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mike cunningham
07-17-2015, 04:52 PM
What an experience, I am still processing, it was very good, very bad, and very weird depending on the phase.

As the fleets started I foresaw a great adventure. I had overnighted offshore only several times in my sailing life and never as a singlehander. I felt pretty confident I was up to it and would be able to do what was necessary to finish safely. I knew I could drop out at any time I felt uncomfortable but no question, I went into the race with “summit fever”. I was going to finish come what may. For me, finishing was the game. I also realized the further offshore you get, the less useful dropping out became.

I remember one of the fellows at a recent seminar mentioned he had gotten to within 20 miles of turn around and dropped out due to electrical problems...not me baby, 20 miles out and I am swimming to the turn around. This bravado, I now realize, was foolish in the extreme.

Day one was pretty uneventful except for a transit through the Farallons which kept me up late in light wind ensuring I didn’t hit anything. In retrospect I should have stayed clear and rounded north or south. Had the wind died completely I would have been drifting around the rock pile sweating bullets all night. I got through eventually and sacked out comfortably in the cockpit.

Day two was an exercise in extreme frustration trying to put the Farallons behind me. I began to hate the sight of South Farallon and did not get it below the horizon until dark. Got good sleep that that day . By the way, I am having the readings 1.5 and 2 Kts ripped out of my speed instruments, I never want to see those numbers again….ever.

Day three and four involved slowly moving through multiple light wind cells slowly continuing the move offshore. Beautiful starry nights. Reasonable sleep both nights but a deficit building esp on night four. There was some kind of a fishing trawler or Russian spy ship or something wandering hither and yon without an AIS so I was stressed out and couldn't get much sleep.

Day five the wind finally began to fill in and I got round 126.40 about 3:30PM. 4 days and some hours to travel 200 miles!! But the forecast is for increasing winds on the way back so that will be easy peasy. I was a little troubled by the OCENS forecast of 20 - 30 Kts by late Monday into Tuesday morning but we are off the wind, I have been out in these conditions, not comfortable but not a problem.

As as we went into the night things started to get rough with TWS heading toward 20 Kts. I had not reckoned on the boat essentially being broadside to the seaway and it was uncomfortable sailing. The AP was hanging in there quite nicely but I began to hear a periodic grinding noise from the AP drive at about 2:00 AM Tuesday morning. I knew this would only get worse and would lead to failure but I just let the thing grind along. No way I was going to attempt a drive replacement in the middle of the night, 20 Kts of wind and fairly short period 6 to 8 foot seaway. I’ll do it in the daylight. I was on the third reef at this point. Got zero sleep.

Then daylight came and holy crap, who took the ugly stick to that beautiful seascape of yesterday? TWS was gusting to 25Kts and the boat would no longer carry the triple reefed main and the jib. That’s an interesting conundrum for Mr. “I will finish come what may”. After long consideration of say, 30 seconds, I decided to strike the main and go for it on jib alone. After all, we are on a reach and the jib should provide plenty of drive. This actually worked pretty well. The boat was nicely balanced and I was making 5 to 6 knots.

Progress seemed to pass in scenes. Scene one: pressing forward at night, Scene two: Over powered at dawn and dropping the main, Scene three: The cauldron. Sailors will recognize scene three. It is one of those days where the early morning sun is illuminating the surface and provides an awe inspiring glimpse of nature. When it blowing 25Kts it is more of a - wow I have to get across that - glimpse of nature. Most of the old hands will say “yea yea, whatever” but for me it was a very clearly enunciated “holy shit”. 6 to 8 foot seaway, some breaking with quite impressive visual effect and I get to sail right through that mess.

And then, of course, the AP drive packed it in. Quick glance at the plotter, 103 miles to go. OK, well I just have to find a quiet rest stop to settle down and do the drive replacement. I had a complete spare drive on board. This is if I had the required 3mm hex wrench which I thought I had. Emphasis on thought. Somehow in the rush to get ready I had not checked that I had a right hex wrench. I tried every wench on the boat. None would fit. OK, well, it ain't the end of the world gotta hand steer for another twenty hours haven't slept for about 30 hours now. Piece of cake.

So I managed to get through the cauldron, cockpit got filled only once, a little breaker snuck up on me, and the many more miles necessary to reach a point 45 nm from the gate. I got the main back up in about 20 Kts TWS and had a great ride in pitch dark up to the Farallons.

Then I entered the Twilight Zone. Things got really weird and I am not exactly sure what happened. I knew I was in serious sleep deficit and that my judgement was impaired so I wanted to be really careful about the Farallons and making sure I cleared them safely. I tacked around for half an hour at 1 in the morning convincing myself I had things straight. I passed the Farallons and began to obsess about the exclusion zone. I wanted to parallel the zone but found myself inside it. I was having trouble reconciling wind direction with plotted heading and I just got sucked into this complex mystery trying to figure out why the plotter was lying to me. I had recently done a plotter software update and thought,I probably need to reboot. I switched off the plotter and it came up with no cartography!! Damn Raymarine! I knew you were lying when you told me I could do the SW update and not loose the cartography! Inexplicably I stopped the troubleshooting right there and switched the unit back off. Turns out I was just at maximum zoom and the plotter was displaying everything within 50 feet of the boat, which was nothing.
So I went to my backup plotter which had to be handheld in the cockpit and has a smallish screen. I have not used this Garmin extensively for several years so I got lost in menus and screen clutter and so forth. I did not make much progress in resolving my nav issue.

The next thing I remember - I am not making this up - is I was in a significant seaway staring at a coastal roadway with car traffic on it. I am thinking to myself, where in the hell is car traffic anywhere near the Farallons and I was actually coming up with some answers. Oh, that must be people going to work at the research station. Yea, like there is a highway on South Farallon. Then some guy in a truck must have seen my running lights and , God bless him, positioned himself right ahead of my boat and started flashing his lights. I got a grip and turned South, the trucker then raced down the road to my new heading and started blinking his lights, oh for God’s sake, Ok, I turned north, trucker heads back up the road and starts blinking his lights again. OK OK, I tacked away into the blackness behind me and left the roadway in the darkness astern. At no time did I bother to look at the compass.

I swear the above actually happened. I spoke to Brian B. today to see if we can take a look at the raw tracker data since the race track has been taken down and I am also trying to find sources for AIS data which might provide a lot more resolution. I was probably ¼ to ½ mile off the beach.

I think what may have happened is I reached to point where my body/mind just shut down and I may have drifted in a south easterly direction from the Farallons to the coast.

Then it is blank out again and I find myself working on getting in the gate and finishing about 10:00 AM. I call Jan and ask for finish support. Tell her I am about 30 minutes out. It is very hazy but I can see some kind of structure in the haze so I am good, no plotter reference required.

About two hours later I get a VHF call from Brian B wondering when I was planning to reach the gate, the race committee is waiting to wrap things up. I tell him right outside the gate, bet there in a few. he says, that’s odd, AIS have you down south of Pacifica but whatever, get here soonest.

So I finally pull out the plotter and find I am about 15 miles south of the gate. Get my act together sail up there, and finish.

So I don’t know if the beach encounter was a dream or was real but it sure felt real. Hopefully I can get some data to confirm. If it was real, and I had been a few miles further South that could have been a very bad thing.

So that’s my story.

PS. I was in full on hallucination mode. My helm assembly turned into Popeye the sailor man and my son was peeking at me from behind the mast. It was sort of entertaining to be honest. The auditory side was also going strong. Every noise was turned into something meaningful. I would screw something up and a wave would say "good job Mike". The autopilot looked like a little stick man until he turned traitor.

PSS. Thanks to the Race Committee and Jackie for being there when I finished. I really fouled things up with regard to timing but they were there wehn I finished. Many Many Thanks, Mike

mike cunningham
07-17-2015, 05:14 PM
Brian B. just sent me an e-mail and said he looked at tracks. He did not think I could have got closer than 2 miles to the coast. The road thing may have been a dream and I was essentially asleep at the wheel and adrift for several hours. Wild!

That would explain me waking up in relatively calm seas and low winds. Not sure why I assumed I was at the gate, but I did.

pogen
07-17-2015, 06:02 PM
Holy shit. Thanks for writing this. The last miles of the race are definitely the scariest. I'm not surprised that you mis-perceived the distance to the auto traffic on the coast, that can be very hard especially with darkness, fatigue and fear factored in.

mike cunningham
07-17-2015, 06:37 PM
Yea, crazy, but it was an adventure that's for sure.

Congrats on the win! I am in awe you finished in 4.5 days, heck I had just gotten out there by then.

Lightspeed
07-18-2015, 07:55 AM
Mike, thanks for the report I figured something had broke just was hoping it wasn't your rudder or rig.

mike cunningham
07-18-2015, 08:28 AM
Thanks Rick, a big lesson I learned is there is another piece of equipment on the boat called the skipper. He or She is breakable and you have to be very mindful of that.

CRC1965
07-18-2015, 02:27 PM
Thanks for the posts. I am still processing the whole event. I was lucky to have a boat that sailed well in light airs....but after a few days of baking in the sun and going no where started to wonder what in the world I was doing (at one point fell into a deep sleep to awaken and find I had made a lot of progress....EAST ;-).....beware wind mode on autopilots....lesson learned). Like you I found the transition from 0-5 knots....to 25 knots building seas and dark a challenge especially sleep deprived. Overall the support of the society made all the difference. Very impressed to see the tracks of Temerity and Lightspeed!!!
Chris
(Ventus)

Grace
07-18-2015, 06:34 PM
If Mike's account of the 2015 Longpac is not a wake up call for the SSS, I am not sure what will be an appropriate catalyst for action. Hallucinations and disorientation are not uncommon experiences for solo sailors. Once experienced, the vessel is no longer under command. The USCG requirement to always maintain a watch becomes just another rule to be ignored. Bill Merrick (Ergo - Ericson 35) had a similar experience in the 2006 SHTP and ultimately needed to be rescued and towed by the USCG. Wen Lin (Wen Le Mer - Swan 48) thought there were other people on his boat in the 2004 SHTP and after communicating this to his partner by satphone was rescued by the USCG and his boat sailed back to the harbor once they were onboard. A relatively famous female singlehander lost her boat on a Mexican coast when she experienced autopilot failure and was asleep. An "A" list French ocean singlehander lost his rather large trimaran sailing onto the rocks in France after a long and difficult Atlantic crossing. The list goes on and on.

What's to be done? First, the SSS needs to address the issue directly and acknowledge the problem. Then, training needs to be mandatory for all participants to address the onset of extreme exhaustion which is unique to solo sailing and find out what techniques can best deal with the issue. Why are the sailors not heaving to and buying time to get needed rest? Why are the sailors continuing to approach the coast under difficult conditions instead of turning away from the worst of the weather and waiting for it to pass? This simple solution would have saved the vessel Wildflower from being scuttled on a return trip from the SHTP. Why is there no mechanical alternative to electronic autopilots (windvanes for example) that actually work more effectively as the wind gets stronger? Clearly, the requirement for AIS both transmitting and receiving is long past due and would at least alert other vessels to the presence of SSS boats that are essentially adrift.

I applaud Mike's candor in telling it like it is. His account should not be ignored.

BobJ
07-18-2015, 07:23 PM
Steve, this is not a "wake up call for the SSS." It is helpful for skippers to know what happens if you don't keep track of your sleep, but each of us goes to sea of his/her own volition. We can go with or without it being an SSS event. I'll probably do a "LatePac" but you may not know about it until after I get back.

Ease off on the "nanny state" approach, okay? SSS doesn't and shouldn't legislate how we each sail our boats.

Lightspeed
07-18-2015, 08:40 PM
Solo sailing is at the higth of personal responsibility. SSS is a wonderful organization to help a solo sailors hone his/her skills. The Farallones is to qualify for the LongPac and the LongPac for the SHTP. Any sport is not without risk. Perpetration and knollage is what SSS is all about.

First for me redundant autohelms and a sleep stragity are at the top of the list. A backup autohelm for repairs to primary and needed rest. Second a solo sailor MUST learn to sleep. For me just 5 min every 20-30 will help and with a autohelm even in bad times you should have the ability to rest.

Practice, practice, before any offshore race is a must and you can practice your sleep stragity anytime at home with a timer and an old movie...Rick

Grace
07-18-2015, 08:45 PM
Bob, with respect, the SSS already legislates a great deal about how we each sail our boats. 80 minimum equipment requirements for the 2015 Longpac, SOLAS training, qualifying sails to get to the next level of competition, survey requirements and the ability of the race committee to reject a boat that it deems unseaworthy would all be good examples of how the SSS currently interjects itself on each boat and skipper in a positive way.

Your tenure in the group is probably longer than mine (12 years), but you have to admit that we are often heavy on the gear aspects of the sport and relatively light on some of the more extreme psychological demands it places upon the skippers. More training along these lines has no downside. A fuller discussion of what happened to Mike and how it can be avoided next time is responsible and necessary.

How you sail on your own time is obviously up to you, but how we sail as members of a group reflects on all of us.

pogen
07-18-2015, 08:54 PM
OK guys, I started a new thread on sleep management

http://sfbaysss.org/forum/showthread.php?1508-Sleep-Management-Techniques-Science-and-Experiences

I have some reference data somewhere, a presentation from a famous sleep doc, and there is actually a lot of info on the internet to be found.

Let's keep it constructive.

BobJ
07-18-2015, 09:05 PM
No Steve, how we sail during an SSS activity is up to us. It has never been SSS's job to hold anyone's hand. If you think it is, you're in the wrong group.

You are getting a strong response from me because you have mischaracterized your examples to support your misguided point, to wit:

1) Bill Merrick was returning from the 2006 SHTP (it was not during the race). BTW, I was a couple days ahead of him and maintaining contact via SSB. As a former Marine he was well-able to self-manage and make decisions.

2) Wen Lin's issues were not sleep related. From the 2004 Log: "Wen Lin has been taken off his boat and is aboard a Coast Guard Cutter and on his way to Morro Bay. Two coasties are motoring his boat into Morro Bay. At present (13:20 6/28/04) they are about 50 miles out of Morro Bay. Wen was very seasick and he is also a diabetic. He was unable to keep his medication down and requested C.G. assistance."

3) Jeanne Socrates was about to close the loop on her first solo circumnavigation (not related to an SSS activity). She did two more - her third solo circumnavigation was nonstop. When you've circumnavigated solo once you can criticize her.

4) The French singlehander was obviously not an SSS activity.

5) WILDFLOWER's abandonment was not during an SSS event and was a wise, reasoned choice due to Skip's need to insure his return to take care of his parents.

Please don't play fast and loose with my friends' experiences to try to support a post.

Grace
07-19-2015, 07:13 AM
Bob
Bill Merrick apparently never told you his side of the story of his rescue by the USCG on the return trip from the 2006 SHTP. The fact that he was returning from an SSS event does not relieve the SSS from being associated with the incident. He was exhausted, sleep deprived and in heavy seas and issued a Mayday call. Ergo (his Ericson 35) was taking on a significant amount of water in the cockpit from following seas and he was having difficulty handling the conditions. When the USCG arrived on station, he was hallucinating so badly that he did not recognize the flashing lights of the cutter. He thought it was a dream. The incident caused a rift in his relationship with his wife Sarah and he never attempted a long solo passage again. You are completely off base characterizing this experience - “As a former Marine he was completely able to self manage and make decisions”. But you do a good job helping me make my point by being so far off the mark.

Wen Lin apparently never told you his story of how he called his wife and reported to her that there were two other people onboard his boat in the 2004 SHTP. She knew he was hallucinating and contacted the USCG on his behalf. While Wen’s medication was a contributing factor, it was clear that exhaustion, sleep deprivation and his inability to handle the heavy seas off Monterey were central to his situation. Your position that the SSS is not responsible since it’s each skipper’s decision on how and when to sail rings hollow. We all could have done a better job making sure that Wen and his boat were ready for the event.

While I applaud Jeanne Socrates circumnavigations, it’s not necessary to circumnavigate to have a view on her wrecking her boat while asleep due to autopilot failure. Clearly, there’s lots to learn from other people making mistakes.

Skip’s decision to scuttle Wildflower is more nuanced. I have great respect of Skip’s accomplishments and his stature in the SSS. In his detailed written account of the incident, his physical and psychological state in a small, light vessel in high winds and heavy seas and the fear of his autopilot not being able to handle the conditions were all central to his decision to abandon ship and call for rescue.

The point I am making should not be controversial. We can and need to do a better job preparing solo sailors for the challenges they will face offshore. If it isn’t appropriate to have this discussion and express these views in an SSS forum, then you’re right. I am in the wrong group.

BobJ
07-19-2015, 07:23 AM
"The fact that he was returning from an SSS event does not relieve the SSS from being associated with the incident."

This is my problem with your posts Steve. You sound like a damn prosecuting attorney trying to pin individual skippers' experiences on the SSS as its responsibility. They are not. Can and should we talk about sleep deprivation as a concern? Sure. Mike does a great job of relating his experience and I'm sure it's helpful to the rest of us. But the hang-wringing, "OMG, the SSS needs to DO SOMETHING about this horrible risk" kind of crap is not helpful.

Your last post twists your original premise that all these incidents were sleep-deprivation and adds several other causes. That makes the whole thing, as you say, ring hollow. You are also publicly posting personal details about a couple of these people, which is really inappropriate.

mike cunningham
07-19-2015, 07:49 AM
I come down strongly on the side of personal responsibility and I do my best to be responsible and conscientious. Sometimes I fail and I bear complete responsibility for these failures.

You prepare for what you know may happen and you learn from experience and and make improvements. But, regardless, it is MY responsibility.

I learned a lot during this race. At the top of this list: fatigue/sleep management is essential, think through backups and make sure all aspects of the B/U implementation are addressed.

It was my personal choice to fit a class B AIS several years ago and leave it on at all times because my Son, who is a merchant mariner, tells me they don't see most sailboats on radar, reflectors or no reflectors. AIS is almost always observed. Interesting note: He also tells me even when they see a sailboat on AIS they find it difficult to spot the vessel visually.

A couple things SSS could consider:

1. Fatigue management seminar similar to others which were presented earlier this year with regard to fire management, etc. Although I am not an expert, I will familiarize my self thoroughly and volunteer to present this, I am certainly now an expert on the outcome of poor management. I will lean on SSS experts to assist with tips and techniques.

2. I do not know the background of the arrangement with OYC regarding use if their facility. Obviously we are guests and must be respectful of their activities and constraints. SSS skippers meetings were, in some cases, right on top of OYC beer cans and it was very difficult to hear or ask questions during SSS presentations scheduled for those dates. Can anything be done to use another room at the club or, perhaps, schedule a different day? I recall prior to Farallons, Brian B, used a conf room on the lower floor to hand out and demo the trackers. Could we possibly use that room for skippers meets?

BobJ
07-19-2015, 08:06 AM
I wonder if Dr. Stampi is ever in the Bay Area.

Most agree the room noise is a problem. Jim Antrim's great talk about wave formation also got drowned out (no pun intended) a couple years ago. We've used the board room downstairs for smaller meetings but we outgrew it for the regular meetings.

I wouldn't want to change our great and long-standing association with OYC (plus we share some members) but we can probably afford to rent the room on another night to hold a seminar. If OYC's beer can race is happening we can meet upstairs without cost, but sharing it has been the trade-off.

brianb
07-19-2015, 09:03 AM
Certainly adding a Seminar on this topic to the SHTP seminar set is a great idea. Consider that done.

Brian

mike cunningham
07-19-2015, 09:43 AM
One final suggestion then I am shutting up.

On the front page of the forum we list a series of key topics:

Sinlehanded sailing
Board Business
The big upcoming races
Crew list
etc.

I had been thinking for awhile that there ought to be a stand alone category called "Safety" or "Safety for Singlehanders" or some such.

Having now completed the LongPac I feel a little more confident about suggesting this. I think it would help newcomers (and old timers) to find the many excellent lessons learned regarding safety topics which are currently sprinkled around the site.

I realize it is always a challenge as to what is safety related and what is not but this can be managed by moving threads as necessary.

I also don't think this violates the concept of personal responsibility or heaps on new rules, it just organizes information in a way that makes it easier to find threads regarding a really really important topic.

The Smokester
07-19-2015, 03:10 PM
The first chapter of Andrew Evans' book on Single Handed Sailing is titled "The Mental Challenge" and addresses the topic of sleep deprivation in great detail. Perhaps worth a read.

The Smokester
07-19-2015, 03:28 PM
Also, Mike, I appreciate hearing your story. I supported Jan and others on the race deck and must say I became a bit sleep deprived myself. One of my tasks was to predict when finishers would enter the Golden Gate using the latest positions from the trackers, routing software and the latest weather and current forecasts. I predicted everyone but you within an hour or so. For you, I missed by more than 20 hours, probably because you were off the most direct course.

Signed,
The Whoo from s/vOwl

BobJ
07-20-2015, 09:15 AM
We can and need to do a better job preparing solo sailors for the challenges they will face offshore. If it isn’t appropriate to have this discussion and express these views in an SSS forum, then you’re right. I am in the wrong group.

To close the loop on this, the SSS is not a sailing school (and I know that's your frame of reference). Of course it's appropriate to discuss these challenges on this forum and for other skippers to consider organizing a seminar on these topics. But that's what it is: skippers helping other skippers, not skippers looking to an organization to "prepare" them to race singlehanded. There are schools for that but the only ones I know about are in Europe. That's not what we do.

I agree our equipment requirements are excessive. In the past they were intentionally focused on the boat (not the skipper) so all boats would have at least a minimum level of safety equipment for racing solo offshore. A side benefit was that in the process of bringing their boats up to that level, skippers learned about electrical systems, communications, storm sails, etc. Skippers who just wrote checks and had all the upgrades done by others were rarely successful and didn't stick around the group.

But we don't and can't objectively evaluate whether a skipper is adequately "prepared" to sail solo offshore. If our race requirements and seminars begin to focus on the skipper rather than the boat, we're in over our heads.

Gamayun
07-20-2015, 12:44 PM
Mike, thank you very much for your story and lessons learned. Your insights and the other thread on sleep deprivation are invaluable to me as one of the newbies. In the year I have been a member, it has been a tremendous learning experience. I appreciate hearing these stories as well as the differences of opinions. The element of risk and being able to manage it is a huge part of my interest, but initially, I never intended to race single-hand; my interest was to manage my boat by myself and take friends out who might not know how to sail. The SHTP is now something I am striving to do. However, if the equipment and training requirements become too onerous or too rigid, I'd probably just go it alone trying to figure it out, and perhaps meeting with less success. There are many people out there who singlehand without the benefits of what the SSS provides.

hodgmo
07-20-2015, 03:23 PM
Mike,

Thanks for sharing your story. It was well written, candid and informative. Your tale clearly highlights some of the big challenges in long-distance solo sailing. And you and your yacht made it home safely, congratulations.

I’m definitely on the side of personal responsibility, as much as practical… Whatever that means; as in so many things, there is a lot of grey area between too much guidance and too little. The SSS struggles to balance imposing requirements with personal responsibility. IMHO the SSS does a pretty god job. It should continue to be a bug light for weirdos and facilitate their waking dreams with races, seminars, this website, etc. But the SSS can’t and shouldn’t be responsible for individual choices above and beyond basic safety and equipment standards (which is a shifting target for many reasons including the relentless advance in available technologies). The major obstacle to moving from hardware requirements to personal requirements is that, unlike the common need for a sound vessel and basic communications (whatever that means), acceptable ways that individuals prepare and act during the race vary widely. For example, some sleep 8 hrs a day, others cat nap. Some have refrigeration, others don’t.

For me, the most important part of preparing for the SHTP was doing a lot of single handing. Over several years before 2012 I worked from several hour-long trips, including stays at the SB channel islands, to non-stop overnighters and finally several continuous days at sea under sail. It took me three tries before I completed my own ‘latepac’ in 2012, but I learned a lot in the process, especially about how to manage my sleep and diet. In my case, my best habits under way turn out to be very different than my habits ashore. My SHTP prep kind of culminated in single handing from SB to SF (that was harder than the 2012 SHTP). But after all that, I learned a lot in 2012 and felt compelled to modify my sleep and diet regimes quite a lot for the 2014 race; which, except for a (self-inflicted) bum knee, was for the better compared to my 2012 experience. A key change that I learned the hard way in 2012 was to, rather than stick to a rigid schedule, adapt my sleep to the conditions:

- During part 1, the inside a washing machine phase, I slept a lot (‘cowered in my bunk’ as Ken Roper so aptly described it). Very nice to be able to see instruments without having to move much. All I ate the 1st two days in 2014 was tea and honey.

- Part 2, the transition from on to off-wind, pre-squall, pleasant part, is the easiest – I did more or less 2 hrs up, 2 hrs down.

- Part 3, spinnaker up, squalls on is the trickiest…. I basically stayed up during squall hours (all night) and slept hard for a few hours late morning and then cat napped thru the day until it was time to repeat.

My diet changed for the better too, but that’s another story. The result was I finished much better rested in 2014 than I did in 2012 even though I pushed the boat somewhat harder (of course the boat was better prepared too…).

The bottom line is that I’m pretty confident that my experience is different than others, and that there are other effective ways to become comfortable single handing to HI. The key is to know thyself and your boat (whatever that means).

Steve

SeanRhone
07-21-2015, 12:20 PM
Mike, thanks for sharing this. Sleep planning is something I've been thinking about and is a top priority for me to figure out before I attempt the SHTP (hopefully in 2018). Sleeping / eating schedules are very important to everyone but as a type 2 diabetic it's something really important I get it right.

People like you sharing your experiences really helps those like me learn!