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Docking In Wind - Had My Bluff Called
Michael T
Member Posts: 7,227 ✭✭✭✭✭
We just arrived home from 6 days of visiting nearby marinas. At one point, after we had been docked for a day the weather changed. The winds picked-up quite a bit - say from 5 knots to 15 knots. This marina has about 500 slips so there is always quite a lot of action and plenty for the guys, already tied-up, to comment on. There was a lot of dock banging and boat banging going on as captains tried to slip their boats, most by backing stern-in. There were some really brutal collisions resulting in damage to the boat entering the slip and on 2 or 3 occasions (that I saw) damage to the slip mate's boat. One sail boat hit the stern of another boat as the wind pushed him into it. We could hear him yelling out "There's nothing I can do. I'm hard over and under full throttle. I have insurance and will call it into the marina." The motor on the dinghy trailing his sailboat caught the ropes of a dinghy behind the boat he hit and ripped out all of the ropes on one side. the dingy deflated on one side and it's 35 HP motor took it to the bottom. The sailboat it was attached to listed and dumped two teak chairs onto the side of a new Four Winns 375 Vista Cruiser, then moved to starboard crushing the chairs between the two boats. You could see the fiber glass chips coming off the 375 and its captain with both hands on his head. This lead to a lot of dock talk like "What an idiot - I could do better and what was that guy thinking?" I wasn't as harsh as many of the guys but I did have my 2 cents in the conversation. We left the next day. The wind had picked-up to where it was 25 knots with gusts. It was coming to my starboard at about 45 degrees. I left my slip using Axius set on "docking" mode. This setting limits the thrust of the engines. I do this if possible to avoid creating unnecessary waves around other boats or revving up the engines - which looks like show-off behaviour. That was my first mistake. When exiting the slip I chose to motor down the center of the fairway, my second mistake. As I cleared a water front hotel I got the full force of the 25 knot+ wind which I had not accounted properly for, my fourth mistake. I quickly found myself in trouble. I was in low thrust mode. The wind moved our 360 five feet to port in a boat length. I was now about 5 feet away from a line of cruisers and trawlers with all of their anchors facing me and closing fast. I switched off "docking mode" to full thrust and engaged. this took about 5 seconds. I fired-up full sideways thrust. I now had a 9 ton boat, probably nearly 10 tons with full fuel and gear, in motion to port. The 8.2s were screaming and were trying to dig-in but had to slow the boat's momentum before moving it to starboard. The Admiral, always calm, said "Michael, we are less than a foot from impact". There was nothing I could do at this point but hope the raw power of the 8.2s would save me. Any attempt to "steer my way out" would have put my stern right onto the line of anchors. I was looking right into the horrified eyes of the other captains in their boats' fly bridges as they anticipated the immediate impact of a 10 ton boat hitting them right on their bows. Finally, the side thrust of the Axius caught and we moved sideways and forward. As we cleared the marina breakwater I asked the Admiral how close I had gotten to the other boats. She said the anchor of a big trawler had passed within 3 inches of her face - while she was on the stern guiding me. I broke my own rules of not assessing the severity of a situation - even after watching many captains get into trouble the day before, of getting behind in a situation and of overestimating my skill. If I had, had to use throttles in the position I put myself in I would have hit at least one boat as I would have had to go hard to starboard to escape hitting a line of boats. and would have had to sacrifice my port stern to at least one collision. I was very lucky that I did not harm the Admiral or the boat. About the only thing that I did right was to remain calm and focused as I looked at my cra**y options. As part of my reflection on this series of stupid decisions I have vowed I will also refrain from ever again commenting on another captain's boat handling skills. I have now been boating for over 55 years and have never come this close to a collision. All that experience is useless in about 30 seconds if one is not careful. I got real lucky. lesson learned. BTW you should have seen me the last few days of the trip. Mr. Cautious LOL.
Comments
Andy
So true Andy! Good for you Steve, that is a beautiful area. I was there many years ago when my parents lived in Ft. Lauderdale.
Dream 'Inn III -- 2008 400 Express
As an aside, last year I bought a couple huge 27-inch "round fenders" (ball-shaped instead of cylindrical) that are amazing. (Please, no jokes about the size of my "equipment" ... I've heard them all!) In rough conditions, round fenders are the way to go, and the bigger the better. I usually store mine deflated, and I have a Ryobi inflator that will fill that huge fender in under a minute.
2002 FV 342 on Lake St. Clair - Past Commodore SHC - Vessel Examiner USCGAUX
the boat is on rails at less than wake speed with the smart tabs and the five blade ron hill prop... i can maneuver that thing around exceedingly easily, even when other boats are having issues. even for me with these advantages, though, there is a channel I frequent that often has opposing winds and current... it is tricky... it's even trickier when I have a zero value (straight at me or behind me) current, and a full value (3-9 or 9-3 o'clock) wind... the problem is getting out of straight, and then the current and the wind have a total different command/influence over the boat than it did less than a second before...
that's a tricky area....
I was trying to stow a folding beach chair after leaving the launch, which is something I do almost exclusively while warming up, if not before even leaving the house, but there were people waiting and the launch area was big time congested that morning... the channel is only about ten feet wide through this little pass, with shallows of oyster beds on one side and sand bar on the other- low tide the channel is two and a half feet deep with the 'banks' less than a foot... I let loose the wheel, just for a second, to reach forward into the ski locker (where the chair was) to close it better.... in that split second, the wind and current took over control, and I scraped a metal sign warning clammers of the dangers of shell fish, on the starboard side, about mid-ship. There were three other boats behind me that saw it.... I just buried my face in my palm and shook my head while they laughed at me... and rightfully so.. lesson learned... life comes at you fast.
Dream 'Inn III -- 2008 400 Express
As we came back in, with still no wind, I just went over the procedure again verbally with my dad and he remembered everything.
I told him if i come in on an angle tie me to a cleat and I will push forward to get the boat against the dock. And then I said but don't stress we won't have to do that as there's no wind. I have a single engine and back in so I need to worry about these things but on this day docking would be a breeze. Not.
As I backed in i think a current prevented me from swinging my bow straight so I went in diagonally. With me now fast approaching my neighbor's boat I asked my dad to hop off onto the dock and tie onto a cleat. A lady walks up and offers to take my dad's rope. Here the two of them are being polite to one another saying "oh that's not necesary" and "are you sure" while I'm getting deeper into trouble. Realizing I was inches from the other boat I screamed "cleat, cleat, cleat!" My dad "woke up" and wrapped the rope around the cleat while I pushed forward narrowly escaping a collison. OK it would have been a nudge at the speed I was doing, and no damage would have been done, but still I don't like making contact whatsoever.
There's 3 morals to the story. The first is you can never be too prepared so go over procedures whenever you can. The second is you never know when a problem will present itself so be prepared no matter what even in what is viewed to be perfect conditions. The third is make sure there's only one captain and make sure everyone knows that (that's where I failed). It was easy until my dad decided to hesitate based on the offer from another person. As nice as she was trying to be, those few seconds was the difference between smooth docking and a sweat bath.
Boat Name: King Kong
"Boat + Water = Fun"
That is a funny story Mark, I hope others will share some stories, I don't know that I have one to share but it sounds like, sooner or later, I will....
06 Rinker 270
http://captnmike.com/2011/02/10/tips-on-tying-your-boat-to-the-dock/
06 Rinker 270
Boat Name: King Kong
"Boat + Water = Fun"
Boat Name: King Kong
"Boat + Water = Fun"
Dream 'Inn III -- 2008 400 Express