Small one man sailboat

[Boatguy30]

Check out a design called Paradox if you're looking for. Truly minimal size.

[jkindredpdx]

I wouldn't get too hung up about what we think is the best solo small boat... we're all nuts anyway... so choose any of the sub 30' mono sailboats named above.

+1 for Laura Dekker - Maidentrip
+1 for Robin Lee Graham - Dove
+1 for reading Robert Manry - Tinkerbell
also
Harry Pidgeon - Around the World...
Joshua Slocum - Sailing alone ...
Erskine Childers - Riddle of the Sands

and read about Jester: Jester
You might also try: Beth Leonard - The Voyager's Handbook...

[Chenega]

The Morris Leigh 30 is a great offshore cruiser - Chuck Paine design built by Tom Morris. Great speed, comfort, and traditionally built Maine boat. Incredibly strong boat...
If you can find one do it...

[double u]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Out of curiosity, why the heck are you writing a book on a subject that you know next to nothing about? Seems like that would be a pretty bumpy path to choose. And it could definitely impact it's reviews & sales.

In order to learn more about sailing, there are plenty of classes you can take. Many of them gratis, or close to it. And you could even get educated enough to rent/charter boats, or buy your own, so that you'd have a much better feeling for what the sailing life is like. What it does to your head & your heart. The people you meet, the places, the challenges, etc.

When you're trying to pick out the boat, once you've narrowed it down to a few, Google them all, & pick the one that gets the most hits. As that'll be the one with the most name recognition for your readers. Though you could also post a survey in several places, including here, once you have it narrowed down to 5 boats or so.

Most boats by Pacific Seacraft have pretty good name recognition, & are quality boats. But there are dozens out there. Anywhere from 20' to 20m, as even the latter are often single-handed. As in Open 60's such as the boat's in the Vendee Globe Race which is currently going on.

Here's a resource for you Atom Voyages - Home
Atom Voyages - Good Old Boats List

VERY good point you are making! All of us at some time have read sailing fiction written by authors not familiar enough with th subject - & we allhad hated it! (“...with th spinnacker full into the wind..“ the bestselling kraut- author had written...had to stop after the first 10 pages or so for fear of eyedamage due to too much roll-eyes...)
The best novels are written by people thoroughly versed in the environment the novel is set in - see Dick Francis!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by double u

VERY good point you are making! All of us at some time have read sailing fiction written by authors not familiar enough with th subject - & we allhad hated it! (“...with th spinnacker full into the wind..“ the bestselling kraut- author had written...had to stop after the first 10 pages or so for fear of eyedamage due to too much roll-eyes...)
The best novels are written by people thoroughly versed in the environment the novel is set in - see Dick Francis!

Have read some excellent novels with modern fictional sailing hero's by an author whose characters/settings are based out of Salcombe, Devon.. but totally blackholing with his name.. its hovering just out of my grasp..
One involves crossing the bar in a Southerly gale.. he knows his $hit..

[double u]

Sam Llewellyn » Sailing Thrillers
?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by double u

Sam Llewellyn » Sailing Thrillers
?

GOOD MAN...!!!

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by double u

VERY good point you are making! All of us at some time have read sailing fiction written by authors not familiar enough with th subject - & we allhad hated it! (“...with th spinnacker full into the wind..“ the bestselling kraut- author had written...had to stop after the first 10 pages or so for fear of eyedamage due to too much roll-eyes...)

The best novels are written by people thoroughly versed in the environment the novel is set in - see Dick Francis!

I heartily disagree, some authors with no firsthand experience write truely realistic works, Steven Crane and "The Red Badge of Courage" comes to mind. CivilWar veterans praised him for his realistic depiction of the violence and emotions but the war was 7yr past when he was born and he never served.

For a gifted writer distance from a subject sometimes gives them perspective to see things those involved in the topic can't.

And even if the author gets some details wrong, so what the point of a story is the plot, drama and entertainment, not to provide technical info to somebody wanting to do something similar to what's in the story.

If anybody can complain about poor accuracy in movies and literature it's the celestial navigation folks. Recently there was a a post on the CN list about this by one of their more respected members who made this same point. You can read that post at http://fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx/Celestia...ec-2016-g37328.

[double u]

very few of us will catch onto small “mistakes“ in historical novels set in times long past...
for me the illusion of reality, which after all is the essence of a novels success (to make the action vivid & “live“ in my phantasy, to let me identify with one or the other of th characters, to experience their emotions, etc.), this illusion shatters easily when they sail “with the spinnaker full into the wind“ or if one sunsight re s ults in a tiny cross of a position on the chart, without recourse to the lat/long grid on the chart's edges to boot (“Lost“)

[westwinds]

I enjoyed Love With a Chance of Drowning: a Memoir. Nonfiction so realistic about sailboats and it does a good job of describing human interactions.

[first wind]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Is this an experienced protagonist?
Is this is this somebody with significant amounts of money, moderate amounts of money, or very little money?
Age?
How tall?
What locale?
Duration of trip?
Any guests expected?
Intentional trip or unexpected/ad hoc?

Assuming average height, little money, coastal trip and a fair bit of experience the following boats would work. I included them because there were a lot of each made so widely available, small so they would be cheap to buy, maintain and operate and older which also contributes to cheap.

CATALINA 22 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
CATALINA 25 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
CAL 20 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
CAL 25 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
CORONADO 23 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
COLUMBIA 22 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
TANZER 22 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
PEARSON 22 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
SANTANA 21 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
SANTANA 22 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
RANGER 23 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com
CORONADO 25 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com

With a small sailboat you are going to be using an outboard. With 12gal fuel you are going to have 120-180milrs max range. Motor slower to get the better range. More than 12gal starts to be hard to store on a small boat. Add a 5gal emergency jug at most.

Being on a budget you are not going to have a watermaker. For coastal & ICW trips a watermaker is way down on the list of stuff to spend money on and is really unlikely to have come with the boat. Boat probably has a small water tank of 5-15gal. Will need 2 or 3 5gal jugs for water. In US can usually find municipal water to to refill for free every week or so.

Going offshore, i.e. a passage longer than 3 days or so anything with a centerboard starts to be inappropriate so some of the boats would need to be crossed off the list

Dailey routine ICW:

Wake up and check what's going on around and on the boat.
Constitutional & breakfast
Haul anchor and get underway.
Running the ICW you are looking 2 days or so ahead for anchorages and provisions/fuel/water so sometime during the day, every day, you check maps and pilots and look ahead. You don't want to make a provision stop and find you can't make the next anchorage before dark. Then you have to back track to an anchorage you can make or pay moorage at the town.

Anchorages on the ICW tend to be about 40mi or so apart. In a small sailboat you want to motor at 3.5-4.5 mph. Any faster seriously cuts into your fuel economy, like 8mpg instead of 12 or 15mpg. Basically you will motor about 10hr every day.

About 20-25% of the time the water is big enough to sail without special concern. Sometime the wind will becoming from a direction that allows you to sail along the narrow channels that comprise a lot of the ICW.


Check oil daily in the outboard if 4-stroke or make sure to add it to fuel if outboard is 2-stroke. Clean or replace spark plugs every several days if 2-stroke.

A cheap autopilot would be highly desireable. Without it the protagonist has to hand steer 10-12hr per day. Plus stop to use head or make food. Cheap autopilot for a boat that small is $500 or so new.

Running the ICW is not very fun in the dark but doable with GPS. Anchoring after dark is a bigger problem, you really want to see what is in the anchorage: docks, other vessels, rocks, stumps, shoals, poor protection in the direction a storm is likely to blow from. If I knew next anchorage was too far to make during daylight hours I would up anchor well before dawn in order to have some light when setting anchor at next anchorage.

Changes in noises on the boat usually mean something has changed; the weather, wind direction, loose screw or cotter pin. Always investigate.

Underway you are checking out side every 3-7min, especially with an autopilot.


Daily routine New England and Pacific Northwest:

Similar but more sailing and less motoring. Also spacing of anchorages tends to be closer but also more variable. Water is a lot more open.

Provisioning towns are a lot more variable.


West Coast:

Sailing down the west coast is a different beast. There will be chunks you have to sail 2-4 days straight. There aren't a lot of anchorages so you wind up paying for berths in most places you stop.

Since most of the travel is now sailing (you don't have the fuel capacity for motoring that much) and the water is open you can steer the boat with sheet to tiller methods. Many involve little or no money. Trying to use the cheap autopilot for long distance sailing will wear them out quickly, you want to reserve them for very light wind sailing when sheet to tiller is marginally effective and motoring.

A real windvane steering gear would be nice but they start at $1500 new for the very light ones suitable for a small boat and the older ones you can find cheap are a lot heavier which is especially bad on a small boat.

On passage protagonist will need to wake up hourly to check on things thru the night or take crew or risk things going bad while asleep. Things that can go bad:
Sail rips, sheet chafes.
Screw or cotter pin comes loose.
Wind changes direction and boat sails toward shore
Squal
Weather changes
Encounters another vessel or an oil rig in certain areas.
. . .


Routine in Caribbean:
Similar to West Coast but passages are shorter 1-3days, and in a lot of places you can anchorage hop with no overnight passages.
Water tends to be a lot shallower at the north end of the Caribbean and that needs to be constantly considered.
Water tends to cost a fair bit unless you take small amounts at a time and are unobtrusive about it.

Routine everywhere:
What's going on with the boat is always something you are checking on. If the boat gets hurt you are impaired. Prevention is always better than cure.

Constantly check for traffic, where am I, are there land or seabed features I need to worry about, what's the weather and what will it be, constant small repairs.

If you want you can download a chart reader for free and free marine charts for the US, New Zealand and a few other places and actually map out a real route. Let me know and I'll send you the links.

Daily ablutions. Water will be at a premium. Most people take sponge baths regularly. Some will swim in the salt water and rinse with fresh after. Most try to keep bathwater use to about 1liyer per day unless they have a watermaker, large water tankage or regular supply of fresh which depends on the cruising locale.
There are a couple alternatives for toilette. Built in head with holding tank, porta-potti, bucket.

Last thing. Dinghy. Ya gotta have a dinghy to get ashore, there's no beaching the mothership except those with centerboards and even that's not such a good idea.
There's 3 options:

A. very small inflatable (7-8') (picking mine up today coincindentally). Stores below deflated. Takes 15-25min to inflate and deflate. Susceptible to puncture and UV damage from sun. If the mother ship uses an outboard that is in the 4-7hp range it can be used on the dinghy too. A 4hp could probably be moved by a small woman. With a little rigging the boom can be used to lift a larger motormotor back and forth but more time is involved. Bigger than 7hp or so will overload the stern of the dinghy and possibly overpower it too. Won't row well except in very low wind and current. Expensive ($900 new). Used would be cheaper but might done be as small as you want or have storage space for. Towing only possible in very calm conditions and has a significant impact on fuel economy.

B. very small (6') homemade pram. Rows much better. Motors well with a smaller engine. Storage issues. Has to sit upside down on foredeck right in front of mast. Makes anchoring and working with sails difficult. Towing the dinghy is possible on big chunks of the ICW and smaller parts of NE & PNW. Moderate impact in fuel economy.

C. Very small (6') homemade folding dinghy. Rows almost as well as pram. Not as durable but better than inflatable by a long shot. Motor needs to be small, 4hp or less. Folds up enough to store below depending on how cabin arranged. May be possible to store flat against the life line.

See this https://www.uscgboating.org/images/420.PDF for USCG boating requirements. In the middle there's a list of required equipment.

well thought out post. i thought you were missing some questions, though:

Age?
How tall?
Bust size?
Hip size?
Waist size?
Hair color?
Eye color?
Tattoos and piercings?
Shaven or unshaven?
What locale?
Duration of trip?
Any guests expected?
Intentional trip or unexpected/ad hoc?



anyhow, a laser is a small one man sailboat. don't think i would cruise in one. how about a paradox?

matt layden paradox sailboat - AOL Image Search Results

it's a small one man cruising sailboat and it would make your book an interesting, unique story.

[first wind]

this is the kind of thing i was talking about. unique adventure through micro-cruising.

Go Small, Go Now: A Cruising Couple and their Micro-Cruisers - Sail Magazine

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by first wind

well thought out post. i thought you were missing some questions, though:



Age?

How tall?

Bust size?

Hip size?

Waist size?

Hair color?

Eye color?

Tattoos and piercings?

Shaven or unshaven?

What locale?

Duration of trip?

Any guests expected?

Intentional trip or unexpected/ad hoc?







anyhow, a laser is a small one man sailboat. don't think i would cruise in one. how about a paradox?



matt layden paradox sailboat - AOL Image Search Results



it's a small one man cruising sailboat and it would make your book an interesting, unique story.

Somebody asked for advice and you are being vulgar.

[first wind]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Somebody asked for advice and you are being vulgar.

lighten up a bit. i was simply joking. sorry to offend. didn't know anyone'd be so sensitive. i have actually given a number of suggestions and even posted links for background info. didn't think a bit of humor would hurt anyone.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by first wind

lighten up a bit. i was simply joking. sorry to offend. didn't know anyone'd be so sensitive. i have actually given a number of suggestions and even posted links for background info. didn't think a bit of humor would hurt anyone.

I'm offended! that you stole the response I was thinking too