Paul writes
Hi Trevor,

Yes, there were things I could have done in hindsight and I think you're
right, taking them on the stern was a possibility however I was fairly close
to shore and taking them on the stern would have meant turning into shore.
But by turning and dropping power it would have worked. So doing the same
thing but taking them on the bow would have worked as well. Learn, learn,
learn.

I was also assuming adequate freeboard of your transom. My limited
experience is with RIBs which would have taken on water from a large
stern wave.

And if I may digress, I was very pleased with how my boat handled when
cutting some of the larger or more confsued wakes this weekend. She has a
fairly good vee going on and she cut them, even coming down off the top of
them right into another without any slamming or pounding. I don't know how
else to say it except it was very knife-like.

From the speeds you've mentioned, I don't know if yours is a planing
boat, but do you know about setting the trim to handle rough seas? I
feel a bit of a phoney talking about this, having just come off the RYA
course, and having no real sea experience, but we were shown to trim the
bow down when against the swell - thus putting the V-hull into the
waves, and to trim the bow up when powering with the swell, so as to
prevent the bow nose diving into the troughs when cresting a wave.

Learning this stuff somehow made the whole boating experience immensely
more enjoyable. Unfortunately It's going to be a while before I can put
it into practice, because we are not getting our own boat till we move
to New Zealand in a year or two.

--
Trevor Dennis
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