Association Forum - Does anyone single hand a WK TR?

Assn Members Area · Join

Home.

Association Forum

Ships Store

Cruising

Racing

Technical Tips

Photo Gallery - New

Boat Search - Updated

Manuals & Brochures

Swap Meet

Links

Officer Flag Line & Staff

Bylaws & Constitution

Members Area

Join the Association

Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.

Association Forum

Username:	Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

All Forums

Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

Catalina 250 Specific Forum

Does anyone single hand a WK TR?

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Author

Topic

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Member Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Initially Posted - 07/02/2011 : 21:27:04

I need to figure out how to sail my boat single handed, if someone out there sails their WK (preferably TR) by themselves, could you give me the run down on a typical sail?

Specifically:
Raising & lowering the sails. I have an autopilot that should help for this, but I've never used it for this purpose. I've single handed my last two boats almost exclusively, but they were smaller, easier to sail boats. What order do you raise your sails in? When I have help, it's always main first, jib second (I have hank on sails).

Leaving and coming into your slip. Again, I've done this lots of times with my San Juan 21, but it's a smaller, more maneuverable boat, if I blew an approach, I could scull her in, now sweat. I seriously doubt that's happening with SL.

Reefing. I have double reefs on single line (each) reefing. This shouldn't be too difficult to do, but again, I've never done it myself.

David
C-250 Mainsheet Editor

Sirius Lepak
1997 C-250 WK TR #271 --Seattle area Port Captain --

Edited by - on

watercayman
1st Mate

Members Avatar

Cayman Islands
49 Posts

Response Posted - 07/03/2011 : 08:23:20

Hi David,

I've now sold my 250 (looking to buy a 32-34' boat now, of which a main consideration is ease of single-handing), but I just checked my logs and out of 77 sails last year, 64 of them were solo on my WK 250.

By far the hardest part is docking. Randy's Dock-o-Matic is a great idea, but for solo, I got used to using a single line attached to my jib track cleat at the forward end. I would have no other lines attached at all -- just this one. Looped over a cleat on the dock and back to the cabin top winch. When ready to go, just flip the line off the dock and go. My dock has typical winds to push me off, which helps in leaving the dock. Coming in is a bit harder, as the wind is not very sheltered. But, same procedure - sail in, turn at last moment (1.5kts ish) to run parallel to dock, and loop the line over the dock cleat and then back to the winch. It always gets the pulse running a bit higher, but I've only missed once or twice in the early days and then simply turned the boat for another pass. With practice, it was 100% successful.

The hard part with this is being able to throw the 'middle' of the line over the cleat on the dock, especially with the wind quickly pushing the boat away from the dock. A taller cleat would help. Or I also toyed with a few ideas to have something sticking up over the cleat to catch the line as it fell. In the end I just left it as is and was able to do fine.

With an outboard and a rudder, I've found the 250 to be extremely maneuverable next to the dock, and will miss this greatly with my next boat!

Once out in the open water, the two issues on the 250 being alone were for me: tacking and the engine.

Tacking: The distance from my big toe to my fingertips is juuuust shy of the distance from the tip of my tiller to my cabin top winch. So I bought 9' of bungee and gave the tiller a couple of wraps between the stern cleats, which buys you about 15 seconds in moderate wind to get up to the cabin top to remove the sheet and take in tension after taking. The simple 'tiller stopper' is very good to stop the boat from turning too far too fast, but not perfect. In heavy winds alone, it can be... exciting. You have autopilot -- if I would have kept my boat, I would have purchased one. This would have made this process a snap I think.

Engine: Alone on the boat, in heavier winds (15-20kts), the waves tend to kick up. This makes raising the sails a bit more of a challenge, as with just one person on the boat, when moving to the cabin top, the weight distribution tends to have the prop out of the water a bit in the troughs. I also use a bit of bungee here to keep the engine straight, but the cabin-top work needs to be done quickly, with as much preparation done at the dock as possible.

I always raised the main first, as this took the most work on the cabin-top. I would have the main up and then give my self time to get comfortable before pulling out the jib. With a hank-on jib, I'm not sure what would work best for you. With autopilot, you do have a nice advantage that should give you a bit more time up there to get it working.

Reefing on my boat was a terrible pain in the neck. I seldom left the dock when alone without my sail plan in place ahead of time(ie reefed to the correct amount at the dock, cover off, halyard attached and wrapped on the winch, minimal sail ties attached). When I did venture to change the reefing once underway, I would always take the sails down to do it. You might have an easier reefing system than I (line on the clew and a ramshorn at the tack).

Aside from these relatively minor issues, I found the boat quite easy to solo after a little practice. In the beginning, I asked the Admiral to join me on several 'solo' sails just to be another set of hands in case I needed them. Gave me good confidence in my abilities to see that I was fine doing everything alone.

If you can do it in a San Juan, I'm sure you'll be fine with the 250 :)

Kind regards,
Mike

Edited by - watercayman on 07/03/2011 08:30:10

Dave Brown
Navigator

Members Avatar

USA
174 Posts

Response Posted - 07/03/2011 : 08:36:43

Sir I go all the time by myself,
Fire the motor up, and out ya go, now when your out in the clear, head into the wind ,PUT THE AUTO PILOT ON, up goes the Main, Or pull out the jib. One or the other, NOT Both. Hit the 20 deg.mark not the Auto, and let the boat fall off wind, See how

things feel, If all goes well, shut off the motor if not, head back into the wind and make
some adjustments, " REEF or ROLL UP PART OF THE JIB".

There's are days when I could sail with both of the sails up, but why? The boats moving well, Not real sure just what the weather is going to do, and my drinks not
spilling out of the glass. This is fun, not work, keep Auto on and hi the catbird seats.

Dave B.
250 tall rig
#411

Ps. I always try to find a place to tie up, and let the boat clock into the wind, be for I reef. I find it easer, than going 2 out of 3 rounds with the boom.