What is Reddit's opinion of Singlehanded Sailing: Thoughts, Tips, Techniques & Tactics?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Part II:

A conclusion of "suicide" from bits of broken megayacht sounds a lot like the shipping company's insurance agents getting their way.

That said, solo sailing can and will do odd things to a person's mind. Checkout Andrew Evens' Singlehanded Sailing for an extended discussion of the psychological challenges faced by solo sailors (as well as techniques for watches and advice about avoiding shipping!).

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Answering a slightly different question than you originally asked, If I were writing a novel about insurance fraud involving a large racing yacht and a tanker, I would imagine something like the following:

Plan to meet a friend on a very small but fast powerboat at a known location near a busy shipping lane. Disable active radar reflectors and take down any passive radar reflectors. Also, get rid of any large flat surfaces like big solar panels that could act like radar mirrors. With the powerboat off in the distance, intentionally put the boat in the way of an incoming cargo ship, ideally under cover of fog or bad weather. Abandon ship and swim away. If the seas are calm and the weather is foggy, the friend in the powerboat might be able to take you off at the last minute without the ship spotting you.

Plenty could go wrong, but the history books are full of complex marine insurance and insurance fraud cases.

For your thesis, try to talk to SailDrone, if you haven't already.

Andrew Evans discusses radar and AIS from the perspective of the single handed sailor (racer) in his book. If he doesn't chime in here, you should probably try to reach out to him.

Small recreational boats are unlikely to show up on radar, even when they have reflectors rigged. Commercial shipping is strongly encouraged or required to have AIS-A. Recreational boaters can use AIS-B in receive mode to receive other AIS-B and AIS-A signals. Or you can use AISB-B to receive as well as transmit your position.

Critically, AIS actually gives you data about your target. This could be a big win for autonomous work. It also won't be faked out by big seas or heavy rain.

In the US, you can get an ICOM MA-500TR AIS-B transceiver that outputs NMEA data for $700.

My guess is that marine radar units are optimized for commercial human use. I would imagine that there has been a lot of progress in the use of radar in autonomous vehicles that has yet to be hardened for marine use.

Racing Rules of Sailing.

Andrew Evans' Singlehanded Sailing - Andrew's focus is on racing, but racing teaches you what you can and can't do when you want to get someplace as fast as possible. Sailboats are slow compared to almost any other form of transportation, but if a big storm or a big ship is coming your way, you will appreciate knowing how to get out of the way.

I also like to have a copy of Royce's Sailing Illustrated around, but that's more for fun than anything else.

Try to lean towards newer books rather than old books. Much has changed in the last 40 years. In particular, no one really takes seriously the idea of full-keeled ketches and yawls for ocean crossing anymore. We can easily build tall aluminum and carbon masts, so it's exceedingly rare that you actually need more than one mast to make the sales manageable. Additionally, we know that light boats are much safer than heavy boats in heavy weather. Old heavy boats dig a hole in the water as they fall into their bow wave. More modern boats can surf out of the bow wave. More importantly, lighter boats require less power and are thus more lightly loaded, so you are less likely to lose a limb or digit in heavy weather (but please be careful with your lines, you can still hurt yourself badly!).

Finally, you can learn a great deal from books, but local knowledge beats book learning. Get to know your sailing community, and try to befriend someone who has been sailing in the area for decades. you will learn things that keep you safer and help you to experience more fun. Iron rules in another area may be thrown out in your area.