Seems to me that you could use a spring line to make this work.

"JN" wrote in message
.. .
After BACKING out of the slip, I have about 50 feet of water between me
and
the boats docked on the other side of the channel. It takes an engine to
stop the backward motion of my 30' sloop in that amount of space so I
don't
hit any of the boats on the other side. After achieving a forward motion,
someone could probably raise the sail, but my recommendation to anyone
whose
boat was damaged from anyone trying that would be to take their boat away
from them by lawsuit. Negligence is the word I would recommend using.
Then
sell one boat and buy more toys courtesy of the idiot.