Ryan has been interested in the people and boats that were involved in singlehanding since the 1994 BOC . "It was the first appendage of sailboat racing that really appealed to me and made me want to learn more about it". In 1998 he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and had a lot of downtime with the various treatments he was to receive during the course of that year. "I decided that if I was going to ever sail alone offshore I should probably do it while I had good health so I began schooling myself during my treatment to help focus on getting better". After treatment was over he planned a trip from Louisiana to Savannah, GA on a 21 footer. He only stoped once during that trip because "I realized that I was really happy offshore and didn't want to be distracted from that".

Ryan has have different autopilots for different wind conditions. For more demanding condtions such as when the spinnaker is up and the boat is planing he'll use Raymarine's 6001 unit and the 4000 for less demanding conditions. "When sailing upwind I don't even use the autopilots because the boat balances out so well with sail trim alone. This also saves battery power."

Ryan is racing a J/90, which should be a wet and wild ride to the islands. Since the boat is going back to being a buoy racer after this summer Ryan was limited in the modifications he could make to the boat to optimize it for singlehanding. " I'm adding a canopy type dodger for the companionway. This will be essential for keeping water out of the cabin". Among other things Barry Baker has built a new tiller that is longer and customized to suit the autopilots and an emergency rudder. "We've also added a fractional halyard so I can carry smaller spinnakers in the heavy stuff and also gotten rid of the Tuffluff for my head sails". He's also done quite a bit of work with Pedro Gionatti of UK Texas to scale down Surfinn's sailplan to better suit singlehanding. The performance is still very similar to the old sailplan because the weight of a full crew is absent, and it allows the boat to be more easily steered by autopilots and tired people alike. "

Navigation: Garmin GPS Map 176c. "I'll carry a couple of handhelds as backup and maybe a sextant". Steering: Raymarine 6001 , Raymarine 4000, Sail balancing. Food: "AlpineAire Foods has been kind enough to supply all my food". Special thanks: "My family has been supportive in that they think single-handing is an interesting thing to do although my mother wishes I had a safer hobby. My dad has shown an amazing amount of trust in me to allow me to use Surfinn for such a race. I work at UK Sailmakers New Orleans for David Constance and Neil Borne. They have been very supportive by supplying me with sails and a flexible schedule to pursue training and racing. My friends used to be like "Dude, you're always working on your boat! Let's go see Slayer!" but I've somehow gotten them to help me prepare Surfinn recently".