What is the largest boat you have single handed?

[Todd D]

By single handed I mean you did everything starting on a dock or mooring, out on the water and returning to the dock/mooring. No help from dock hands.

Sail - Hinckley 49 a couple of times, but I sailed off a mooring. The boat was easy to sail since it had electric in-mast furling on both masts. I never docked that boat alone. I routinely single hand my Allied 36 ketch both off of a finger pier at the marina and more often off of a mooring. I have the boat well set up for single handing so that I can do all sail handling without leaving the cockpit.

Power - I routinely take Tortuga (33') out alone and come back in with no help from dock hands. I have my slip set up for that with a permanently rigged aft spring I can reach from the helm.

Both the Allied and the Tortuga are single engine and neither has a bow thruster.

[isla]

Nothing exciting here - a 26ft GRP sloop, fifty mile overnight sail between harbours in Wales.

[mmd]

sailing has always been a social event for me, so no single-handing. Biggest powerboat was a 50-foot lobster boat w/ 750 hp.

[David G]

Do kayaks count? <G>

Closest thing to that... but not that at all... was getting to take the helm of a CG cutter (hundreds of feet long, I forget what the actual LOA was) in a storm - at age 12 (or 13?). Opposite of 'solo'... I had 'adult supervision' coming out my ears. It's been downhill since then

[switters]

I cartopped a snark for two years when I lived in Durango CO.

That would also be the answer to the other What is * boat threads.

[Ian McColgin]

Granuaile, 55', 20T. Docked, moored, anchored under sail or power in all weather. Here we are about to dock single-handed, our spot stern or bow to a bulkhead that runs from the other side of the ramp in the lower right of the pic. The engine was down so perforce under sail. Luff up directly to weather our spot, drop sail while coasting ahead, drop the hook, walk the rode aft to cause Granna to point downwind, ease her back till bow is between pilings, and control her the rest of the way in by mooring lines.

[CWSmith]

A 25 footer, but I don't remember the class. It was a tubby, probably one-off, sailboat.

[TomF]

21' sloop we built as a family when I was a teen. But I didn't sail it often by myself, mostly with Dad or my brother - who were each better sailors than me.

[willmarsh3]

I single handed a 32' ketch numerous times on the Chesapeake, then down the ICW to Florida, through the Gulf and up the Tenn-Tom. I've locked through single handed. These days sailing is more a social event than not.

[mizzenman]

40 feet. But I didnt like it. She was not well set up.I think 34 feet well set up foor singlehanding would be ideal for my taste

[Bobcat]

Sail: 23 foot schooner. Lots of strings to pull, but good control with a spread out rig. You could pin the tiller and steer with the main and jib

Power: I routinely single hand my Roughwater 35. Single engine. I disconnected the stern thruster many years ago to do some other work and never reconnected it.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

This one. It’s important to know that you can single hand any boat you own, even if you don’t intend to.



Note that there is really only one spot where you can step down to a pontoon from... right next to the aftmost shroud (to hold on to) and it’s twenty feet from the cockpit! The location of the midships cleat is not a coincidence. Nor is the hammerhead berth!!

in fact we have just parked in the picture

[john welsford]

By single handed I mean you did everything starting on a dock or mooring, out on the water and returning to the dock/mooring. No help from dock hands.

Sail - Hinckley 49 a couple of times, but I sailed off a mooring. The boat was easy to sail since it had electric in-mast furling on both masts. I never docked that boat alone. I routinely single hand my Allied 36 ketch both off of a finger pier at the marina and more often off of a mooring. I have the boat well set up for single handing so that I can do all sail handling without leaving the cockpit.

Power - I routinely take Tortuga (33') out alone and come back in with no help from dock hands. I have my slip set up for that with a permanently rigged aft spring I can reach from the helm.

Both the Allied and the Tortuga are single engine and neither has a bow thruster.

I did a 120 mile delivery trip on a 44 ft Colin Archer type, single handed because the crew didn't turn up and I was angry enough to just get on with it, took a day and a half, no problems.
I prefer to sail singlehanded, that way I've a chance, slim, but a chance, of winning an argument with the crew.

John Welsford

[John B]

Same old same as I've bored people here with for the last 14 years, 45 ft ketch .

[bamamick]

I sailed a Star boat from Mobile to Fairhope one time by myself. Honestly, not that much experience by myself. Some J/24 sailing. I sail my AMF2100 by myself.

Mickey Lake

[epoxyboy]

17 foot CLC kayak. Docking veddy tricky, paddle stick out the side, unstable sumbeech .

Pete

[peb]

I suppose my 29ft sloop.

[S.V. Airlie]

Forty footer minus the bowsprit. All manual; no winches, back stays etc as she had in 1927. Oh yea, C'dog helped usually by falling overboard.

But you all knew this!

[TomF]

Forty footer minus the bowsprit. All manual; no winches, back stays etc as she had in 1927. Oh yea, C'dog helped usually by falling overboard.

But you all knew this!

I do so wish that I'd have been able to meet up with you sometime during those years.

[RFNK]

Just my boat, 38' Masina.20200613_134815.jpg

[Art Haberland]

family friend's Owen's Margarita. Obviously this is not their boat as there are very few around anymore and their's was flattened by a bulldozer 20 years ago.

unnamed.jpg

[Breakaway]

Power: 50 foot sportfish.

Sail: I haven't single-handed anything bigger than a Catalina 22 ever.

Kevin

[Garret]

Singlehanded? My boat - 52' sloop.

One time I started & ended @ the dock too - though coming back to it wasn't exactly pretty. 3 knot current pushing me away from the dock did not help.

On & off the mooring - piece of cake.

[johnw]

Offshore 31 ketch. Cruised single handed for a week, on a couple of occasions.