Single handing the Flying Scot

[danlin13]

How difficult is it to sail a Flying Scot single handed (solo)?
I'm thinking about buying an older one from someone who says it was too hard for them to handle alone.
Is it likely their problem was from lack of experience; or should the Flying Scot be rigged differently from the factory rigging for single handing?
If it should be rigged differently, what would be the most important things to address?

[David Luckenbach]

It is likely their problem was lack of experience. I always thought the Flying Scot was easy to singlehand, but if you use the jib you will want the jib sheets routed back to a place you can reach them. On my 65 Scot I put two cam cleats on the centerboard trunk, which worked pretty well. They should be mounted at a pretty good angle, not flat, or the sheets are hard to get in the cleats.
I have a friend that will fly his spinnaker while singlehanding, he just doesn't use the pole and launches and retrieves it from the back of the thingypit. I haven't tried this yet, lol.
The Flying Scot weighs 850 pounds, so in fairly light wind you do fine with one person. When the wind picks up, the boat really has too much sail for just one person to keep the boat flat. It sails well with just the main, but when the wind gets near 15 mph you are really going to want more crew for ballast.