My regular crew and potential substitutes were otherwise engaged, so I took the 18 out for the first time single-hand.
Less weight did not suck. 
I knew I could up-rig and down-rig solo, my concerns were more for trailer-to-sail transition (and back), dumping/righting, and water temperature.
Rigging went slower than usual on my own, and I had to put the jib up and down several times due to a fat-fingered flub on the jib tensioner pulley and line. Other than that, I was ready to launch without much trouble. Fine-tuning on pulling up the masts with the mainsheet/blocks, stabilized with twist-tensioned trap lines, and started from the don’t-tread step of a ladder… all that has really taken the drama out of standing up the mast. I launched from the Hobie Cove parking lot at Folsom Lake, which has even less slope than the 5-degree ramp over at Granite Bay, and there was about three feet solid of beached driftwood ringing the lake and blocking launch. I flipped the larger pieces out of the way to clear a path, then backed the boat and the car over the remaining small pieces and into the water far enough that the exhaust was burbling a little with the door seals were all above water. Since I was launching with the Subaru instead of the truck, the boat’s angle was actually a little nose-down, but the H18 weighs so little that she slid back, rocked nose up a rather surprising amount, and slid off, no worries. I was thinking I’d nose the boat up on the wood ‘shore’ but slope/draft prevented that, and I ‘beached’ gently on the asphalt (no waves, head-to-wind) to hoist the sail and do final prep.
I lifted the bridles and floated the boat off the asphalt beach with minimal scraping, and walked her out to about two feet of depth, then pushed off, hopped on… and almost immediately realized that I left the tiller extension in the box. With 8mph average winds and gusts not predicted past 13, I pushed on. The resulting sailing session was fabulous, once I figured out where most of the flotsam was floating and sailed to avoid it. There were big ‘fields’ of small bits that almost looked like tidal divides, but Folsom Lake lacks tide. With all the heavy rains, there are lots of floaters, and State Parks has apparently contracted with a vendor for removal soon, but this sailing trip was slalom, braille, and rudder/dagger clearing until I got out closer to the dam where the wind seemed to have cleared most of the flotsam. When I got out there, though… it was glorious. I had a steady breeze with a few puffs, and plenty of chance to really fine-tune the sails. Traveled out a little and sheeted in hard, I had the main tell-tales reliable streaming, and was playing with balancing the upper and lower jib tell-tales… and the windward hull kept gently rising and skipping along. I’m not sure if the low overall crew weight, the steady wind, or the closer attention paid to the sails was the key, but damn, that was peaceful, powerful, and FUN! The jib was harder to keep tuned, but the mainsail was really easy to keep pulling throughout… just a little tension in the outhaul and moderate downhaul to banish sail wrinkles. A couple of the puffs provided enough air under the hull to make me a little nervous, but dumping the mainsheet solved that problem.
The water was a little colder than I wanted to dive into, and I haven’t righted this boat solo yet, so I stayed really conservative. I also couldn’t hop up on the wings with the tiller extension ashore, so I had a mellow but speedy afternoon/evening cruise. What a blast! With the mama-bob at the mast top, I wasn’t worried about going fully turtle, and while I have my righting bag, line, and blocks, I was happy not to need them. After a few hours but all too soon, I saw the evening sun reflecting low angles off the shore windows, and headed in. I furled the jib, pulled up the daggerboards, pulled the ridder mostly up (sometimes the drag in that system is handy, but I mostly worry about the boards not kicking up when needed) and coasted in.
Retrieving the boat was even easier than the put-in... I let it drift about 20’ short of shore, splashed in to grab a 6’ chunk of driftwood and chocked a front bow. With three repeats of the same, I had the boat sitting almost out of the water on driftwood blocks, and no worries about asphalt abrasions. I backed the trailer and car through the previously-cleared slot in the driftwood, stopped with the doorsills just out of the water, and deployed the nose wheel to help with the trailer angle. With the jack topped out, I still had maybe 6 inches of lift for the bows. I went and pulled the boat back off the driftwood blocks (fiberglass slides plenty easy on wet wood once you push past the initial drag) and lifted/nosed it onto the rear rollers. I hooked up the winch and guided her up, stopping a couple of times to check roller and guide alignement and to straighten the boat against the breeze. I should have backed the trailer into more of an angle, but it wasn’t much of an issue.
It is definitely quicker to down-rig with help, but it was relaxing to enjoy the sunset and make sure everything was secure.
Being able to solo the H18 opens up weeknight sailing whether crew is available or not… this is going to be a great year!
Randii
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