Does a Tartan 4100 have too much sail area to sail solo?

[AliB]

Hi,
I am currently looking to live aboard a Tartan 4100 as a single female sailor with aspirations to have the ability to day sail by myself and across the Atlantic with crew. Does anyone any thoughts on the level of difficulty to hoist and maintain sail trim in a breeze with the large sail area when I am solo? I can always reef, or sail under a small jib only when alone. I would appreciate any first hand knowledge the most!

[DDabs]

That boat should have roller furling in the main and have all lines led back to the cockpit, which would make singlehanding relatively easy. Beautiful boat!

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by AliB

Hi,
I am currently looking to live aboard a Tartan 4100 as a single female sailor with aspirations to have the ability to day sail by myself and across the Atlantic with crew. Does anyone any thoughts on the level of difficulty to hoist and maintain sail trim in a breeze with the large sail area when I am solo? I can always reef, or sail under a small jib only when alone. I would appreciate any first hand knowledge the most!

You’ll always be using your brain, not your brawn when handling sails.

There’s never an instance on larger boats when your brawn comes into play handling the sails. It’s all about removing the large forces from the sails first, then handling them.

You should do just fine with that boat.

If you feel you’ll get physically tired grinding winches, upgrade to electric or get one of those drills with the winch attachment to help you through.

[AliB]

Oh, and the boat has an electric winch and a Solent setup. Both will help if need be. Thanks again

[Tayana42]

AliB, I can manage my moderately heavy 42’ cruising sailboat by myself and I’m not as strong as I once was. I’ve seen experienced sailors handle larger boats alone. Day sailing solo in weather you can choose should be doable. Think things through ahead of time and have a plan and a backup plan for each situation. Be conservative in choosing how much sail to have up. The Solent rig and electric winches will be a big help. For longer distances fatigue is the biggest issue not strength. You are smart to plan to take crew for crossings.

[DeValency]

Originally Posted by AliB

Oh, and the boat has an electric winch and a Solent setup. Both will help if need be. Thanks again

Should be even better. Guess the inner stay has a furler and even better - at least an optional self-tacking setup. There are few ways to eliminate the need of a track if you want to add such option.

What's the main reefing system?

Anyway, a great boat - Congrats!

[Lost Horizons]

Originally Posted by AliB

Oh, and the boat has an electric winch and a Solent setup. Both will help if need be. Thanks again

If the Solent sail is self tacking, you may need to get creative in heaving-to process. You’ll need it.
Very good boat and very good size.

[ChrisJD]

I echo DDabs on the furling main. The Tartans I've seen all have conventional mains (though some of the newer ones have a Park Avenue-type boom), and that's a lot to handle solo. My wife and I double-hand a Sabre 402, which has a mainsail about 10% smaller than the Tartan's, and even with lazy jacks, a stack pack and autopilot, it can be a beast to wrestle the main down in weather with the her at the helm and letting down the halyard and me on the cabin top making sure the sail flakes properly on the way down.

Everything else is pretty easy to handle solo, particularly with the power winch, though some of the things you could do more easily in a smaller boat take longer (it takes two of us a good minute or two to prepare the boat to jibe, for instance). The Tartan self-tacking jib will be nice, but frankly a conventional 100% jib is usually pretty easy to handle anyway.

[steamgoat]

I am in my 70’s and singlehanded my T37, the most useful item is my CPT autopilot to maintain my course while I attend to other things such as reefing, or chartreading.