SingleHanded Transpac?

OK - I think I am going to try to do this. No wait, didn't Yoda say there wasn't a try. There was Do or Do Not? Let's do it then.

I love to sail. and I am really enjoying this single-handed stuff - (even though I still haven't figured out the best way to gybe as I keep having trouble keeping my kite full throughout). I have much to learn, and some time to do it. Time is short as this is a big project, and there is much much for me to learn.

I can sail the boat SH. I do not know how to race the boat hard across a long distance offshore race very well yet. There is a lot more than sailing to this success. There is equipment choice, sleeping plans, mastering weather information and routing, etc...

Oh and I mean business. I want to race. Hard. I don't want to cross the Pacific. I am sure I can find some cool rally if I want to do that. I have some colors to defend! And all this biking that I am doing, this is to increase my general level of fitness because I want a strong metabolism before I am exposed to cold, wet and sustained effort.

This is very different from double-handed - if your AP breaks double-handed, you still get some sleep. If it breaks single-handed, you can still rig something up (unless you are dead downwind and have no twin sails, there are options to drive a boat based on a balanced sail plan, takes a bit of experimentation, but they work) but may not be as competitive.

Lotsa of my single handed races had AP issues. Actually, it wasn't the AP, most of the time, it was the electrical system. We have redone it on Elise and it is much much more water and fool proof than even a couple of months ago, but there might still be more optimization we can bring.

1 Farallons Race: worked upwind just fine and broke downwind

1 Half Moon Bay Race: stopped working halfway, I had to use Bungee, obviously, stopped working when spinnaker was up

1 Long Pac: stopped working on first day (connection issue really)

Vallejo 1-2, for some bizarre reason, now the AP seems to be acting up. Connections are fine but it complains about all sorts of weird things so it hasn't worked.

On day trips, this isn't a problem at all, so I will keep racing single-handed, with or without autopilots...and I will spend practicing other self steering techniques on any point of sail, so that I can get some sleep if I have to. Looking at the most successful racers, it looks like the ones that could get sleep did better overall. So even if my AP breaks, I think that I want to have a backup plan, with sails only that allows me to get some sleep AND keep moving to my destination (instead of heave-to for a couple of horus here and there and make no progress!! NOT a good thing in a race!)

So I am really looking forward to this - and ending up in Hawaii isn't a bad place to be :)