Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:


Breast lines can be important when docking single handed. Single handed
landings in challenging conditions are seldom pretty, but once a
midship breast line is secured that becomes a "pivot point" at the
dock and neither the bow nor the stern will blow off very far before
the single handed boater can get additional lines ashore.

Hmmmm - I'm having a little trouble visualizing this - maybe I have a
mistaken idea of what a breast line is.

A breast line in a line that leads directly to the mooring and will be
secured without being led forward or aft. I find that when I'm single
handed the most useful thing to do is to get a short line from the
midship hwse secured to something, as there is only a limited amount of
blowing off that can occur to either the bow or stern if the middle of
the boat is secure.
Securing the bow line first can (and has) resulted in the stern getting
blown back into the fairway, and that's the same with the stern.

If later arriving vessels have been moored so closely that there is
very little room fore and aft to use for maneuvering the stern into the
fairway, powering forward against an aft spring line will exaggerate
the kick (or the "spring") of the stern into the fairway. If there
is no dockside line handler, this spring line can be looped around the
cleat with the bitter end secured aboard. Deckhands will need to be
quick about the release and retrieval of this line when the stern is
sufficiently clear and the helmsperson indicates he or she is ready to
power astern.

I had to think about this for a minute - it's correct, but it seems
overly complex.

Mindful that there is sufficient clearance to allow maneuvering room
alongside any vessels possibly moored ahead on the same float or pier,
engaging forward gear with the rudder hard over toward the dock will
allow the stern to follow the bow into the fairway.

A minor nit pick and probably entirely my fault, but I don't own a
boat with a rudder - the Halman doesn't count. :)

When you say rudder hard over towards the dock, do you mean turn the
wheel towards the dock or the rudder towards the dock.

Stupid question I know, but...

If you're steering a modern boat with a wheel, the rudder moves in the
same direction as the wheel. To set the rudder toward the dock, turn
the wheel toward the dock. There was a time when this was typically
reversed, and that's a subject that often comes up in the discussion of
Titanic minutiea; "was the helm ordered turned in the wrong direction
immediately prior to colliding with the iceberg?".