Backing into the Slip Revisited

Or, What Did I Just Say -- Practice! It Helps.

I just read a comment elsewhere from someone struggling to back his boat into a slip. His slip is at the far end of the fairway. If he wasn't at the end of the fairway, he could go past his slip and then turn the stern in from a different direction, using prop walk to his advantage instead of having to fight it.

He has a Catalina 30, and most people with that boat want to back in to the slip because it makes boarding the boat much easier from a short fingerdock. But this boat is notorious for backing up very badly. I'm not sure why; I'm not a naval architect. It has a fin keel and a spade rudder, like mine, and mine handles this problem much better. It's not only a problem for Catalina 30's, but I know a number of people with that boat, and they all complain about it.

He says he also has to fight a "slight" wind, and "slight" current.

That says something to me. He is still struggling with basic docking procedures. Because docking makes him nervous, he doesn't want to give the throttle enough power to overcome his "triple threat" -- prop walk, wind, and current.

The solution for him is partly in learning the skills needed, but even more, in practicing the skills needed.

The truth is that sailboat engines are much more efficient in forward than reverse. This means that when you're in reverse, forward is a more efficient brake than vice-versa. You can goose that engine enough to overcome those three factors, get the stern solidly in the slip, then move from neutral to forward and stop the boat before it hits your dock box.

But where do you get the nerve to do that?

By practicing.

If you belong to a sailing club, they probably have racing buoys. Borrow two and take them out into open water. Place them in the water to approximate the entrance to your slip.

Then practice driving the boat in reverse. Practice a lot. Specifically, include giving the boat power in reverse, and then using forward as a brake. Find out exactly how your boat responds to this, trying different speeds in reverse. And practice doing it while facing the stern instead of the bow. Facing the stern can work extremely well, but it is unusual enough that doing it can increase your level of stress, something you really don't need while learning to dock.

One of the hardest stressers to get over when learning to dock is the stress of giving your boat more speed right as you are deliberately aiming it at something hard (the main dock, in my case, a cement one. OUCH if I screw that up!)

This is why I'm writing this blog at this time. I am still new enough to sailing that I remember these fears/concerns/stresses in vivid detail. But even though I'm not an expert sailor, I look like one when I bring my boat into a slip, or dock it at the T-dock by myself, or pull it away from the T-dock by myself -- because I have practiced.

This is no different than playing a violin. Take up the violin by reading a book and never practicing, and you'll sound like a cat with his tail caught in a fan. Practice and you'll sound better. Practice a lot, and you'll get better far more rapidly. The guy who only read the book and never practices will always sound like that screeching cat.

This fellow has no choice. He needs to back into his slip, without hitting anyone else, with three forces working against him -- and that wind won't always be "slight." He really needs to be on top of his game for this maneuver, and he's smart enough to know that, which is why he's nervous.

The answer is to practice in open water until it just doesn't throw him. The first day, do it in light wind, and then repeat it again another day when the wind is stronger.

And get comfortable steering while facing the stern. Where the stern goes, the bow will follow (although just like parking a car, you occasionally have to look in all directions). One of his concerns was that the best approach might be backing up to the slip to begin with, but he doesn't trust his ability to steer the boat in reverse for 300'.

I can relate. I've had that fear.

The answer is simple.

PRACTICE.



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Docking by Yourself at a T-Dock -- with new and improved photos

At many marinas they have what is called a "transient" dock, or T-dock. Often it is literally shaped like a T, in that your boat comes along side the top of the T. The boat is only secured on one side.

You might be by yourself, or we can use the example we used before that your sailing companion has injured himself and is sitting with ice on his ankle. You're going to have to secure the boat yourself.

As you glide up to the dock in neutral, make note of the wind direction. If you're coming up on the starboard side of your boat but the wind is coming across the starboard side, you have to get the bow and stern secured rapidly. It doesn't have to be beautiful on first pass.

An easy way to do this is to attach a long line (at least twice as long as your boat) to your stern cleat. Have the boat in neutral but still gliding slowly forward. As you glide up to the dock, just throw the line over and behind what will be, temporarily at least, your stern piling. Keep hold of the bitter end as you do this. Don't tie any kind of knot -- just let it lie behind the piling.

Walk to the bow and throw the line over and behind another piling near the bow, again hanging on to the bitter end, and lash it off at the bow cleat.

Clearly your boat is not permanently tied up now, but the wind can no longer blow it away from the dock. With the boat temporarily somewhat secure, it's now easy to tie the boat up properly, taking your time.

Since I often bring my boat up to a one-sided dock, I have a long line (120') permanently fastened with a baggage tie knot  (sometimes called a cow hitch) to my toe rail, about amidships. A stanchion will work well if you don't have a stout perforated toe rail.

Baggage tie, also sometimes called a "cow hitch"

I keep the line divided in half with each half separately hanked, hanging from the life lines.

Total length of this line is 120', attached to toe rail with a baggage tie at the middle of the line,
with each loose end separately hanked.

Take one end of your very long line (the one attached to your boat with a baggage tie), and attach it to a piling between midships and bow with a clove hitch.

Clove hitch used around a piling allows one line to be used both as spring line and as bow or stern line.

The bitter end of that line goes up to your bow cleat. Undo your temporary line from that cleat, throw it on the dock, and cleat off the new line. You have now used half of that baggage tie line as both spring and bow line.

You'll repeat this process with the other half of your very long line: first use it as a spring line with a clove hitch at a piling between amidships and the stern, and then take the bitter end to the stern and attach it with a cleat hitch. Gather up your temporary dock line, re-hank it and stow it. You'll need it again when you leave this dock if you don't have someone helping on the dock.

Now you can see exactly where to put your fenders and fender boards to keep your boat off the dock. I do recommend that you set the boat so you don't have any stanchions pressing up against pilings.

So what if you have to get away from the dock by yourself? Once again, study the wind direction. If, for instance, your bow is pointing to the west, if the wind is from the north it is possible that if you just put a temporary line around the rear piling and your rear cleat, the wind will blow your bow in the direction it needs to go while you keep the boat near the dock with that stern line. Or it may be best to just pull forward, turn into a fairway and turn the boat around. It will vary according to wind, current, and your boat's characteristics. You want this line to just be a single loop around the piling so you can remove it easily as you leave the dock.

One thing is for sure, though, you won't want to be wrestling with 120' of line, tied to pilings with clove hitches, as you try to exit. Keeping line out of the water has to be of paramount importance. Let that line get wrapped around your rudder or propeller and you'll be at the dock longer than you expected!

So just reverse the process. One cleat at a time, replace your very long line with a line just laid behind the pilings and latched on to your cleats (just as you did when you first came alongside the dock). This time, you can use a "half cleat hitch" on your stern and bow cleats. (If this knot has another name I would love to hear of it). 

It's easily made. You lead your line to the cleat, but the only part of the cleat hitch you use is the very last turn of the line, when you make a loop and twist it before hooking it over the horn of the cleat.

 Step 1, with the red and white line laid around the cleat.

Step 2. You'll make a loop with the right end,

pull it around the cleat, twist it, and slip it over the left horn

of the cleat. Your half-hitch on a cleat is complete.

This makes a working knot that will hold well but that can be undone rapidly and easily. 

Standard cleat hitch

 Just for reference, compare that quick, temporary half-cleat to the full cleat hitch below. You should use the full cleat hitch when the boat is fully secured at the dock.

Hank your very long line and re-hang both ends from the lifelines. You don't need to be tripping over it as you move along the side of the boat -- or worse, have a long line trailing in the water when you know the propeller wants to get to know it better!

When you're ready to release that temporary line, use the wind to judge which end to undo first. We'll say it's the bow, and that the wind is going to catch the bow, and spin the boat slowly around until the bow is pointing toward the east instead of the west.

Put the engine in neutral, release the half-cleat hitch on the bow, and throw it on the dock near the stern. Get back to the cockpit, and start pulling the line in around the stern piling, holding on to and working both ends so the extra line goes onto your boat and not into the water. When the boat is turned, pull the remaining line in (keeping it out of the water, very important since it's near the stern), put the boat in forward and drive away from the dock with the wind at your stern.

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Why Sailing is not Like Driving a Car, No. 2

In yesterday's entry I wrote about how important it is to train your crew well, teaching even total newcomers some useful skill that you can count on in a pinch.

For how to teach, I used the example of how one club instructor put her hands over her mouth to force her to not give too many prompts when her students should have been performing independently.

While teaching sail school, she had realized that her students couldn't dock a sailboat unless they could do it without her giving them a single prompt, and she had her hands over her mouth as they approached the safety boat to dock next to it.

Last night I happened to speak with the father of this instructor. Her father said that she had been steering their tiller sailboat for 10 years when she signed up for driver's ed at school. Neither she nor her parents expected any problems. She was a straight-A student, and many students took "Driver's Ed" for the easy A of it.

Not this young lady. She was flunking driver's ed. HUH? NOBODY flunks driver's ed!

So her dad took her to a large, empty parking lot one Sunday, one without parking bumpers or other barriers, to see what was going on.

She started out driving straight, just fine. He didn't see a problem. Then he told her to turn left -- and she turned the car right!

She was handling the steering wheel like a tiller!

So if you have a crew member struggling with some basic skill, isolate that skill and watch carefully what is going on. Several months ago, I did this with a sailor I knew. He had been sailing the Catalinas for five years but his movement across the water was often erratic and unpredictable. He obviously struggled with tacking to the point that he would know he was going to run aground on a known high point, but seemed unable to turn the boat in time to get out of the way.

So I went out with him, and discovered that he really didn't have any solid idea of how to tack the boat. He just tried something new each time, hoping he would figure it out and get it right (it turned out that someone had told him to do this -- see my many references about people who give one bad advice!)

I wrote a very detailed, 15-step method for tacking and gave it to him. He said he would read it and study it, and agreed to go out with me on one of the little 16.5' Catalinas to sort it out.

After reading the list, he politely canceled the sailing date.

He canceled s similar date with someone else.

Finally he said to me one day, "I just want to be the best sailor I can." I said, "Then go out with me and let's sort this out."

So we did, and I and my list of things to do were driving him crazy. Finally he said, "Just let me do it my way," and I said "OK."

Turned out he was doing everything right -- except for one thing: he didn't know where to start the tack. Somewhere in sail school he had not learned that (probably because instructors always prompted  him -- too much "help"). So he would, say, have the wind nearly astern when he started the tack. Of course the boat would make a broad, slow turn, and it might end anywhere, including moving in a complete circle, ending where he had been before.  If you don't tack with a plan, how will you know when to end it? Or he might not have had enough speed by the time he got to the "no-go" zone, and the boat would swing back over to starboard.

All I had to do was remind him of the "no go" zone, and explain that he should sail along, say, the starboard side, build up speed, spot where he wanted to end, move through the "no go" zone -- and stop the tack.

He did it perfectly the first time -- with no prompts. Then he did it perfectly three more times.

So then we expanded the concept to a controlled jybe, keeping the boom close to center so there wouldn't be a huge snap when the sail picked up the wind on the other side. Then he did THAT perfectly with no prompts.

So then we just sailed around, and he started calling all the moves very well: "prepare to tack," and I had to hustle to keep up with him, because he now knew exactly what he was doing. Acting as skipper and calling all the shots, sometimes he tacked and sometimes he jybed, getting it all right every single time.

Meanwhile, the wind shifted to northerly. Uh-oh! When the wind is from the north, to get into the marina you have to sail up a narrow north-south canal to get to the entrance. It certainly isn't impossible, but unless you have a motor, you have to make a series of short, quick tacks -- or run aground at a place where this man had been notorious for running aground.

No problem this time!. He took charge as skipper, executed the tacks crisply and accurately, turned into the club's basin, and expertly sailed the little boat into its slip. He told me what to do, when to do it, and used one sail, expertly managed, to get the boat home -- just as he had been doing most of the afternoon.

Give too many prompts, and you keep your crew member from learning. This person's problem with tacking is the most concrete and perfect example I can think of to demonstrate just how important it is to let anyone you're teaching to perform completely independently, even if you see them making a mistake.

If they make a mistake, discuss it *afterwards.* Give them a chance to practice it, and when they get to that point on the next attempt, put your hands over your mouth if you have to, but DO NOT PROMPT THEM OR GIVE THE CLUES. Just don't. Discuss it afterwards.

Even then, don't tell them what they did wrong. ASK them if they know what mistake they made. Give them time to think. Give them a chance to learn.

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Why Sailing is not Like Driving a Car, No. 1

Two days ago I wrote about how a sailor and his two friends ended up in a lot of trouble, going way too fast to be able to control the boat in winds and waves much too big for the sails they had up (which included a giant asymmetrical spinnaker). The title of it is "Too Much Sail Up!"

Nothing like that ever happens in a car. Cars aren't moved around by wind, waves, and current. This is why we get speeding tickets -- because we have such effective ways to slow our cars down. In the article named above, Dick ended up in a very dangerous situation because sailboats don't have brakes -- and because no one else on the boat knew how to steer her well.

The problem is that most of the people who read this blog are going to end up in a situation somewhat like Dick's some day -- unless it's happened already. Even then, something just as dangerous could happen to us again. And, like Dick, as our enthusiasm and confidence grows, we'll start inviting other people to sail with us, including some people who perhaps have never sailed before or who have very litttle experience. We'll think "I know everything I need to know to get my boat and friends in safely," but it doesn't always work out that way. All the adults on your boat should learn some skill that can help in a pinch, even if it's just "tailing" the sheets as you change a tack, or steering for short distances.

I'm going to list some reasons sailing a boat is different than driving a car, and explain a few things I feel are important about those differences. This is important because people new to sailing will tend to think about sailing as they think about driving. It's important that they know the differences.  I invite *anyone* who has a similar example comparing driving to sailing to send me an email at

Rakuflames@gmail.com

I know it can be hard to participate on this board and I want to fix that.

For now, please send only things you've noticed have to be done very differently on a sailboat than in a car. If it works well, we will open the blog up to other topics later. I have always wanted this board to be more interactive, and this may be one way to do it.

So here's some big difference between driving and sailing that occurred to me this morning. I hadn't really thought about this first one one before:

WHEN WE DRIVE, we drive in two dimensions. We're driving on what geometry calls a two-dimensional plane. No matter where we go, unless the car becomes airborne in an accident, we only have to deal with flat surfaces. We don't have to worry about whether the keel is going to catch on something. We don't have to worry about whether a mast is going to hit something. Length ("Are we there yet, Daddy? Are we there?") is an issue. Width (is that oncoming truck crossing the center line?) is an issue. But we don't have to worry about what is under or over us.

BUT WHEN WE SAIL, we sail in three dimensions. We have to pay attention to what is above and below us as well as what is all around us. Driving is like moving over a long piece of paper. Sailing is like moving through a very large tube.

WHEN WE DRIVE, it's very clear where our car is supposed to be. This makes both our car and other people's cars much more predictable than boats.

BUT WHEN WE SAIL, except in rare circumstances, there are no "lanes" on the water when sailing. Even when in a channel, often there's no hard and fast rule about which side of the channel to be on. I try to stay to the starboard side of the channel when I can, but if a section of channel is "shoaling," or starting to fill up with sand, I may have to move more to center or even port side of the channel so my keel won't play tag with the bottom.

WHEN WE DRIVE, we have brakes.

BUT WHEN WE SAIL, the closest thing we have to brakes is to put the boat in reverse. This takes several seconds. First you have to slow down in forward to a dead crawl. Then you have to shift into neutral, and then into reverse. The time we're most likely to do this is while docking, and timing can be critical. Tricky judgments have to be made at that point, so we don't give the boat too much throttle in reverse, but enough to keep from hitting that big cement pier that's coming closer and closer to our bow. (Of course if you are bringing your boat in stern first, that's all changed. You're in reverse, and now you have to move your gear shift from reverse, to neutral, to forward.)

WHEN WE DRIVE, steering is simpler. Unless we're driving on a very slippery surface such as ice, steering is easy.  There's a direct relationship between how much you turn the steering wheel on a car and exactly how far that car turns. That's why we can change lanes safely as well as parallel park without causing a traffic jam. It's very clear when to stop a turn, and the car straightens out immediately. That's because the car has traction.

BUT WHEN WE SAIL, we don't want traction. We want the boat to glide as effortlessly through the water as possible. The things that can give us traction in the water, such as barnacles and other crud on the hull, are bad, and we work hard to get rid of them.

In addition, because of lack of traction on a sailboat, deciding when to end a turn is trickier. We may spot a point on the land that we want to be the end of our turn, but we have to stop turning the wheel or pushing the tiller before we get to that point because the boat glides with no traction. It will continue to turn after we have "centered up" the wheel or tiller.


That's a very short and incomplete list of some of the important differences. Why waste blog space on it? If you're going to sail with beginners, you have to lead them past that stage where they're clueless to a point where they can seamlessly step up to their assignment and know how to do the job. If you have to go up to the bow to do something difficult like changing a sail, the boat has to be under control by a helmsman who understands the differences between driving a car and piloting a boat.

And unless you train them well, beginners will look to their driving skills to help them out. While there's some overlap, the differences are important and have to be acknowledged.

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More Than One Way to Dock a Boat

     Or, "Is That Boat Going BACKWARDS????"

Samantha Ring, my first sailing instructor, has continued to pass tips on to me from time to time. It was Samantha who taught me how to tack my boat easily by myself (I talked about that in the entry titled "How to Single-Hand Your Boat in a Pinch").

From her I learned some very basic things, such as tiller steering: to turn the rudder in the direction you want to go, you have to push the tiller handle in the opposite direction. In other words, to turn to port, you push the tiller to starboard.

She has also shared with me how she backs her boat into her slip very reliably every time.

It's so simple. I mentioned it to some sailors online who thought the very notion was absurd, but I discussed it with a true master sailor, and he explained that he still uses it, especially if it's a large boat. (Remember that I have said more than once that you should double-check every bit of advice you're given by others, and this is a perfect example.)

What Samantha does is simple: before she enters the marina she turns the boat around. She then faces the stern of the boat instead of the bow, and puts the boat in reverse.

Since she has a tiller, this requires a quick adjustment in thinking. Now the stern of the boat moves in the direction of the tiller.! The bow still moves to starboard, but since she's facing the stern, the boat now essentially steers the way a car does.

It's a little hard to see in the photo below but if you look carefully, you will see a sailor facing the stern, pushing the tiller to starboard. Sam makes a starboard turn to back into her slip. It's much easier to steer in reverse when you only have a few feet of boat in front of you.

This approach helps solve a number of problems. First of all, you have to deal with "prop walk" when in reverse. Prop walk is the frustrating tendency of a motor to pull the boat to one side or another, usually to port, when in reverse. When you only have to worry about where the few feet in front of you are going, the difficulties of dealing with prop walk are diminished. Ditto for the effects of both wind and current. All you have to do is get the stern in, and the rest of the boat will follow. When you're facing the direction you're moving in, it becomes much easier to adjust for all the forces acting on your boat.

However, people get set in their ways sometimes, and so some people think this approach is nothing short of ridiculous. Samantha actually heard someone shout to her once, "Did you know you're going backwards?" But Samantha let me try it, and I think it's brilliant.

Few things are scarier to new sailors than bringing their boat into the slip stern first, and being able to face the direction you're moving in really takes all the terror out of it. Wherever that stern goes, the bow is going to follow, and you will only have to make judgments about the few feet of boat in front of you instead of sitting with feet toward the bow, alternately looking over your shoulder and then the whole length of the boat, and havng to judge all that distance to your bow, along with whether or not wind, prop walk, or current will take your boat into another boat or a piling.

Don't try this for the first time in the marina, however. Like any skill involving maneuverability, you're much better off practicing in open water first. Just tie a fender to your spare anchor and drop it over the side. If you want to practice with great precision, put two fenders over the side to mark the width of your slip.

If you have a boat with a wheel, you can still use this trick. However, with a wheel you think about the wheel just as you would if you were facing forward.

There is a "negative" to this approach, and that is that the boat will have a lower maximum speed in reverse than in forward. But you don't want to move any faster than you want to hit the dock anyway, so that's a small limitation. You do have to maintain enough speed to have steerage, but that feels safer when facing the direction you're going in as well.

And don't forget -- now you will put the boat in *forward* instead of reverse to slow it. But since when you face the stern, reverse looks like forward, and forward looks like reverse, it doesn't have to be a complication. Just don't over-think it. Relax, take a deep breath, and you'll get that boat in the slip like a champ.

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Various Updates

     Or, New Information on Old Topics

Remember when I said that going down your companionway steps is one of the most dangerous things you do on your boat? I just met a woman who knows this all too well. She fell going down her companionway steps a couple of months ago, breaking several ribs. Remember the corollary advice, that a cabin is a terrible place to fall into because there are so many things you can hit on the way down. I’m not happy that I was right about that one.

My chartplotter still doesn’t work right. West Marine told me the software needed to be updated. Someone with a PC loaded it onto a SanDisk for me. I put it in the chartplotter and nothing happened, so I took it all to West Marine. When they inserted it, a hidden window popped up that should have updated the software, but it didn’t happen. West Marine told me the SanDisk was empty, so I took it back to the fellow who had loaded it for me. He put it in his computer and found the software on the SanDisk. Meanwhile, the chartplotter’s depth sounder told me that I was in over 20’ of water – while I was aground, centered in a channel (that’s another story). So the chartplotter, which has an extended warranty, is going back to West Marine, and I am going to insist that they send it to Garmin. Stay posted and keep your paper charts handy! I know someone else who benefited from purchasing the extended warranty, and I am now officially recommending that.

The Cruisers and Sailing Forum continues to talk about how small boats should just get out of the way of big ships. They have been debating the meaning of “impede” in the COLREGS, but more and more people are saying, “Oh for heaven’s sake. Just get out of the way!” So far, none of those people have been kicked off the forum that I know of. I am glad that those people have not been kicked off, and I’m glad they’re not being harassed for displaying obvious common sense as well as expressing the true intent of the law.

The little boat aground by the Skyway Bridge is still there. We’ve had extreme low tides here lately (part but not all of the grounding incident mentioned above) because of strong north winds just blowing the water south, and with the water nearly gone it’s clear that the entire keel of the little boat is buried in sand. That boat isn’t going anywhere until Pinellas County decides to cut it up and haul it away. Whoever is the registered owner will get a big bill when that happens, so if you sell a boat, make certain that the new owner transfers the title, or you might get a salvage bill some day for a boat you thought you no longer owned. At least in Florida, boat titles are not controlled as tightly as car titles are.

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Docking Single-Handed

     or, Always have a "Plan B!"
 

Believe it can be done!
(fortune cookie)

Earlier I talked about how to handle your boat by yourself if you need to.

Once you’ve sailed your boat back to your marina by yourself, you’re going to have to dock it. In an earlier entry, I proposed a scenario where your sailing companion has sprained his ankle and can’t help. If you have your slip set up for such an eventuality, that won’t be a problem.

First, you have to be very familiar with handling your boat under low speed. That can be tricky because the wind (and current, if any) will have more effect on where your boat goes. So, it’s a good thing to practice.

To bring your boat into the slip, you have to maintain enough speed to have steering, but you don’t want to come into the dock any faster than you're willing to hit it. So once you’ve turned into the slip, you no longer need speed for steering, and commonly, skippers put their boat into neutral and then into reverse (don’t just go from forward to reverse, skipping neutral.) Reverse is the closest thing you have to a brake when docking.

With two people, one person can be out of the cockpit with a boat hook to grab a line, but your companion is sitting with ice on his ankle. So here’s what you do.

Before you set sail, tie a long line on the piling at the far end of your slip. Stretch it out and decide what spot you want to use on your boat to temporarily hold it. At that spot on the line, make a figure-8 loop with a carabiner in it. Clip it on to the boat, and then

My docking line latched on to my toe rail 

secure it with  cleat hitch near the bow of the boat. Your goal is to have that carabiner or loop get tight and stop the boat before you hit what's in front of it.

Correctly tied cleat hitch

If you don’t have a toe rail, you can use a stanchion base, as this is a line used only temporarily for docking. Or, if you have a mid-cleat, instead of putting a carabiner in the figure-8 loop, make the loop big enough to slip over that cleat without a struggle.

So you come into the slip slowly, have the boat hook handy, grab that line, and attach it to your boat. Your boat is now quite safely secure, and you can take your time putting your permanent docking lines on. When you’re done, dis-attach your temporary docking line. It should be too tight to stay on the boat through tidal changes.

You will probably have to grab that double-ended docking line in your hands sometimes and pull the boat a little forward or a little back to get that loop or carabiner in the right place, but that’s not too hard to do.

On the other side of my slip, I also have a line from a middle piling going to the front dock at about a 45º angle, above the waterline. If the wind is from the north, it tends to blow my bow over toward the next boat. This diagonal line prevents my bow from swinging into the boat next to me.

By the way, you can be sure the fellow with the ice on his foot will be back-seat driving again, and it can be very distracting at a very stressful time. Tell him ahead of time what you’re going to do, and … of course … PRACTICE it before you need it. You may have to tell people at the dock that you’re practicing doing it by yourself, and you will still have a hard time keeping them from helping by grabbing the bow or something similar. Thank them for their help but explain that you’re practicing doing it single-handed.

And that brings up a final point: help is good. If any of those helpers live in the marina, it might be smart to have their phone numbers. If you come in single-handed while the marina is open, marina staff may be very willing to help you. I know they would here at Twin Dolphin. However, after hours if you call a marina resident, odds are he or she would be glad to come out and “catch your bow.”

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OUT OF THE BATHTUB! (Part 1)

     Or, The Adventures of Silver Girl!

_______

may 17, 2013

     "Whenever your preparations for the sea are poor, the sea worms its way in and finds the problems."

Francis Stokes

This is going to be a three-part story. Tomorrow I will post all the things that went wrong on the way back, and then finally, the mistakes I made that you should avoid, including one really big one.

We were on the way to Twin Dolphin Marina in Bradenton from Boca Ciega Yacht Club (BCYC). In fairness, it was really a shake-down cruise for my first little boat, a 25’ Irwin “skinny mini” (only 8’ wide) named Silver Girl. It was May, and I had bought her the previous November -- one month after finishing 4 weeks of sailing lessons at Boca Ciega Yacht Club. I had, as crew, a man from my sailing class. So we had two pretty inexperienced people on a tiny tippy-cup of a boat.

“Don’t worry,” other people in the club said. “We’re only going to Twin Dolphin, and besides – you’ll be with us!” It was very comforting to know other club boats would be with us, because I had never left Boca Ciega Bay before. Sailing on Boca Ciega Bay was lots of fun but much like sailing on a small lake. Neither the boat nor I had really been tested, so this would be the boat’s first “shake down cruise.”

My friend, who I will call Tom, and I were quite excited. He hadn’t sailed out of Boca Ciega Bay yet either. As we moved down the ditch along Sunshine Skyway Bridge, we hooted and hollered: “We’re out of the bathtub, baby!” Never mind that we had to motor most of the way. We were out where the big kids sail!

The trip to Bradenton, which involved crossing the mouth of Tampa Bay, was uneventful except for docking. Somewhere on the trip down, the outboard engine dropped a rod, and it would no longer go into reverse. After a lot of struggle, we got the boat into a slip, but it was the wrong slip. The dock personnel at Twin Dolphins helped us turn the boat around, get it into our slip, and turn her around again so I would only need forward to leave. “Oh, well,” I thought. “Worse things could go wrong.” 

Worse things were going to go wrong the next day on the trip home.

The next morning we were the fifth club boat out of the marina. Tom and I were sailing in the Manatee River, a lovely run along the south bank. The wind was probably about 15 mph from the southwest. Us both being beginners, we didn’t realize that the land on the south side of the river was shielding us from some of the wind … until the very experienced boat out front radioed back to the rest of us: “We’re at the mouth of the river, and it’s actually pretty rough out here!”

I called back to the other boats. “This is a small boat,” I said. “Are you sure we should even be out here?”

“Don’t worry,” the call came back. “You’re with us!”

That was a comfort. The wind picked up to over 20 mph as we left the shelter of the river’s shore, and Tom and I could both see why it was rougher on the Gulf. As it turns out, though, “Don’t worry, you’re with us” is not quite the same as “Don’t worry, you’re both experienced sailors and your boat is plenty big enough for these seas…”. We had five foot waves on the port stern corner of the boat.

Tom and I rapidly discovered that neither of us get seasick easily, which was a good thing, because we needed our wits about us. The other boats had decided to return via Pass-A-Grille Channel rather than “the ditch.” This meant that we would be sailing along the west coast of the Pinellas Peninsula, with the open Gulf to our port side, instead of in the relatively sheltered water along the Skyway Bridge. Our route put the beach on our lee side. But in order to go up the ditch ourselves, the only other choice, we would have had to leave the rest of the group and sail across Tampa Bay to the northeast alone, in more wind and waves than we had ever experienced. We decided it was better to stay with the group.

As with every decision, that one had its pros and cons …

Stay tuned for the next thrilling chapter of “The Adventures of Silver Girl!”

Where to Keep Your Boat

      Or, Once again -- Hitting hard things is what breaks boats!

_______

April 29, 2013

     "Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit."    

Brooks Atkinson

 Take another look at this video, filmed while Tropical Storm Debby was pummeling the Tampa Bay area.

You can see how rough the water is out on the bay and in the canal, but as the video pans around, notice how much calmer the water is in the marina. That is Boca Ciega Yacht Club’s (BCYC) marina. The one just further north, the Gulfport Municipal Marina, is also very sheltered. The BCYC marina is sheltered north, south, east and west.

In stormy weather, where you keep your boat can be crucial.

When I got my first boat, I lived in a condo that had very reasonably priced docks. At first, I thought that was great. Then one day we had a front come through. I looked out at my boat, and that little thing was rockin’ and rollin’! I could only hope I had learned enough about tying her up to keep her safe. As it happened, I had, and she was OK.

But I thought about it, and I looked at how the docks were built. They weren’t terribly stout. I realized that if the dock broke, my boat would not be secure. In addition, I was at the mercy of my dock neighbors and could only hope they had tied their boats up well. As I looked around, I saw that not everyone had, including the boat next to mine. So I had my beloved boat tied up at a flimsy dock that was quite exposed to heavy weather.

So I moved my boat to the BCYC marina. It cost a little more, but when the next storm came through, I saw the boats rockin’ and rollin’ at the condo docks. I got in my car and drove to the marina to check on my boat. I expected it to look like a bucking bronco, but the marina is well sheltered and the boats weren’t moving at all. The bay was all churned up, but all was calm in the slips.

This area also got brushed by the edge of a hurricane in 2004. In the marina just west of BCYC, multiple boats were severely damaged, because those docks were exposed in a way that BCYC’s marina is not. Not one boat was damaged at BCYC in that storm. Being sheltered counts.

In addition to the BCYC marina being physically sheltered, everyone using it has to sign a lease that includes instructions about how boats must be tied in bad weather. We actually have club members walking the docks during storms, adjusting lines as needed, so all the boats ride the storm out well. (That’s another reason to join a club, and if possible, keep your boat there).

Consider more than price when deciding where to keep your boat. Ask other sailors in your area, and they will be able to tell you which marinas are sheltered and which are not. 

A Knotty Problem -- updated photos

 

     Or, I thought Sail School was going to put me in a “remedial knots” class!

I am a person who prefers to tie her boat up without help. No one does it the way I want it done. I know where I want the lines, how slack I want them, what knots I want used. I have it all figured out.

I didn’t get there quickly, or easily. In Sail School, I really struggled with some knots, particularly the bowline. That’s unfortunate, because the bowline, with its cousins and aunts (“bowline on a bight,” for instance) are highly useful knots. After I’d managed to learn the bowline, I could only do it if no one was watching. No kidding. (That means I really didn’t know it very well.)

So if you’re struggling with a knot, or knots, you have my full sympathy.

Here’s what you need to know about knots: they need to be easy to tie –- and also, easy to Untie. Consider the cleat hitch:

 

This cleat hitch above has been done perfectly. The working end –- the one that leads to the boat –- is leading from the right direction on the cleat. There are no extra wraps. Someone is holding the bitter end tight, but it isn’t wrapped ‘round and ‘round the cleat.

Ever see that? (See above.) Don’t do that. You might need to free that line quickly, and wrapping the extra line around the cleat –- or doing more loops on the cleat than necessary to complete the knot –- only slows you down. You might have to undo it in the dark, and having lots of extra line wrapped in silly places for no reason will only make that harder. If there’s extra line, just coil it neatly. Then no one will trip on it, but it won’t interfere with the line’s uses, which are both to hold the boat and to release quickly. Your dock will look neat and tidy, and your neighbors will not mutter your name under their breath.

As you look at the cleat hitch above, you’ll also see that it is actually attractive and symmetrical. It has one loop on each end, and two parallel sections. It just looks good. Good knots look good. Here’s a clove hitch:

Again, you can see that it is symmetrical and attractive. Ditto for a bowline. When it is pulled tight, you’ll see that the base of the knot has three neatly interwoven lines. When you look at these knots, you can easily figure out how to untie them. This is how nautical knots turned into an art form. Put “Celtic knots” into Google and you’ll find dozens of pages full of beautiful examples of intricately-woven knots. The knots you use while sailing will be simpler and more utilitarian, but they can still be frustrating to learn.

I’ve heard the craziest tips for the bowline: the rabbit hops out of the hole, runs around, gets scared and jumps back down into the hole. The truth is that you can stick the line in the wrong place at any point while that poor rabbit scampers around! There's a much easier way: just go to this website!

http://www.animatedknots.com/

You can practice at your computer, or –- really –- there’s an app for that! You can get it at that website and put it on your phone, or IPod, or IPad.

That’s what I did. I put it on my Ipod, and when I needed to use a bowline, I just whipped that baby out and accepted its help. I also practiced knots as I watched TV.

See, it isn’t enough to know the knots. You have to be able to do them quickly, and easily, and often, while telling other people “NO! Please don’t jump from my moving boat to the dock!” or “NO! Don’t push the boat that way! We’ll hit the boat in the other slip!” or “NO! Please wait for directions …” People really want to spring into action while you are leaving or returning to the slip, and often they feel they should know what to do even when they don’t. You have to be able to keep a sharp eye on the other people on the boat while docking or undocking. You don’t need to be racking your brain trying to remember how to work that cleat hitch, or untangling the mess that was supposed to be a bowline.

LESSON LEARNED: Practice knots until they're instinctive. Some day when other things are going wrong, you'll be very glad you did.