Getting Ready for Single-handed Sailing

Some offers are too good to miss! I’ve got a couple of friends who own a Neel 43, and they asked me to deliver their trimaran from Carteret, in Normandy, to Venice, Italy. The plan was a superb 2,000-nautical-mile voyage with a few tricky areas to navigate: getting clear of the Western Approaches (to the English Channel), with their strong tidal currents and heavy maritime traffic, the crossing of the Bay of Biscay, the descent southward along the Iberian coast with the potential risk of encountering killer whales, the passage through the Straits of Gibraltar, then across the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, two seas with often-changing conditions.

The good news is that the multihull had to be in port by July 1 at the latest. By planning to leave in mid-May, I could choose the right weather window.

To keep my skills sharp, I decided to sail solo for the first leg to Porto. A crewmate would then join me to continue the voyage. In this video, I invite you to join me in preparing for the trip and we’ll have a look at how it has progressed!