Bart Senior wrote:
I sailed ECHO into her slip at the dock today.

Oh. That's different from sailing into the dock.


....Winds were light and nearly straight into the slip until I was three boat
lengths away and then the wind suddenly backed 60 degrees and built
from a breath of wind, to a steady 7 knots from nearly abeam.

Isn't that always the way? Last week we pulled into a narrow fairway
between a dock and a jetty, to back into a slip. The day was calm... it
wold have been a poor day to try to sail... but suddenly a 10 knot
breeze sprang up right on our beam, and the bow would not swing into it.
Instead of hitting the jetty, I did a quick circle the wrong way and
went bow in.

The wind died immediately afterward.

I thought stuff like that only happened to me.

... I though
I'd have trouble with it, and I steered to windward a bit as a precaution,
but it didn't seem to matter much--the boat tracked nicely. I had enough
momentum to coast right in. It was fun.

ECHO has lots of momentum. Can you slow her down by making short, sharp
zig-zags with the helm?


... My main lesson learned was I should have put my #2 sailor on the helm
and I should have been in the middle of the boat directing the show where
everyone could hear me.

That can be good. The man on the helm doesn't have to be an expert
sailor but he can't be the type that freezes up. You'd be surprised how
many people do exactly that.

No crew is ever perfect, nor is any skipper. It sounds like you did good
job of explaining what to do and kept the situation from leading to
problems or damage; that's good skippering. I hope you resisted the
temptation to rake them over the coals so that they'll be willing to go
out and do it some more.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King