Wearing Gloves ...

or, Someone Really Could Die!

This happened in the marina I live in recently. A man was climbing up his very tall mast, with his wife on the halyard as a safety line.

I don't know what went wrong at the mast, but he slipped, and he needed that safety line to catch him. I also don't know what went wrong in the cockpit, but she did not have gloves on, and could not hold the line. It burned her hands and she had to let go.

He fell 70 feet.

What happened next was like something out of a movie. Instead of hitting the deck, he hit the Bimini. It gave just enough to cushion his fall. Then it split, and he fell through the Bimini to the cockpit, which hurt him more than the fall from the mast did. However, he was not seriously hurt.

I'm not opposed to wives handling the halyard when someone goes up the mast. I do it myself.

However: I always have gloves on, and I always hold the line firmly, with the assumption that this person is going to fall in the next split-second. I have his life in my hands, and that's how I treat it. 

But gloves aren't just for the tasks that are obviously hazardous from the beginning. Just about anything you do on a boat has the potential to become suddenly hazardous. Suppose you fall off your boat at the dock? It's remarkable just how common that is. If you have gloves on, your hands won't get cut by barnacles, and you'll have a much easier time getting out of the water. If you, say, broke an ankle going in, that could be important, especially if you're by yourself. 

I know someone else whose transmission on her smallish sailboat stuck in forward just as she was coming in to dock. She turned the engine off, and made her best guess about going in circles to slow it down before entering her slip, but she didn't get it *quite* right. Since she had gloves on, she was able to grab a line strung between the pilings and physically stop the boat. 

in a storm or rough seas, the stresses on the sheets multiply You can actually pull harder with gloves on than without them. Try it some time. As I've pointed out in other articles, weather can turn sour very quickly. If you already have gloves on, that's one less thing you have to do in the precious few minutes you may have before the ship hits the fan.

And ladies, shake the hand some time of an experienced sailor who doesn't wear gloves. Trust me -- you don't want your hands to feel that rough! If only for vanity's sake, gloves are the answer. They also help tremendously if the diameter of the line you have to pull on is small. My traveler would be an example of that, as is the line on many roller furlers.

While we're at it, I'm going to come down firmly on the side of wearing shoes -- and closed-toe shoes. Once again, if you fall in, you won't cut your feet on barnacles, and you'll have a much easier time getting out of the water. Now, I have a very dear friend whose opinion I highly respect, who can show you the research demonstrating that bare feet grip the deck best. That may well be, but that was only a grip test. It wasn't a "How many body parts can you injure in a storm?" test. I know someone who sailed to Key West in what should have been a good weather window, but he and his crew still got caught in a storm strong enough to knock them around. They came out on the other side of it with a concussion, cracked ribs, and a broken arm. Oh yeah -- the fellow in the open-toed sandals had a broken toe. They didn't have one person fit to sail the boat, although by working together they managed to get to a safe port.

Sailing gloves are like seat belts. When seat belts first came out, lots of people grumbled and said things like "You can't MAKE me wear it!" (Of course, now they can ...) but I was a young teenager, and my parents said, "Actually, yes, we CAN make you wear it." It became a habit, and now I'm not comfortable in a car unless it, and the shoulder harness, are on. I view sailing gloves in the same way. It's not something worth getting flapped over, and like my seat belt, they may never be the difference between life and death, but the restraint system in my car certainly was the difference between minor injuries and major injuries once. That's how I look at sailing gloves, and I urge you to make them part of your routine.

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.



https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true

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.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true

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.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true

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.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true 

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.”

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true 

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!”

Docking Your Boat Under Sail

Or, Are you sure you're ready for that?

I guarantee you that someone – probably more than one person – will someday look at you knowingly and say, “You should sail the boat into the slip.” Now, I’m not talking about little sailing dinghies and boats like BCYC’s 16.5' Catalinas. Those boats are intended to be sailed into the slip. They don’t have engines. I’m talking about slightly larger (or markedly larger) boats that have motors or engines to aid them in things like docking.

Sailing a larger boat into a slip or up to a dock is a good and useful skill – when you’re ready for it! But is a still, small voice hollering inside your head – “DON’T DO THAT!!!!” ?

If so, listen to that voice. If you don’t think you’re ready to do something, you probably aren’t. There’s a “Code of Pride” among many experienced sailors. There are two things those sailors never, ever want to do: turn the engine on to solve a problem, or call Boat US or SeaTow for assistance.

But you aren’t sailing on pride – not yet. You were smart, and you have tow insurance (please tell me you have tow insurance!) If your engine fails you can call your tow company, and they will come and get you back into your slip.

I probably have the sailing skills to sail a boat up to the size of mine (about 30 feet) up to a T-dock at the proper speed, get her secured quickly and avoid hitting any other boats – but not on my boat. My boat has a badly designed roller furling system and would not cooperate during such a maneuver. No matter how good I get at sailing, performing this maneuver with my boat would be a very bad idea unless I win the lottery and can replace that roller furler (will someone please buy me a lottery ticket?)

The people suggesting that you try things you aren’t ready for aren’t being malicious. Most of the time they aren’t even braggarts. But – they have been sailing for decades and have completely forgotten what it’s like to be on the less experienced side of sailing. Their sailing skills are so automatic that they don’t think about how many fine judgments they are making as they bring that boat in under sail.

LESSON LEARNED: If you’re still working on docking under power, if docking under power still makes your heart pound, you aren’t ready to do it under sail. Listen to that voice in your head, and always make your own judgments about what you -- and your boat -- are ready to do.