Circumnavigation Solo, and watch

[Richard Z]

Originally Posted by HappyMdRSailor

Exactly the opposite....



+1



Wouldn't that be bottomology???



HAAAAAAAAA!!!



INDEED!
Good eye Gordo!

That wouldnt be bottomology. Actually it wouldn't be bottom topology neither.
I apologize I used topology, I should have used bottom topography. Bottomology is a different creature.
Both topology and bottomology are theories in particle physics and mathematics.
So the corrected term is bottom topography.
Thanks

[Richard Z]

Originally Posted by Pirate999

You may want to download and read this.

[L="http://sfbaysss.net/resource/doc/SinglehandedTipsThirdEdition.pdf"]http://sfbaysss.net/resource/doc/SinglehandedTipsThirdEdition.pdf[/URL]

That's a good read..read it before a few times. Also a good one is :"
SINGLEHANDED SAILING" by Richard Henderson

[brightontrader]

I have sailed solo the Indian Ocean, Red Sea and the Med plus a few more long stretches and agree with a lot on this thread:

Get good sleep, you can hear and sense boat movement, and in my case the prop and when it changes you wake up anyway. Guard alarm in busy areas like the mediterranean, get more sleep setting it for 5-10 miles, use compass not wind on autohelm for sure.

I found that I met people on the VHF calling me on 16 occasionally, usually Indian watch officers, plus the odd yacht, never used SSB..no AIS in those days. Kept a good 20 miles out of obvious shipping lanes.

Red Sea was very difficult going north, lots of reefs, a couple of times I was shattered so anchored off reefs to get 8 hours in. Spend a 48 hour period dozing in and out of sleep in rough seas and its impossible to keep a good watch when you are knackered....

Good things are many about soloing, you know the water and food is going to last, you don't have to get somewhere to suit a visiting crews return ticket flight home, so can divert for weather..Hardest thing in Med is actually entering marinas and mooring solo stern too, best to ram bow first a group of yachts with chunky fenders, then tie up..and hop over the bowsprit.

Best thing I had on board was a Furuno Weather fax, bought after doing the Atlantic twice without, only listening with an SSb receiver to a weather man in Canada calling yachts with SSBs....you get really good tuning those things and knowing which faxes are important, having good historical cyclone track information and working out what your escape route is from TRSs. (Basically in the northern hemisphere cutting round India and thailand, head towards equator.....if you see one coming your way..that sort of thing, work it out before you get into trouble.)

Between Flores and Horta in the Azores hit a solid object at full speed at night, threw me out of bed, checked below for leaks and dashed on deck, could not see anything....I suspect a Sub or container, a month later on hauling out I had a 6" bend on skeg and 3" dent in the front of my fin keel...

so my advice is : If you are going solo long distance, buy a steel boat..