Single Handing

[unbusted67]

Very, very slowly.

[David_Old_Jersey]

"Fore and aft" like this?:-


That's now my spot - between the 3rd and 4th boat at the front

or "Swinging" like this?:-



Or something else?

[dana-tenacity]

From the cockpit or near as possible to it, move it to the bow later

[Brent Swain]

Only smooth talking extroverts know the code for getting crew aboard . The rest are second class citizens who should be restricted in their activities. Almost all singlehanders I've met would prefer a compatible lady aboard. They couldn't find one so went sailing anyway.
Fully crewed boats seem to collide at least as often as singlehanded ones.
I used to windjam up to moorings. The easiest way was to get upwind , drop all sails and slowly drift downwind to the mooring, picking it up from the cockpit. A big steel hook is handy for getting the boat stopped. You can move it to the bow later, in calmer conditions , after supper , or stay moored from the stern. A boat sheers around far less moored from the stern and the main hatch makes a great wind scoop.
Brent

[GordMay]

Notwithstanding his extensive experience, Brent’s advice is contrary to conventional wisdom (also the result of experience), which generally has most of us:
1. Maneuvering head to tide, current, or wind (whichever is greatest).
2. Anchoring/mooring from the bow.

Tom Neale offers a humourous look at the subject:
For More Boring Mooring ~ By Tom Neale ”... Generally the most successful skippers pick up the moorings by the stern. Their tool of choice seems to be the propeller. But this isn’t what you may be thinking. You don’t back up to the mooring. That wouldn’t be proper and would be far too easy. Anchoring by the stern usually involves a bow on approach. The idea is that the mooring ball is actually a target to help you line up. If you can hit that ball dead on, you’re much more likely to successfully catch the pennant with a propeller ...”
Goto: BoatUS.com - Tom Neale's Cruising For You

Other humourous articles by Tom:
BoatUS.com - Tom Neale's Cruising For You

[Brent Swain]

If we had all stuck doggedly to convential wisdom we'd still be living in caves
If I'd stuck to conventional wisdom, I and my clients, would still be taking months to get a steel hull together instead of a couple of days. It was once convential wisdom that the world is flat. Conventional wisdom is often anything but wise.
Drifting downwind under bare poles to a mooring works only with no current, or very little which is usually the case when mooring. The steel hook should be large and solidly tied to the boat so the rope will take the load of stopping the boat, not the person holding it.
On flat water mooring from the stern has many advantages to mooring from the bow. When a sloop is moored from the bow, she sheers around and greatly increases the load and chafe on the mooring. Everytime she tacks she almost presents herself broadside to the wind, greatly increasing the load on the mooring.When she tacks, the foreward motion is stopped suddenly by the mooring , and the total inertia of the boat is taken by the mooring, exponentially increasing the load on it.
When a sloop is moored by the stern, she sits docile as can be. The only load on the mooring is the windage of the transom,tiny compared to bow mooring.
Without the sheering, chafe is drasticaly reduced. There is the sound of wavelets slapping under the counter , but that takes little time to get used to.
In flat water with no current , this leaves great peace of mind when leaving a boat on a mooring.
For the same reasons laying to a drogue off the stern drastically reduces loads on the drogue and greatly enhances safety.
Brent

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Louis Riel

... Conventional wisdom is often anything but wise.

... Drifting downwind under bare poles to a mooring works only with no current, or very little which is usually the case when mooring.

... In flat water with no current , this leaves great peace of mind when leaving a boat on a mooring ...
Brent

By his very wording, I would understand Brent’s postulations to be sometimes true.

Any supposition can be true, false, or (most often) partially or sometimes true (hence, sometimes false). There are few, if any “Universal Truths (UT)*. Conventional Wisdom (CW) might be described as a generally accepted common body of knowledge that few people argue about.

* Even Newton’s famous Laws of Gravitation, only work in mundane circumstances; but, when applied to extremely high speeds or extremely small objects, Newton's laws break down (Einstenin’s “Special Theory theory...”)
(A well-known UT: You can have all the sex your mate wants.)

Everything makes sense to someone; but the truth is always true - even if no-one believes it to be.
Blind belief or compulsive disbelief (of anything) are like the two sides of the same coin - both generally due to ignorance. The less you know about something, the easier it is to believe or disbelieve it - but the more you know, the more you realize how little you know, and the more difficult to form a belief.

In positing a contrary argument, the skeptic would endeavour to overthrow (what he believes to be) a false assumption, and (in so doing) replace that misconception with a “new truth”. Hopefully, this “new truth” would become generally accepted, and thus “conventional wisdom”, with all it's attendant frailties.

[Sandero]

Louis Riel,

We use a stern boarding ladder and tie off the dink at the stern... I am not sure how well this would work for a stern more. How do you deal with the dink?

Jef
sv Shiva
Contest 36s

[unbusted67]

GordMay,

I now know less about less and more about more. Thank you.

[GordMay]

Unbusted must be a generalist, or Architect (they both learn less & less about more & more, until they know nothing about everything).

As opposed to the specialist, or Engineer (they learn more & more about less & less, until they know everything about nothing).

[Brent Swain]

When picking up a mooring from the stern ,tie the dinghy alongside. Then tie it off the bow.
I remember when BC parks had mooring bouys and we got to watch people trying to pick them up in a strong wind. Those who did best in powerboats would lead the bow line outside the lifelines and tie it to the mooring from the swim grid, then let her swing bow to. This looked extremely simple compared to all other tactics used. Trying to pick up from the bow almost always turned into a circus ,especially with high freeboard there. It was even more of a circus when people tried to stop a large boat by hanging onto the mooring with a boathook.
Drifting downwind under bare poles was always the easiest way to land at a dock, if the dock could be drifted down to from upwind.
Getting a midships spring line on quickly made the rest easy.
Brent

[Boracay]

An interesting slant on how the professionals keep watch.
MAIB Bridge Watchkeeping Study Report
To me, the most interesting part of the report is that it was disruption to routine that did the damage in many cases.
A cynic might get the impression that single handers have about the same level of watchkeeping as some commercial vessels.

[Brent Swain]

I just read an article in an old Yachting World , written by Robin Knox Johnson. He mentions that most huge commercial ships now have one person on watch, who rarely scans the horizon while at sea. I've talked to merchant seamen who say that 80% of the time there is no one on watch.
So who is the most lethal, a single hander in his 30 footer, or a supertanker doing 30 knots ?
Laying a guilt trip on singlehanders while ignoring those in charge of tens of thousands of tons of steel travelling at 30 knots is elitism , and scapegoat politics at its worst, or incredible gullibility of those who support such politics.
If a single hander spends 20 years inviting people out sailing and nobody shows up, then it is the person douing the inviting who is selfish?
Duhhh!!!
Brent

[FrankZ]

Originally Posted by Louis Riel

If a single hander spends 20 years inviting people out sailing and nobody shows up, then it is the person douing the inviting who is selfish?
Duhhh!!!
Brent

If you spend 20 years doing the same thing over and over without success it might be time to change the approach.

[Brent Swain]

I did , stopped inviting them and singlehanded happily ever after.
Brent