Tacking the Flying Scot singlehanded in 10 to 15 mph wind

Sailors often want to sail by themselves, or singlehand as it's called. Knowing how to set your boat to sail a reach by herself really helps a lone sailor, and raising the jib is another good thing to know how to do alone. The Flying Scot is designed for 2 to 4 people, but is easy to singlehand with only the main sail. The jib sheets are normally too far forward to singlehand with both sails, unless you have cleats further back near the helmsman. On my 1965 Flying Scot I had a pair of cam cleats mounted on top of the centerboard trunk, but on my 87 I just route the jib sheets through the spinnaker blocks and cleats so I can reach them. In high winds, the jib sheets on the Flying Scot can occasionally hang on the halyard winch. When singlehanding it can be a bother to walk up the cockpit to loosen them, to minimize the sheets hanging I run a small line through the cuningham grommet, down and back to some cleats I have mounted on the deck. In this video of Dieter tacking the Flying Scot by himself, the wind was 10 to 15 mph. He releases the leeward jib sheet as he starts the tack, changes sides, and tensions the other jib sheet as he finishes the tack. He may look a bit uncertain, but he had just learned to tack the previous day and this was his very first singlehanded tack. You need the Flash plugin to see the video, click the play button to start the video. This video was taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2. A $200 camera designed mainly for still photography, it will take a 30 minute 30 frames/second video with sound if you have the 1 Gig memory card. Sailing Video Index

Click the play arrow (maybe twice), to see How to tack the Flying Scot singlehanded.