On Jun 11, 5:38?am, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Wayne.B" wrote in message

...





On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 23:25:05 -0700, Chuck Gould
wrote:

General tip, try to achieve balance between sternway pressure on the
rudder and prop walk. With the rudder set to oppose the prop walk, you
should be able to roughly "steer" in reverse by increasing rpm (and
prop walk) when the rudder begins taking you off in one direction and
decreasing rpm (or coasting astern in neutral) when the prop walk gets
too dominant. Once you get a couple knots sternway up the prop walk is
less of an issue.......but you may not want to get up to that kind of
speed backing into a slip.

Speaking to Chuck's point, although it probably will not work as well
on a powerboat, one of my old sailboat maneuvering tricks was to give
the boat a good shot of reverse while still in the clear, build some
momentum, and then back in at idle speed or totally in neutral. This
requires some practice to learn how far you can glide before losing
steerage. On a sailboat it is quite a long way. The main thing with
reverse is to be quick and decisive with the application of power,
building enough speed that the rudder can get a bite.

The other big trick to master is the "back and fill" maneuver where
reverse is used only to check forward speed, and forward power is
applied in short bursts with the rudder hard over. Depending on prop
rotation, the boat will be much easier to turn in one direction than
the other. I have seen large workboats turn around almost in their
own length using this technique.

Thanks to both of you for sharing your experiences. I am going up to the
GB later this morning and do some practicing.

Part of the learning curve (for me) is adjusting to the v-e-r-y slow
response to throttle or gear shift. I get a kick out of it, but it takes
some getting used to. A 36 GB is a heavy boat for a little 120 hp engine
and small prop, but it's fun learning how to deal with it. My head's
"tuned" for much more powerful boats with bigger props, etc. that react
rather quickly. I'll get there with some more practice.

Eisboch- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

By the way, unless you're med mooring or at some rendezvous or other
gathering where you want your aft deck and transom up to the central
float or pier, there's a very good case to be made for going into the
slip bow first, especially with a single screw.

First, as you have discovered it is something of a nuisance to reverse
for long distances in tight quarters. Beyond that, you know exactly
what conditions are when you arrive at the slip, but you can't foresee
what conditions will be when you are ready to leave. Going into the
slip stern first means that you will need to exit bow first. If
conditions are benign, this won't present any particular problem. If
you get a strong wind from any quadrant against the forward sections,
maintaining control when getting out of the slip could be pretty
challenging- unless you have a bow thruster. The problem is that if
the bow blows off while your stern and therefore all your steering is
still confined in the narrow "slot" of the slip you can't do much to
correct it. If you go out stern first and there's a wind you will have
two advantages; first the stern is heavier and at least until you
reach the superstructure normally has less windage than the bow and
second you can make correcting moves much earlier in the process----no
need to wait until the boat is almost entirely clear of the slip to
move the stern to port or starboard and redirect theheading of the
bow.

At our local Fisherman's Terminal, 90% of the small commercial fish
boats are single screws and 90% of them seem to come into the dock bow
first. A lot of theslips don't even have finger piers- but the guys
bring the boats in bow first and climb over the bow and down to the
dock rather than screw around trying to back in. Gotta be some sort
of
object lesson there, I'd think.