything, but available if it all gets out of hand.

 

[srm]

I'm sorry to disagree but an autopilot is not, and should not be, essential.

While delivering a previous boat, singlehanded, the autohelm belt broke while rounding Lands End. I anchored off St Ives to try and repair it., and failed. Wind shifted to northerly so set off for Milford Haven, fully expecting to have to hand steer and heave to for rest. The boat was a Prout catamaran and much to my surprise, and relief, sailed reliably on a close reach whatever the wind speed. As she did not heel significantly the sail/hull balance remained almost constant in gusts and lulls.
As Antarctic Pilot explained so much depends on the boat and its balance. My own preference for almost 50 years has been a wind vane steering device on a well balanced hull, plus elecric pilot to use when motoring. Electric pilots are not all that reliable, though inboard rudder stock mechanisms are generally so. However, all the various mechanical, wind/water activated systems I have experience of have proved 100 % reliable as long as there is enough wind to provide stearage way, and the user knows how to balance them with the hull/sail plan.

Does hogging the helm end up single handing ?

Going back to Scottie's OP, a competent skipper should never need to hog the helm, in fact he or she is much more effective with someone/something else steering as they are then free to access the situation, navigate, sleep, enjoy themselves or whatever. When sailing as a YM Instructor running courses I rarely touched the helm other than to demonstrate, steering is what the crew were for.

I perhaps took this to an extreme during my yachmaster exam when I put the examiner, Rod Car, on the helm for a tricky entrance under sail so that I was free to watch everything else.

 

[dunedin]

Does hogging the helm end up single handing ?

To complete the exercise you also need to take the existing crew out in bad weather, with lots of wind, waves and rain

 

[Stemar]

To complete the exercise you also need to take the existing crew out in bad weather, with lots of wind, waves and rain

Then scream at them, because it's clearly their fault when you make a pig's ear of coming alongside

 

[TNLI]

Yep, take your crew out in a full gale, with monster breaking seas and serious rain ice. Make sure they all sit on the foredeck, so that when they are all washed overboard, you can call up the coastguard and shout, "Mayday 3 times, and declare that you are singlehanded).
Capt Noah
SAILING - HYBRID PILOT SERVICES LTD (hybridpilotservices.com)

If you are bored enough to read that sailing page and are contemplating a singlehanded circumnavigation, I would try and avoid doing what I did, and sail the inside passage around Australia. as it's a bit too intense a route for a small yacht.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

If I have crew they take the helm as soon as it’s safe to do so. Could be from the off or perhaps once clear of hazards. I prefer sail trimming anyway. I do mostly single hand. Upwind tiller lashed. Offwind tiller pilot, sheet to tiller or occasional hand steer. Longest so far using this principle is 18days / 1600nm. Hopefully get the time to go further in the future.

 

[Koeketiene]

Hogging the helm is a newbie thing.
Once you've been sailing for a while you enjoy the freedom an autopilot affords you.
90% of my sailing is singlehanded and the only times I have a hand on the tiller is when leaving/picking up my mooring and close quarter maneuvres at sea.
Other than that: selfsteering all the way.

As for an autopilot being essential: probably not.
Would I undertake a long(er) trip without a working autopilot: also probably not.

 

[Wing Mark]

I'm sorry to disagree but an autopilot is not, and should not be, essential.

Maybe it would help with the Musto Skiff?

Seriously, I think any boat electronics is only going to be reliable up to a point, you need to be able to get by without various aids or you are only one small failure away from a crisis.

I don't agree with the 'what if?' mantra of predicting what's going to go wrong but, I think 'what if the autopilot doesn't work today?' might be a good exception.

 

[Wing Mark]

Is hogging the chartplotter as bad as hogging the helm?
Some boats with wheel steering and plotter in a binnacle, you can hog both at once!

 

[dunedin]

Is hogging the chartplotter as bad as hogging the helm?
Some boats with wheel steering and plotter in a binnacle, you can hog both at once!

That why our boat is better - two wheels and the chart plotter on the end of the table in between. Therefore we can have 3 “hoggers” - though can cause issues if they don’t agree about the required direction

 

[scottie]

Whilst the first responder picked up on my ironic posting I am sorry that anyone else would see it except as tongue in cheek .
having sailed all my life one of the greatest pleasures in sailing is watching someone else catching the bug!

as for wing marks reply the plotter should be switched off for newbies!

 

[LadyInBed]

I'm sorry to disagree but an autopilot is not, and should not be, essential.

Could you justify that statement please.
Many have given reasons why you should have one when solo but I haven't seen anything written as to how you manage for more than a day trip around the Solent without one.

 

[Poignard]

Could you justify that statement please.
Many have given reasons why you should have one when solo but I haven't seen anything written as to how you manage for more than a day trip around the Solent without one.

'

Gladly.
If something is essential you cannot, by definition, do without it.
If you cannot do without something that may fail without warning (two of the three autopilots I have owned failed without warning) and that you cannot repair yourself, you have introduced a degree of vulnerability, which in anything other than a day sail around the Solent, is, to my mind unacceptable.
If you cannot set or take in sail without an autopilot you are vulnerable,
If you cannot put in or take out a reef without an autopilot you are vulnerable.
If you cannot put out or take in your fenders and lines without an autopilot you are vulnerable.
If you cannot go below for a crap, or to prepare food, or to do some navigational work without an autopilot you are vulnerable.
And so on.

 

[LittleSister]

Avoid, at all costs, becoming one of those awful ‘men on boats’ bellowing away and showing all the symptoms of Captain Ahab Syndrome.

If I can't do that on my own boat, when can I do it?

 

[ryanroberts]

Hydraulic steering helps a little with single handing, as the rudder will stay put without needing to lock anything off. I did initially try using the AP tacking feature but found it far more accurate (by my low standards) to tack by hand. I just kind of went straight into mostly solo sailing with a rusty day skipper. Singing and talking to myself is an issue for me even with an 18 hour limit. Oh and that time the lulworth range boat came up to 'advise' me while I was having a little sunbathing nap on the foredeck, they are very polite.

I definitely would not be doing even 40 mile trips on purpose without an autopilot however.

 

[Stemar]

If you cannot set or take in sail without an autoplilot you are vulnerable,
If you cannot put in or take out a reef without an autopilot you are vulnerable.
If you cannot put out or take in your fenders and lines without an autopilot you are vulnerable.
If you cannot go below for a crap, or to prepare food, or to do some navigational work without an autopilot you are vulnerable.

Even a dead tillerpilot will help with the first three. For the last one, I'd hove to, using the dead autopilot to hold the tiller in place

The important thing is that you can fix the tiller so the boat points more or less in the right direction, even if it's only a bit of string. If your tiller steered boat would keep going in roughly the same direction when you let go, you're a lucky skipper. Mine would usually go off at full lock in whichever direction would cause the maximum inconvenience