Lessons of single handed sailing
After being delayed by weather during April I finally set out on my solo journey sailing around Britain in May. I have been sailing single handed for a couple of years now, but in familiar waters around the Solent and the south coast. Venturing further afield last year had been in the company of friends on their boat, Powder Blue. This time I was alone and in unfamiliar waters, and there were a few lessons to be learnt.
Life on a sailing boat requires a level of self reliance and independence that can be incredibly fulfilling. If something goes wrong with the boat then having the ability to sort it out yourself can be your saviour. Even when you are coastal sailing help is quite some time away if (or when) you need to call for it, nothing moves quickly at sea. There is always the coast guard and rescue services to help out when you get into real difficulties, but that is the last resort. Getting myself out of a situation, fixing a broken piece of equipment even temporarily, and knowing how the systems work in my tiny home; being self-reliant improves my safety as well as providing personal satisfaction.
Sailing itself is not a dangerous sport. The most challenging and dangerous part of sailing is when you are near land; whether that be rocks that can put a hole in your boat, sandbanks that can leave you stranded, fishing pot markers and their lines that can entangle your propeller and disable your engine, or simply trying to find a safe and secure spot close to land to stop for the night. It’s the solid bits that are a danger to boats, not the sea.
There is an assumption that sailing offshore, out of sight of land, must be more stressful than sailing along the coast and close to human contact. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Sailing at night when you are far out at sea can be a little disorientating at times. However, being at the centre of a bubble of existence and surrounded by darkness, with the unseen shapes of waves glinting occasionally in reflected moonlight as they move past the boat, and the Milky Way full of stars above for company, it can be quite magical too. On the other hand, when you are sailing near to the coast at night and trying to distinguish red or green navigation lights in front of a background of house and street lights, or ever changing traffic lights and moving car lights, can be nigh on impossible.
Tiredness
My sailing insurance allows me to sail up to 18 hours per day single handed. I don't necessarily have to go into a harbour at the end of that time, but I have to stop and be securely anchored or moored. I have to be able to go to sleep, to get some serious rest. My longest day sailing single handed along the coast so far has been around 9 to 10 hours, and that is more than long enough.
Constantly being on the lookout for lobster pot markers becomes a strain on the eyes. Eventually your eyes start to play tricks on you and you start to see things in the shadows on the surface of the water. These shadows might be a plastic bottle marking some fishing pot with a trailing rope in the water, it might be a dolphin's fin or an inquisitive seal's head, or it might just be the shadow of a wave. This is a particular problem when you are sailing westward, in the late afternoon, with the receding sun glinting off the waves. There are no charts marking areas where fishing pots are laid by fishermen, and unless you know an area they can be put out in surprising and unexpected places. Traps waiting to ensnare the unwary.
You also have to keep up with navigation, particularly if you are sailing through unfamiliar waters. When I first made the passage across the Thames estuary I had a very close eye on the chart as well as the boats’ instruments. East coast sandbanks can move quite dramatically during storms, though luckily there hadn’t been any recent storms when I did this passage. There are also several shipping lanes running through the area, which are yet another hazard. But because of these shipping lanes the area is well surveyed, and electronic charts are regularly updated, at least the main channels are.
There is often very little time to take your eyes off your situation as a solo sailor, and that in itself can be exhausting.
The other main risk to the single handed sailor? Falling overboard
This is, quite rightly, the biggest fear of most sailors. However as with everything, prevention is better than cure.
Many yachts will carry extra floatation devices / throwable things to help a man overboard. These are either useful to help recover a person who ends up in the water, or to make it easier to find that person. These things are great! But who is going to throw these things to me? Who is going to turn the boat around and try to rescue me?
There is a hard truth here that I have faced and come to terms with, however others of a sensitive disposition might want to skip this paragraph. If I go over the side of my boat there is a very high chance that I'm going to stay there. There's no one to stop the boat, and trying to climb back onto a boat that's travelling at 6 knots or so is an impossibility. Even wearing a safety harness I would most likely be left dangling with the water washing over me. It is a sad truth that there have been cases where a person has slipped through the safety lines around a boat, and even a full crew of burley sailors have been unable to manhandle them back onboard before they have drowned while still attached by their safety line. It is far more important to make sure I stay on the boat at all costs.
Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs). These are an emergency beacon designed to send out a distress signal and attract the attention of other boats if I end up in the water. This is fine when I’m sailing in the overcrowded Solent or similarly popular sailing areas, or when I’m sailing in company with other boats. Sailing in out of the way places, particularly during the week when people have had to return to their cosy suburban lives, it’s of limited benefit.
Yes, I do have one of these gizmos.
Lifejackets. The standard line from the rescue services, the training providers and the yachting press is that everyone should wear a lifejacket at all times. This is fine for sailors going out for a day, or doing the occasional overnight trip. Most boats will also have several people on board, and you'd hope at least a couple of them would be able to get a boat close enough to perform a rescue. None of this is true in my case.
I choose to wear a safety harness instead of a lifejacket, for three main reasons:
It's more comfortable, and so I'm more likely to wear it all the time.
If I slip and get drenched then the lifejacket would automatically inflate. This then causes an obstruction if I'm trying to untangle myself from the lines around the boat.
It's light enough to leave on under my waterproofs if it kicks up rough, at which point I would put my lifejacket on over the top, and use the harness attachment on there. Hopefully by this point I have reduced sail and I don’t need to leave the safety of the cockpit anyway.
A lifejacket is fine if someone is able to raise the alarm and attempt a rescue. Ultimately as a single handed sailor a lifejacket will just prolong the view of the boat sailing off over the horizon without me.
Managing the risks
I don't count my harness as a safety aid, my safety is based on me constantly keeping hold of the boat with at least one hand. I have also rigged up "Chest Lines" along each side of the boat. They are not a true hand hold, more something to push against as the boat moves when I am moving about on the deck, and a guide that I’m getting too close to the edge of the boat.
If I am sailing through an area that is likely to have hazards, or expecting a long day, then I will make food before I set off and have at least a couple of flasks of a hot drink ready as well as bottles of water. While sometimes it does your concentration good to take a break, even one long enough to make a mug of tea, there are times where I find it difficult to not be watching.
The electronics I fitted over the winter have a variety of alarms included in the systems. I am learning how to set alarms for all kinds of situations from approaching shipping, changes in the wind and depth as well as the direction of the boat, along with unexpected radar targets. There is so much to learn in the functioning of these electronics.
Even sailing with non-sailing friends provides relief. They are able to go below and make a drink for you, or they can keep an eye on your surroundings while you go and do something below decks. They are an extra pair of eyes when you are looking for fishing pot marker buoys or a particular navigation mark. And of course hopefully they are good company as you make your way across the sea. So yes, even an inexperienced passenger can help with what could otherwise be a long and tiring day.
By far the biggest problem I have found however, is myself. I have always been acutely aware of my surroundings. I turned this to my advantage during a career caring for people whose illnesses made them at times highly unpredictable, and potentially dangerous. If you’re going to be any good at that job you learn to constantly watch for and be aware of subtle changes in people. I found it easy to let go of the constant stresses of deadlines, reports, staffing and other issues. Now I have to learn to relax the hypervigilance that has been such a part of my working life.
