Safety Problems for the Single Hander

Extract

Safety problems for a single-hander fall into two basic categories: those affecting the single-hander and those that affect other people. The most obvious difference between sailing in, say, R.O.R.C. races and on one's own is that there is no back-up for the single hander when some particular task such as a sail change has to be carried out. Whereas on a modern ocean racer most jobs can, and indeed have to, be swamped with men in order to achieve not necessarily the most efficient result but the fastest result, for the single-hander the job has to be much more carefully thought out so that at no time does he place himself in the position where a piece of gear or equipment can lose itself because he is elsewhere.