Singlehanding

[Lynx]

The Shards sold their orginal boat that was a bit more mininum for sure.  I think their first DVD has a picture story of it.

My orginal point is be safe, it doesn't count if you don't get your boat back. There is some good deals to be found if you know what you are doing. There is a lot of junk as well. Take your time and learn and know before you buy. Ask people who have.

Here is a site -  http://www.pearson365.com with a true cost log and pictures. Although this is a 36.5 footer,  email him and he will lead you to other smaller boats.

[macdiver]

Warning this is an opinion of a beginning sailor.


From what I've read in books and on discussion boards, the items that are "necessary" to make a boat blue water capable are really items that will make life on board more convenient (as long as the systems are working properly).  For the boat itself, it was either designed and built to take the punishment of offshore sailing or not.  If it was not designed for offshore sailing, very little can be done to change that.

Beth Leonard and Evan Starzinger have some interesting information on their website under the articles section.  The website is www.bethandevans.com.  After completing a circumnavigation on a production boat with every known convenience item, they had a second boat built but only included the items they "believe" are necessary or desirable.  Look for the article on what was left off and why.  Even with leaving some items off, their boat is a lot more complicated then the boats people successfully cruised and lived on in twenty or thirty years ago.

Really, if you compare what you have in your house today versus thirty years ago, our houses have more "systems" and have become more complicated.  It is just my wife and I, but we have three bathrooms, four phones (not counting cell phones), and 3 TV's.  What is  happening is people expect the same luxuries on their boat and are not willing to leave with out them.  Therefore, the cost of outfitting a boat for cruising can easily reach $60,000 or more.  But what is really necessary -- a strong well built hull and rigging; a sextant, timepiece, and charts; and sails.  That is how people cruised in the 60's and 70's. 

[AdriftAtSea]

Fortunately, most of the people on this site aren't of the mindset that you need to have all the conveniences of home when out cruising, and I seriously doubt that most of the Sailfar crowd have microwave ovens, large screen HD TVs, washing machines, clothes dryers and such aboard their boats, or even expect to ever have those things aboard. 

On some of the other sailing forums I participate in, I have to question when someone is complaining about the costs of keeping their 40'+ boat and how expensive it was for them to get their HD TV installed, and wonder why they're even bothering to get a sailboat like that.

At least for me, leaving behind a lot of the modern media is part of the pleasure of going to my boat. Yes, I have a computer aboard, a laptop that is used for my writing mainly, and I do have a stereo, but that is so I can listen to music, much of which I inherited from my better half.

I can see outfitting a boat can be a significant portion of the cost, but I also know that someone can get into a boat capable of crossing oceans safely for far less than $60000.  It might not have all the modern bells and whistles....but many crossings were made prior to those bells and whistles ever being invented.

[Auspicious]

Forgive me for being contrary, but for what I spent on a good metal sextant I could have bought a whole bunch of handheld GPS units.

[macdiver]

but for what I spent on a good metal sextant I could have bought a whole bunch of handheld GPS units.

True, and a handheld gps is easier to use.  However, I was trying to harken back to a simplier time and gps was not available then.

[AdriftAtSea]

But a metal sextant has few on-going consumable costs... where a gps eats batteries. :)

Forgive me for being contrary, but for what I spent on a good metal sextant I could have bought a whole bunch of handheld GPS units.

[Pappy Jack]

 ::)" I must go down to the sea again, the lonely sea and sky,
and all I ask is a small ship and a GPS to steer her by..."

My apologies to John Masefield ;D.

Pappy Jack

[Fortis]

True, and a handheld gps is easier to use.  However, I was trying to harken back to a simplier time and gps was not available then.

You what?

Have you actually tried using a sextant on a small boat in a seaway for real? Simpler does not come into the issue in any shape or form.

If you dropped it or mistreated it, it was buggered, even orse, if you dropped it and it still seemed to work, you could nto trust it for fear that it was buggered and was going to tell you lieas.

It was heavy enbough and unweildy enough that if you managed to keep one hand for the boat, there was ever good chance that it would whack you in the face as you bounced off a wave trying to take a sight. Why do so many old time sailers appear to have had multiple broken noses in thos lovely B&W photos you see? Were they all bar-room brawlers...No. The nose pointed leftwards break was a sure and common sign of someone that had cause to try using a sextant on a small pitching boat in all weathers.

...And then there was the bloody maths and transpositioning you needed to do at the ahcart table for a considerable amount of time, with often complex problems needing to be solved, under stressful and difficult conditions, and at the total reliance of another item of gear that had to be as close to perfect as possible, the ships clock or ships radio reciever! Both of which were more complex then a modern GPS unit and far more prone to malfunction.
Even if clock or radio time beacon worked, and so did the shaky, scary, sight takings...One error in what was sometimes over thirty complex calculations could put you in error by an astinishing amount...or worse still by a small, beleivable, and un-noticed amount that would shortly jump up and gnaw your butt off (right through the hull).

Of course there is also the issue that you could not really just take a sight any old time you liked or the weather broke to present a decent opportunity. The charts are all set for specific time intervals and to do it any other way adds yet more multiple orders of complexity.

You want the SIMPLE DAYS of yachting....?

Go now and kiss your GPS unit, give it a nice wipedown with a lint-free cloth and thank it with your heart of hearts for giving you the luxury of yearning for thos "simpler" days. You are pissing and mpoaning about getting confused about which button to press or how to best optimise the display on a GPS?  What the heck hope would you have of tuning in your sextant, then?

These ARE the simple days of yachting...that's why there are so many people doing it.

Improved materials, improved sail handling gear and improved com and nav gear is what makes small boat circumnavigation at a practical level POSSIBLE in this day and age.  Spray and TIGER MOTH were two-to-three times and more the length of our boats....And needed to be. Matessier, the ultimate minimalist...still never managed to go below 48 feet for his serious boats, because that was the old tech. A scant 25 years later a small and not uber-fit girl can circumnav on her production built 26 or a couple with three babies under 2 can do it in a Cal25!

anyone that yearns for the days of Chitchester as a better and simpler era of yachting is wanting hard to be a snob and hoping like heck they would be able to come down on the up side of the entry barrier.

Do nto confuse the frou frous like HD tv sets and poop with things like GPS, satphones and watermakers. The latter make the current golden age of sailing.


Alex.

....Okay. I am grumpy because I sailed on board the Enterprize yeaterday and whacked myself with the Sextent...And that was on a 58ton boat in only slightly tossy seas (actually I think we got hit by a big stinkpot's wake from the opposite quarter at just the wrong moment.) There is nothing simple or Goloden about the Enterprize...except the fact she is funt o play with and I can then go back to my own "real" boat.
(On the other hand, Miles was on board with me along with his also 2yo cousin...and they thought the old ship was utterly brilliant!...which definately makes the day.)

[Tamboo]

True, and a handheld gps is easier to use.  However, I was trying to harken back to a simplier time and gps was not available then.

You what?

Have you actually tried using a sextant on a small boat in a seaway for real? Simpler does not come into the issue in any shape or form.

In a much, much former life I was a navigation officer, just about the time satellite navigation was starting to be trialled by companies.
At that point there were far fewer satellites so the accuracy wasn't anything like now, but even then it was often nearer the mark than a sight.

It was a pain in the backside trying to take a decent sight from the bridge of a 25,000 tonne ship, let alone a small yacht!
'Overcast' meant we often went for many days on dead reckoning alone. Three people taking midday sights... chances were three positions at least 1/2 mile apart and that was from pros doing it day in, day out.

Singlehanding... stick with the handheld GPS and carry a spare if necessary. They're probably less prone to damage than a sextant (hence the big, lined wooden sextant cases) and rechargeable batteries are cheaper than almanacs/tables.

[CharlieJ]

we carry two hand helds aboard just for coastal, and if we were heading out longer therm, we'd get a third and pack it away. At around 150 a copy,why not?

I DO wish often that I'd kept my sextant when I sold my big boat- the new owner never left Galveston Bay, but the GPS is SO much simpler and SO much more accurate .

Although that sextant WILL work always if you can see the sun or stars.

[Fortis]

Although that sextant WILL work always if you can see the sun or stars.

And it has not been dropped or knocked about, and if you have the right filter on the mirror (Sextrant owners tend to go all funny when they are showing you how to take a sight and you manage to have the dark sun filter fall off and go overboard while trying to use the thing). If you have the almanacs, and the reliable chronometer or at least SSB reciever (though they can be three seconds out by the time the noon pips are sounded after going through three or four repeater stations between you and the BBC).

If the stars are up and the haze is not and the clouds do not come calling....

I think I would rather state "A, the good old GPS, whihc works so long as the US is not in a major war with anyone nearby and the batteries hold out)...Those factors seem to be more reliable.

Once the european network goes on line we will lose one of those two issues, and you can already get a little crank-generator powered GPS unit. A handheld that works exactly like a wind-up torch/flashlight. You crank it for tenty seconds, then key it on while you crank for another 45seconds to a minute, by the time it has read the local sats and set itself up, you can stoip cranking and it has around 8-10 minutes of power before it needs to either shut down or get some more winding.

I was going to buy one a few months ago as a super-last resort thing for the ditch bag...But the guy at the store said that next years model was going to incorporate several other survival positive functions all working off the crank generator and that the unit would be essentially the same size (standard handheld with a fold out crank).

What really sold me though was that the "next"model had a stainless isntead of plastic crank handle....Cause having that fail strikes me as a source of frustration that could last for the rest of your life.

Alex.

(Edit: Fixed Quote Tag - CapnK)

[CharlieJ]

Now THAT sounds interesting. A hand crank GPS. Kewl.

Yeah - I know about all the things that can knock a sextant out. But bottom line is- all else fails you CAN get a position. Been done on very small boats for a long time. May not be easy, may not be fun, but CAN be done.

But I do recall hearing ( and I may be incorrect) that the Naval academy isn't teaching celestial anymore. Has anyone else hear that?

[AdriftAtSea]

Charlie-

IIRC, they're still teaching celestial navigation and the use of a sextant, but no longer teaching the manual calculations and sight reduction techniques, since most people would use a navigation calculator nowadays.

Fortis-

Can you post a link to the hand-cranked GPS unit, I'd be interested in seeing it.

[Fortis]

I don't have a website for them. they were just one of the gizmos on the shelf at the Australian Geograthic Shop. I never even got the name of the brand inprinted on my memory.
I'll see if there is a website printed on the box it comes in, the next time I am out there.

[AdriftAtSea]

Thanks Fortis. :)

[CharlieJ]

Interestingly in view of the sextant discussion recently, I just stumbled across this article by Mike Richey who owned the original Jester after Blondie Hasler. He discusses sextants and using them aboard boats at sea. I found it quite a interesting read.

Alex- note the last paragraph.

Edit- OOPS, forgot to post the link ::)

http://www.jesterinfo.org/onreflectionoctober1990.html

[Tim]

Great Link Charlie, Thanks

[CharlieJ]

Thanks Tim. I've been wandering around on the Jester Challenge website. There are many interesting articles there which should interest those of us who post here.

Not that I personally have any real interest in singlehanding, but the ideas work just as well for a double handed crew, who after all are single handing in shifts ;D

http://www.jesterinfo.org/index.html

[Tim]

Not that I personally have any real interest in singlehanding, but the ideas work just as well for a double handed crew, who after all are single handing in shifts ;D

I agree, though I primarily sail with the first mate, having the skills to singlehand when necessary is required I believe. One of my questions on setting up the Ariel is  whether to lead lines aft. I know that you don't have them that way on Tehani, but I am use to at least raising and dousing the jib from the cockpit. Perhaps if i have a reliable self steering mechanism I would not feel the necessity.

[Captain Smollett]

I agree, though I primarily sail with the first mate, having the skills to singlehand when necessary is required I believe. One of my questions on setting up the Ariel is  whether to lead lines aft. I know that you don't have them that way on Tehani, but I am use to at least raising and dousing the jib from the cockpit. Perhaps if i have a reliable self steering mechanism I would not feel the necessity.

I know I may be in the minority, but I am "against" leading lines aft to the cockpit on my boat.  I have several reasons for this.  For one thing, I think the psychology of thinking one needs to do everything from the cockpit is dangerous.  At sea, there WILL come a time when you need to go forward for something, possibly in an emergency, and you darn well better be 'comfortable' doing it.