Don’t get overpowered
Managing the amount of sail you have set before you become overpowered is more important when you are singlehanded as it takes longer to reduce sail and you will have no extra pairs of hands if things get exciting.
If you know it’s going to be a windy sail, reef before you leave your mooring. If you have a ramshorn for the tack reefing point, you may need a small piece of bungee to hold the cringle in place until you have hoisted the sail.
If you are already out on the water, reef early, before the wind increases too much. Be conservative with how early you reef. Before you tackle reefing the mainsail, furl away some of the headsail. This will slow the boat, making the motion easier and reducing heel, so making reefing the main easier. Having a more heavily reefed main, and using the genoa to fine-tune the sailing area with the furling line also makes changing gears singlehanded less arduous and avoids trips on deck before needing to shake out or take in the next reef.
‘For short-handed crews, mainsails need to be quick to drop in an emergency and require no feeding when hoisting, to avoid unnecessary trips out of the cockpit,’ says Pip Hare.
‘Avoid using a main with a bolt rope, because when the sail is dropped it will not remain captive at the mast and can quickly become uncontrollable.’
Downwind, keeping the rig under control requires some forethought. A main boom preventer should be used if you’re sailing
deep downwind, but is precarious to rig at sea, so have this ready before you set off, or even rig one on each side. Most singlehanders are likely to be reluctant to set coloured sails off the wind in all but the best conditions and using a headsail, poled out, is more likely.
To set your poled-out headsail, begin by furling it away while you ready a pole on the windward side with uphaul, downhaul and guy. This will give you full control of the sail from the cockpit. Once you are set up it is simply a case of unfurling the sail and trimming from the helm. It’s an easy and easily manageable solution and can be furled away without dropping the pole. It will be easiest to furl the sail before you gybe, then attend to changing over the pole before again unfurling.
Setting a spinnaker or cruising chute is a more long-winded process solo so should only be taken on if you have a long leg ahead of you and you are sailing in relatively traffic-free waters.
A cruising chute is simpler to set up than a spinnaker. Rigging can be done with the headsail furled and hoisted in its snuffer. You’ll probably need to be on the foredeck to raise the snuffer, so make sure you are secure before doing so. Set the boat on a course deep downwind until you can get back to the cockpit to trim the sail.
Hoisting a spinnaker takes more planning and more time both to set and douse. For gybing either of them, you would be best to snuff or drop the sail and reset on the new side.