Sorry you had trouble righting. I sure hope you didn't damage your new mast!

Skip Elliot told me the he's always recovered from turtle by standing on the "leeward stern" to generate windage on the bows and get some air under the tramp, letting the wind and waves push the boat back onto its side, mast to windward. He said he didn't need a powerboat to recover from turtle, but he also said he never had to right without a powerboat. He said he thought it should be possible, especially with a Carbon mast. I ask him why he never tried it, and he said because there was always a powerboat offering to help.

I capsized my Tornado deliberately in ~3' swells with Gary Friesen as practice with 4 PFDs hoisted on the spinny halyard to prevent turtling. Following his example, we each righted singlehanded repeatedly with a righting pole Gary designed (a carbon reinforced 6' oar with a fitting to fit the centerboard slots), despite the extra weight atop the mast. We rotated the boat relative to the wind by pulling ourselves around the edges of the sails in the water. Go around one way and the boat turns the other. I can see it would be much harder in 3-5' wind waves. Gary also did this with another Tornado, and found that one PFD atop the spinnaker halyard was enough to prevent turtling in mild conditions. We never tried without a PFD because we didn't have a powerboat standing by. (We deliberately sailed a couple miles offshore to avoid offers of help from powerboats, keeping our VHF and seatow card handy.)

Some other good advice from Gary: as soon as you go over, free the mainsheet and hang on the boom to get lots of slack in the mainsheet while it is easy to do so. Later, you can free the jibs sheet and traveller. The boat will be much easier to right with the sails as free as possible. Get the bows and mast pointed equally upwind, and right it. If you fail because the mast blows around, try again with the mast more upwind. If the boat rolls after righting, try with the bows more upwind.

Of course, all this is much harder in the presence of a powerboat... especially an impatient one. Mark, you have my sympathy!

--Glenn