Select to expand quoteHG02 said..
Shaggy Baxter
I think id buy a light weight electric out board and use it as a bow or stern thruster.
Maybe not when your racing, but practice and normal weekend stuff.
G'day HG,
Hmmm....never thought of this. The freeboard at the bow is over 5 ft, the stern is approx 3ft, so plenty of sheer to make it challenging. Might have to think about this.
At the moment, after working out I have enough depth to reverse in, I have been practicing reversing options. It is much easier to reverse in, but I still need at least one pair of hands in a cross breeze. I haven't given up though!
The two things have learnt are
-Do not try too hard to dock the boat. If you are in the pen and you are drifting into the other boat or then it causes less damage just to let the boat settle and then recover it manually. cost me a couple fo thousand dollars to repair the bow after ramming the dock to learn this one.
-do not trust people you don't know taking your lines. I ahve had people say "my boat is 27 tonne. I can handle this" as the line slips thought the dock cleat because it is only wrapped once
-the third of these two things is if I give an instruction when docking and someone has to say 'what' then its too late. I'm in panic mode
-the forth one is that I found that i am much better off managing the docking myself rather than let my drunken guests get in my road. Give everyone a job but the skipper looks after the crucial parts. I've even had new crew practice cleating before setting out in preparation for the return.
