I and several buds sail on a local lake mostly singlehanded. When one of us capsizes, due to the weight of our cats, solo righting works sometimes but not always, so we would like to help each other right a capsized cat if necessary. This of course would require one of us to sail up near the capsized cat, park our cat in irons, and leave it unattended for some period of time while assisting to right the capsized cat. Although I think this can be done safely, I do have conerns that some things could go wrong and want to learn from others experience since doing this safely would largely depend on technique. We sail in a range of wind up to around 20 kts and it can get fairly gusty (but one can find themselves unexpectedly in more wind). So a few questions:

1) Do other cat sailors do this or would it generally be considered unsafe?
2) When intending to park a boat in irons so it can be left safely unattended, would the optimum technique be to center the traveller and then sheet in the main once in irons (to keep it in irons)? One would have to be concerned that with a big enough wind shift a sheeted main might cause the boat to sail off or capsize? Would it be better to center the traveller and loosely sheet the main? If the main were left unsheeted, could the boat get of of irons on it's own?
3) Does one have to be concerned about the two boats drifting apart? Obviously if the right the boat, even with drift, they can sail back to it. So maybe I'm asking how often two people might have trouble righting a capsized and/or turtled cat such as a H16 if they were caught in winds up to 25-30 kts (in which case they couldn't get back to the sailable cat)? Also, which boat would drift faster, the one capsized one or the one in irons?
4) One of my friends suggested that we might consider tying the two boats together so they don't drift apart. I have concerns that this could have the potential to create more problems than it solves (ie, it could interfere with righting the capsized boat, could pull the other boat out of irons, etc). Is this in fact unsafe?
5) Another approach I've consisered is to use a sea anchor to safetly keep the cat in irons. I would think one could then ease the mainsheet and traveller. The two boats would definitely drift apart in that scenario. Would this be a better approach than #2 above or is it not necessary?

Any other advice or ideas as to how people deal with the issue of rendering assistance would be very appreciated!

Jerry