Good luck with your
boat. I love the idea of embarking on a new adventure-filled direction in life. I did it myself at age 48 (I'm 68 now), when I bought an old sailboat. I had more
experience than you, having worked as a
charter boat crew and eventually
skipper for several years. But that was only basic prep for
single handing on my own vessel. You learn as you go, not so much "reading while at anchor", as facing unexpected situations and stuff that breaks. You will learn more from other cruisers than you will in any book. I would also recommend sailing with experienced friends as often as you can. Your confidence will increase, and you will learn a lot. There will be plenty of opportunity for solo sailing down the road. As far as what type of boat, I was familiar only with
steel and GRP vessels. I was warned to avoid wooden vessels and advised that a
ketch is better suited to
single handing, as well. In the end, I found an affordable cold molded (kauri
wood and epoxy)
sloop in
New Zealand. I lived aboard her, and sailed around the world over the course of 15 years. The
sloop rig had a "baby stay", effectively making it a
cutter rigged sloop (allowing for a
storm jib at the center of effort, during heavy weather). I experienced no difficulties managing
sails on my sloop, and have heard from others that in some ways, a
ketch provides more difficulties (more expensive to rig, more things to go wrong). I found that by sticking to the basics of safe sailing (paying attention to the
weather, reducing sail each evening for relaxed nightime sailing, and during the day,reefing before the
wind strengthened), I rarely ran into a situation where my headsail caused a problem. I would stick to looking for a vessel that is well built and has been well maintained, and focus less on the material (my
wood hull was strong and performed better than any
steel or
fiberglass vessel of similar size) and sail plan.
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