I tried singlehanded in my newly acquired Stealth 16, got the genniker up and stayed upright. What puzzles me is where do you find the extra 3 pairs of hands you seem to need when trying this - great fun though, even when my race ended when I was too slow dropping the genniker and ran over a sheet!

Paul, Well done on staying upright, seems to be more than I can do when sailing solo.
There was a thread on this subject a while ago, if you do a search on single-handed sailing with spinnaker you might find it.
Someone clever came up with a way of routing the retrieval line through a piece of bungy-cord which is attached to the tiller so that when the line is tensioned it keeps the boat going in a straight line. What I`ve found is that if you get the spinnaker up & down REALLY fast the boat doesn`t have time to change direction, this takes a bit of practice & a LOT of sweat, and prevents the kite going over the bows or snagging on anything else.
As for capsize prevention, I can give no useful advice here, since I went over 4 times last Saturday, twice on one downwind leg !

Cheers
Steve

Paul,

Have a look here

Where in the UK are you based ?

Paul,
Steve is right it is all about being fast when bringing the kite down but with a boat either side of you coming into the bottom mark I like to know my tiller will stay straight while I'm bringing that kite down.
The attached pic shows a very simple system that does that.
The bungee goes to the tiller which is not in photo.
Under normal sailing conditions the bungee is lose. When the kite is being brought down the tension in the downhaul centres the tiller via the bungee.

Regards,
Phill

Maybe the Mosquito has a tendency to keep tracking straight because we don't seem to have a problem steering by tucking the tiller between the backs of our upper and lower legs while kneeling. To actually steer we just rock our feet from side to side. This seems to give plenty of control while freeing up both hands for the halyard.

I was pretty amazed to see the talk of cleating the spinnaker in that other thread. I find the spinnaker needs a lot more adjusting than the main, and in a howler you have to be able to let the spinnaker go in some of the bigger gusts, otherwise the only way is down Once again I'm talking about Mosquitos, and maybe this is different for cats with more main and less spinnaker.

Tim

Tim,

My comments re cleating the kite are to only allow one to play with something else in the short term. I'd never planned to cleat the kite for long periods of time....the big dump of kite when both bows disappear in the big stuff is still the only way out I think. I have had a couple of moments already where I have cleated the kite by accident when doing something just as a big gust (or shift) arrives and it has got 'interesting'. I am still to find the correct angle for the cleat on my 17, but it does make things easier when changing the traveller position(espically from the wire when trying to make a mark), moving the plates or such like...