For those of you who read and responded to my docking angst:

It’s a great feeling when it starts coming together. We returned late
yesterday afternoon tired and burnt from our first overnight and
headwinds all the way back. The docking scenario was the usual for our
slip, strong quartering tailwind blowing the boat off the dock which
is on the side the reverse sternwalk swings away from. The ebb tide
also runs across these slips in about the same direction as the wind
so everything is resisting stopping the boat and pushing it away from
the finger dock.

We didn’t have the tide to cope with last night but the same method
has worked well on days that it did with the same shore breeze. This
docking began with the discovery that someone had docked a damaged
boat with the mast on deck sticking about ten feet out into our
already tight turning area. My wife has finally learned that yelling,
"You’re too close to that boat!" isn’t a necessary part of the docking
procedure and my kids interestedly inspected the masthead as it went
by about eight inches away.

As we swung into the slip, a neighboring transient boat owner ran over
and then just stood there as the lines went ashore and the boat
stopped. He said, "I was going to help but the young men seem to have
it completely under control. They really know what they are doing."
That made everybody feel pretty good.

Here’s what’s working for us if anyone else is still struggling with
this:

Bow and stern lines laid out along the rail amidships to the boarding
gate. Aft spring only coiled and ready to go. One kid takes each line
and jumps as soon as the end of the dock reaches midships. Their
instructions are simple, pull the slack out the line, get two round
turns on the cleat as quickly as they can, hold. Don’t wait for any
instructions.

With the stern line on, I can back as hard as necessary to stop and
hold the boat. I can get the boat so the linehandlers step off across
just a few inches of water but the boat still ends up about six feet
out by the time the lines are on. I then pull and release the stern
line as my son holds and takes up the slack to pull the stern in.
Intermittent applications of reverse keep us in position. When the
boat is close enough for the sternson to reach the spring line, he
cleats it and sets the spring. Then it’s engines off and pull the bow
in. Forward spring is set at leisure.

I’ve done this with just one line handler and it works just as well as
long as the stern line goes on first with a couple of additional
diagonal turns. We’re at the point now where we can do the whole
evolution without a word being spoken so we’re going to start looking
very smooth to the loungers on the other boats.

Here’s our undocking procedu

Cast off lines.

Brief application of reverse until boat starts to move and then
neutral as I learned from this newsgroup.

Son tending dinghy drops painter which he forgot to secure as ordered
(or maybe it slipped off the cleat).

Other son yells.

Stop boat which starts to swing into piling.

Son reaches down and grabs dinghy painter.

Resume backing out.

Snap hook (now replaced) twists in such a way as strain come on
painter that it pops off. Son yells. Helmsman gets that deer in the
headlights look.

Other son has presence of mind to grab boathook, snare dinghy thwart,
and hold on.

Continue reverse towing dinghy with boathook.

Watch bow swing and anchor miss piling by quarter inch.

Get clear, stop, and secure dinghy.

Motor sedately away as if it was all planned.

Yes, it’s great when it all starts coming together.


--

Roger Long

Congratulations, Roger!!

Soon, you'll be backing her in, and departure will be a piece of cake
:{))

L8R

Skip, refitting as fast as I can, with more railing installation today
(see the projects gallery if you're interested in what's up aboard)

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 - The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

For those of you who read and responded to my docking angst:


Any docking you can walk away from without getting your feet wet is a good
docking....(c;

--
Larry

In article ,
"Roger Long" wrote:

For those of you who read and responded to my docking angst:

It’s a great feeling when it starts coming together. We returned late
yesterday afternoon tired and burnt from our first overnight and
headwinds all the way back, snip

, a neighboring transient boat owner ran over
and then just stood there as the lines went ashore and the boat
stopped. He said, "I was going to help but the young men seem to have
it completely under control. They really know what they are doing."
That made everybody feel pretty good.

Well done! You've gotten it smoothed out enough that you can come in
dog-tired, the landscape can change (that mast) and you still look
good...

Here’s our undocking procedu

Cast off lines.

snip of Murphy in action
Motor sedately away as if it was all planned.

Yes, it’s great when it all starts coming together.

Yup, ain't it? Make sure you tell the crew how good they made the
skipper look.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Sounds great Roger! The only suggestion I have is not to tell or allow
people to "jump" off the boat. That's a recipe for disaster.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
For those of you who read and responded to my docking angst:

It's a great feeling when it starts coming together. We returned late
yesterday afternoon tired and burnt from our first overnight and headwinds
all the way back. The docking scenario was the usual for our slip, strong
quartering tailwind blowing the boat off the dock which is on the side the
reverse sternwalk swings away from. The ebb tide also runs across these
slips in about the same direction as the wind so everything is resisting
stopping the boat and pushing it away from the finger dock.

We didn't have the tide to cope with last night but the same method has
worked well on days that it did with the same shore breeze. This docking
began with the discovery that someone had docked a damaged boat with the
mast on deck sticking about ten feet out into our already tight turning
area. My wife has finally learned that yelling, "You're too close to that
boat!" isn't a necessary part of the docking procedure and my kids
interestedly inspected the masthead as it went by about eight inches away.

As we swung into the slip, a neighboring transient boat owner ran over and
then just stood there as the lines went ashore and the boat stopped. He
said, "I was going to help but the young men seem to have it completely
under control. They really know what they are doing." That made everybody
feel pretty good.

Here's what's working for us if anyone else is still struggling with this:

Bow and stern lines laid out along the rail amidships to the boarding
gate. Aft spring only coiled and ready to go. One kid takes each line and
jumps as soon as the end of the dock reaches midships. Their instructions
are simple, pull the slack out the line, get two round turns on the cleat
as quickly as they can, hold. Don't wait for any instructions.

With the stern line on, I can back as hard as necessary to stop and hold
the boat. I can get the boat so the linehandlers step off across just a
few inches of water but the boat still ends up about six feet out by the
time the lines are on. I then pull and release the stern line as my son
holds and takes up the slack to pull the stern in. Intermittent
applications of reverse keep us in position. When the boat is close enough
for the sternson to reach the spring line, he cleats it and sets the
spring. Then it's engines off and pull the bow in. Forward spring is set
at leisure.

I've done this with just one line handler and it works just as well as
long as the stern line goes on first with a couple of additional diagonal
turns. We're at the point now where we can do the whole evolution without
a word being spoken so we're going to start looking very smooth to the
loungers on the other boats.

Here's our undocking procedu

Cast off lines.

Brief application of reverse until boat starts to move and then neutral as
I learned from this newsgroup.

Son tending dinghy drops painter which he forgot to secure as ordered (or
maybe it slipped off the cleat).

Other son yells.

Stop boat which starts to swing into piling.

Son reaches down and grabs dinghy painter.

Resume backing out.

Snap hook (now replaced) twists in such a way as strain come on painter
that it pops off. Son yells. Helmsman gets that deer in the headlights
look.

Other son has presence of mind to grab boathook, snare dinghy thwart, and
hold on.

Continue reverse towing dinghy with boathook.

Watch bow swing and anchor miss piling by quarter inch.

Get clear, stop, and secure dinghy.

Motor sedately away as if it was all planned.

Yes, it's great when it all starts coming together.


--

Roger Long

Well, you did better yesterday than we did. :-) Newly acquired
Fischer 37, no familiarity with her, first time into her 40' of tight
berth (boats at both ends that weren't there when we first delivered
her) approachable only in from the side, 12kt breeze right off the beam
sending her in, little 4" wood dock bollards that won't take much pull,
and those sadistically placed exposed steel straps & bolts some
dockbuilders can't seem to do without. Cap't (not I) a little too
timid with the unfamiliar throttle. No Chinese firedrill & a gingerly
step ashore for me, but some nice long paint scars incurred while we
tried to help his confidence by chanting: "Bob is the best!!! Bob is
the best!!!". ;-) Were it a big RO/RO ferry or a Panamax OBO he
could've docked her perfectly without tugs & he's done that 1,000
times, but you know how it goes when one gets one's own BOAT. :-)

Getting her off hours earlier in the same conditions was "interesting"
too, until we realized how to back her out against a fwd springer
without raking her bow down the dock. All we had to do upon reberthing
was repeat the same evolution, but that was too simple & easy for us to
do. This is what 6 hours of perfect water & air can do to otherwise
reasonable men.

So, Altair now has a semipermanent reminder of our initial ineptitude &
good cheer.

It could've been much worse - the neighboring dockparty drunks could've
been around screaming obscenities...

"Capt. JG" wrote in message
...
Sounds great Roger! The only suggestion I have is not to tell or
allow people to "jump" off the boat. That's a recipe for disaster.


Well Cap., I'm here to learn so please tell me how your would handle
this docking.

With the wind, current, and sternwalk, this boat can't be brought to a
stop without ending up far from the dock and the stern too far out to
get a line ashore or in the space of the boat that will soon be next
door. The line to hold against the sternwalk yaw is an essential part
of stopping the boat. That means someone has to step off while the
boat is still moving.

I did do a pass around the end of the main pier and put a son ashore
once. That worked well but still involved a step off of an unsecured
boat. Seeing him subsequently leaning out to grab the lines (line
throwing skills are still pretty primitive in the rest of the crew and
there will often be just two of us) didn't make me comfortable. The
electrical installation in our marina, like most I suspect, is pretty
funky. I'd rather risk someone sprawling on a dock than going in the
water.

After more experience with the boat, I may learn to approach crabbed
and use the sternwalk to swing the stern away from the welded metal
dock corner. Having watched the boat however, I suspect it will just
end up at whatever distance from the finger the bow is since the bow
will be blowing downwind pretty much independently as the prop takes
hold. This would probably result in a longer jump.

My boat handling skills have come back pretty quickly and I can put
the boat very close to the dock so it's a step rather than a leap. My
sons don't seem to notice that the boat is moving when they step off.
If I do end up farther away, I'd rather have them jumping onto wood
than leaning over water between boat and dock.

I'm quite prepared though to believe that I'm doing this all wrong so,
please, enlighten me.

--

Roger Long

You should (well, might) be able to control the boat without anyone
jumping to the the dock.

If you have an after spring already cleated at the bow such that the
eye just reaches a dock cleat, all you have to do is snag the cleat as
you go by. Admittedly, this is easier said than done, but I have a
line with 6 feet of lifeline cable fed into the single braid, and so
far, my wife has been able to snag the cleat if I can get the bow
close. With your lower freeboard, and more agile kids, it should be
easy, and they still have the opportunity to jump to the dock.

Once you're snubbed on that, you can stay idling in forward, and use
the rudder to swing the bow or stern in as needed. The dynamics will,
of course, vary from boat to boat, and you may needed to play some
with the attachment points.

Yesterday, I used this technique to come in with the wind blowing 10
knots off the dock. Once snubbed, we were stopped a few feet behind
the boat in front, and with a little throttle I could tuck in the
stern and hold the boat against the dock.



Roger Long wrote:
For those of you who read and responded to my docking angst:

It’s a great feeling when it starts coming together. We returned late
yesterday afternoon tired and burnt from our first overnight and
headwinds all the way back. The docking scenario was the usual for our
slip, strong quartering tailwind blowing the boat off the dock which
is on the side the reverse sternwalk swings away from. The ebb tide
also runs across these slips in about the same direction as the wind
so everything is resisting stopping the boat and pushing it away from
the finger dock.

We didn’t have the tide to cope with last night but the same method
has worked well on days that it did with the same shore breeze. This
docking began with the discovery that someone had docked a damaged
boat with the mast on deck sticking about ten feet out into our
already tight turning area. My wife has finally learned that yelling,
"You’re too close to that boat!" isn’t a necessary part of the docking
procedure and my kids interestedly inspected the masthead as it went
by about eight inches away.

As we swung into the slip, a neighboring transient boat owner ran over
and then just stood there as the lines went ashore and the boat
stopped. He said, "I was going to help but the young men seem to have
it completely under control. They really know what they are doing."
That made everybody feel pretty good.

Here’s what’s working for us if anyone else is still struggling with
this:

Bow and stern lines laid out along the rail amidships to the boarding
gate. Aft spring only coiled and ready to go. One kid takes each line
and jumps as soon as the end of the dock reaches midships. Their
instructions are simple, pull the slack out the line, get two round
turns on the cleat as quickly as they can, hold. Don’t wait for any
instructions.

With the stern line on, I can back as hard as necessary to stop and
hold the boat. I can get the boat so the linehandlers step off across
just a few inches of water but the boat still ends up about six feet
out by the time the lines are on. I then pull and release the stern
line as my son holds and takes up the slack to pull the stern in.
Intermittent applications of reverse keep us in position. When the
boat is close enough for the sternson to reach the spring line, he
cleats it and sets the spring. Then it’s engines off and pull the bow
in. Forward spring is set at leisure.

I’ve done this with just one line handler and it works just as well as
long as the stern line goes on first with a couple of additional
diagonal turns. We’re at the point now where we can do the whole
evolution without a word being spoken so we’re going to start looking
very smooth to the loungers on the other boats.

Here’s our undocking procedu

Cast off lines.

Brief application of reverse until boat starts to move and then
neutral as I learned from this newsgroup.

Son tending dinghy drops painter which he forgot to secure as ordered
(or maybe it slipped off the cleat).

Other son yells.

Stop boat which starts to swing into piling.

Son reaches down and grabs dinghy painter.

Resume backing out.

Snap hook (now replaced) twists in such a way as strain come on
painter that it pops off. Son yells. Helmsman gets that deer in the
headlights look.

Other son has presence of mind to grab boathook, snare dinghy thwart,
and hold on.

Continue reverse towing dinghy with boathook.

Watch bow swing and anchor miss piling by quarter inch.

Get clear, stop, and secure dinghy.

Motor sedately away as if it was all planned.

Yes, it’s great when it all starts coming together.

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
"Capt. JG" wrote in message
...
Sounds great Roger! The only suggestion I have is not to tell or allow
people to "jump" off the boat. That's a recipe for disaster.


Well Cap., I'm here to learn so please tell me how your would handle this
docking.

With the wind, current, and sternwalk, this boat can't be brought to a
stop without ending up far from the dock and the stern too far out to get
a line ashore or in the space of the boat that will soon be next door. The
line to hold against the sternwalk yaw is an essential part of stopping
the boat. That means someone has to step off while the boat is still
moving.

I did do a pass around the end of the main pier and put a son ashore once.
That worked well but still involved a step off of an unsecured boat.
Seeing him subsequently leaning out to grab the lines (line throwing
skills are still pretty primitive in the rest of the crew and there will
often be just two of us) didn't make me comfortable. The electrical
installation in our marina, like most I suspect, is pretty funky. I'd
rather risk someone sprawling on a dock than going in the water.

After more experience with the boat, I may learn to approach crabbed and
use the sternwalk to swing the stern away from the welded metal dock
corner. Having watched the boat however, I suspect it will just end up at
whatever distance from the finger the bow is since the bow will be blowing
downwind pretty much independently as the prop takes hold. This would
probably result in a longer jump.

My boat handling skills have come back pretty quickly and I can put the
boat very close to the dock so it's a step rather than a leap. My sons
don't seem to notice that the boat is moving when they step off. If I do
end up farther away, I'd rather have them jumping onto wood than leaning
over water between boat and dock.

I'm quite prepared though to believe that I'm doing this all wrong so,
please, enlighten me.

--

Roger Long

No...I think you're doing most everything right. My only quibble is that
making a practice of jumping can lead to nasty consequences. Typically, I
have people refrain, but I will have them outside the lifelines, holding
onto the shrouds. I tell them if we don't get close enough to step off,
don't jump, and we'll try again.

I'm not so concerned with landing on the dock, as I am with people falling
between the boat and the dock. Then, the boat closes with the dock, and the
person is a human fender... bad news really.

"Capt. JG" wrote in message
...
"Roger Long" wrote in message

No...I think you're doing most everything right.

I'm not so concerned with landing on the dock, as I am with people
falling between the boat and the dock. Then, the boat closes with
the dock, and the person is a human fender... bad news really.

Ah, good.

I will remember though to add to my SOP commands, when conditions are
creating closure with dock as opposed to a struggle to get close,
"Don't step off until we touch."

--

Roger Long