The Cult of the Solo-Sailor

Defending a Demonstrably Bad Idea, Being Asleep at the Wheel

Peter Swanson Mar 9

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Many readers pushed back against a recent story about the potential consequences of singlehanded operation. Their pro-solo-sailing arguments appeared on various Facebook boating groups and in the comments section of the story itself.

One argument went like this: Solo-sailors are the master mariners of the sea, compared to the incompetent lot that like to take other people with them.

In debate circles, this is called a false dichotomy. That’s a logical fallacy that presents two extreme options as the only possibilities when in fact other possibilities exist.

The Legal Implications of Solo Sailing Mar 6 Read full story

One other possibility is that singlehanders are actually not any more competent than the rest of us, taken as a group. Maybe the record-setters and round-the-world sailors are a cut above, but these represent a small subset of the solo category.

Let’s examine the reasons people make voyages alone.

Some are engaged in what one retired Coast Guard rescue swimmer called a “romantic quest for Emersonian self-reliance.” These folks may be the archtype that critics of the story used to bolster their position—they see wizzened, old-salt ocean warriors.

I call this the I-know-a-guy argument, but anectdotes, even when piled up, do not constitute data.

Can we be honest here? Many singlehanders also sail solo for entirely different reasons, which can fall into three categories: They are jerks and have no friends. They suck at sailing, and it shows. Or their boats don’t impress potential mates as being particularly seaworthy.

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The Coast Guard doesn’t break out the number of times they have had to rescue solo-sailors, but a Google search will show there have been a fair number in recent years. These are just a few examples:

• November 2020: Vendée Globe Race participant is rescued by a fellow after his vessel founders in heavy seas.
• June 2021: A tanker rescued an 81-year-old German sailor whose 36-foot vessel, was disabled 400 miles southeast of Long Island.
• August 2023: A solo sailor was rescued from a deserted island in the Bahamas after being stranded for three days, thanks to a “HELP” sign.
• November 2023: A solo sailor was rescued 270 miles off North Carolina after their 38-foot sailboat was found adrift.
• February 2024: A solo sailor was rescued after 46 hours adrift in a semi-submerged vessel during the Global Solo Challenge.
• August 2024: A 62-year-old Frenchman survives for 16 hours in an air bubble inside his overturned boat until he was rescued by the Coast Guard.

Amazingly, the critics kept making the point that solo-sailors harm no-one, since they only have themselves to kill. They fail to consider that helicopter rescues are an expensive burden on the system and can put the rescuers themselves at risk.

Mario Vittone is a retired Coast Guard rescue swimmer and marine accident investigator. Vittone was asked if he thought single-handed types are any more capable that the rest of the voyaging herd.

“I would submit that the opposite is true. The solos lose one point for judgment in their romantic quest for their Emersonian self-reliance,” Vittone said, calculating potential human cost. “I think it lowers the risk of medical emergency (less people aboard) and raises the negative outcome of mishaps owing to the lack of hands. It may be a wash, really, overall.”

One such mishap was illustrated by the photo which accompanied Bob Arrington’s March 6 story. British sailor Jeanne Socrates was in the cockpit of her Najad 361, lying on its side, as waves broke around her on a Mexican beach.

Socrates holds the record as the oldest female to have circumnavigated the world nonstop single-handed and unassisted. One of the story’s critics responded in the comments section with a long list of her voyaging accomplishments. It was intended as a rebuke.

To me, losing your boat is not trivial, and her case illustrates the risks of singlehanding no matter how skilled the skipper.

Socrates said her autopilot had failed, which she obviously did not notice in time. As anyone who has sailed along a surf-beach will testify: If you are straying toward shore, you will eventually begin hear the dull roar of breaking waves.

Danger, Will Robinson!

The sound can be harder to notice, however, if you are sleeping.

Sleeping—that thing we all have to do.

One commenter suggested, without evidence but correctly, that Loose Cannon was not a singlehander and therefore, son, you can never truly understand. He was only half-wrong. I had singlehanded just long enough to know that it was a bad idea, even though I am constitutionally built for it.

I can fall asleep sitting up and wake myself 20 minutes later to check displays, scan the horizon and…repeat. This may be the only way in which I am like Napoleon, whose catnapping allowed him to micro-manage an empire.

This is where the technology wing of the pro-solo-sailor party chirped in. With the ability to enable alarms on radar and AIS, their argument goes, sleeping in violation of Rule 5 of the International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea should not be thing. (Rule 5 is the one that says: “Every vessel must at all times keep a proper lookout by sight, hearing and all available means in order to judge if risk of collision exists.”)

The other side of the false dichotomy is that one skilled solo-sailor is at less risk than two, three, four—name a number—of the knucklehead population that owns boats. This fake argument completely ignores reality. People’s sailing skills lie along a spectrum that extends from knucklehead at the bottom all the way up to Warrior Sailing God.

The dichotomists also completely ignore that as folks move up the spectrum (as one hopes they do, over time), it doesn’t take too long before three moderately skilled people are more resilient in the face of catastrophe than one Warrior God.

This is 2026, and the American population is quite literate in terms of using technology.

Even if unskilled in other aspects of boat management, new people will probably find that mastery of the AIS, chart-plotter, radar, sounder and auto-pilot is not that difficult. So let’s not pretend this is sacred knowlege available only for the initiated.

And do you know when AIS and radar work best for collision avoidance?

When someone is awake and monitoring them, watching the displays and seeing potential danger even before an alarm is triggered.

It’s called watchstanding, and takes a minimum of two to tango.

The greatest single-handed sailor ever (in my humble opinion) is Joshua Slocum, author of the best book ever written about the subject, “Sailing Alone Around the World.” I grew up two towns over from where Slocum rebuilt his gaff-rigged sloop Spray.

Alas, I was never able to visit his grave. Because why? The greatest single-hander in history died single-handing. On November 14, 1909, he sailed Spray out of Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, and was never seen again. Lost at sea.