We have been fortunate and have not had to deal with a live MOB scenario.

That being said in addition to the "normal" required safety gear, we do a drill with a old life jacket along with carrying a Lifesling System (side rail by the perch seats - secured to the aft cleat) when we sail. People know their roles and the amount of time it should take. The Life Sling line is inspected and tested once per season to verify the condition of the line, buoyancy, etc. My plan is not to rig lifting gear but to use the walk-thru transom for recovery.

I think that the lifejacket drill is important for a couple of reasons...
1. You understand how long someone (without any capabilities) would be in the water and that you really do not want to be that person, so safety stays in your mind when you are out sailing.

2. The amount of additional distance you need to create to make a proper turn/approach to be lined up properly [U]the first time[/U] for retrieval is farther than your emotions would want you to go. Turn to soon and you end up doing circles around the victim, never being able to get them to the boat.

In class, the instructor was pretty clear that with a full boat only 3 people should be on deck during a retrival (helm, spotter, 3rd to help with sail control/pull in the victim) and everyone else is in the cabin to allow people room to work. His motto was "you are either going in the cabin or the water but you are not staying the cockpit." Still wrestling with the water option and if I would really want a second MOB.

Haven't had to use it but worth the practice. Curious to hear other views.

I have two comments.
First, clip a waterproof hand held marine radio to your person when single handing. Even with company on board, the hand held could be used to alert a person resting below decks if the below deck radio is tuned to 16 also. My wife and I dave decided that this may be the best practice when cruising and one of us is below for extended periods. Easy to talk about, now we just have to make ourselves adopt the practice.
I have a walk through stern on my Mark I. I took the ladder off, cut it down and created a swinging gate, then mounted a fold down, telescoping ladder on the stern step. If I fell in and could get to the stern, it is fairly easy to deploy the ladder from the water.
As an aside, this stern set up is great for getting into the dingy or when docked stern in.

If you would like a realistic picture of recovering a MOB pick a windy lumpy day, bring your boat to a stop with all the sails flapping, then let the ladder down and watch how both ladder and transom pitch up and down. The ends of the boat are the worst place to recover someone in any seas. My wife and I are probably pretty typical of most of us. Usually its just the two of us, so if one goes over their survival depends on the other. Our plan, and we do practice, is:
1. Turn the boat into the wind ASAP to stop it.
2. Furl the genoa and release the mainsheet.
3. Start the engine and motor back to the MOB.
4. Deploy the lifesling (if you don't own one buy one tomorrow) and circle the MOB until he/she has the lifesling.
5. Pull/winch the MOB to the side of the boat.
We figure depending on conditions, including that of the MOB, if we can use the stern ladder we will, but expect to tie an overhand knot in the lifesling's line a few feet from the MOB, attach a halyard, and then winch the MOB over the side midships. If nothing else we can secure him to the side and call for help.
You mention single handing and going overboard. I doubt there are too many who have done that on boats the size and with the freeboard of a C36 and lived to tell the tale. People go overboard in rotten conditions, and if you throw in issues like possible injury, hypothermia, losing contact, and boat handling, the chances of recovery just don't seem all that good. Our policy is stay on (or at least wth) the boat, so we have always worn harnesses and tethered in long before we put the life jackets on. Now we just wear auto inflatables with integrated harness, but value the harness over the inflation. As to going over when solo, I've seen rope ladders packed in some sort of velcro bag arrangement that you are supposed to be able to reach and deploy from the water, but this possibility assumes that your boat hasn't sailed away from you under autopilot, which is probably driving if you are any place other than the wheel. If you haven't practiced this, and made your crew practice as well, I'd suggest trying at least once, but do it on a challenging day (we throw a fender over) to get a realistic simulation. Invest in prevention here, and make it a habit.

One of our fleet officers (Chuck Herman fleet 9) went overboard at one of cruise outs held by the fleet last year. He was at anchor in pretty good chop and had a real struggle getting back aboard using the transom ladder on a MKII. Looks like it should be a piece of cake but, with the boat pitching there is a lot o elevation change at the ends of the boat.

As for the life sling issue, I have a model that was recalled last year, a self inflating type. They offered to replace it with a non self inflating style. I opted to keep the old one as is quite compact and can be thrown quite a distance. The standard model can be thrown about ten feet into the wind. I insist everyone aboard wear flotation, I felt it more important to get a line to the person in the water.

Several years ago during a club around the cans race one of the crew on the boat went forward to secure something on a down wind leg. Boat was rolling and the wind was piping up, he cleared the lifelines from the coach house and his PFD inflated when he hit the water.

Try to keep a eye on a bobbing object while dousing the sails and turning the boat around with the 2 crew left on board... challenging!

We where doing 7 knts at the time and it was over 100 yards before we had the boat sorted and turned around. Approaching from the leeward side the waterlogged crew member was yelling I'm OK I'm standing on the bottom (joker) the depth sounder showed 70 ft.

Deployed the life sling and hauled him on board with a halyard.

Tied up we reviewed over Rum what would have been better (clipped on if on deck)

Getting 200 lbs soaked crew member on board even with the life sling was 10 minutes.

To bad he wasn't standing on the bottom with the almost 6 ft keel and him 5' 6" the boat would have tipped over enough to drag him over the lifelines.

We sailed a different race every year after that dodging that bullet was a blessing and the end result could have been very grave.