When veteran cruiser and sailing instructor Andy Cross is approaching a dock, he already has a plan on how to complete the landing smoothly. “Many times, people who are on the dock want to help and I’ll say, ‘No thank you, we’re good.’”
Even for experienced cruisers and sailors, entering a marina or dockage for the first time presents challenges. Any serious athlete talks about making sure he or she has a good foundation and that starts with having the basics covered. Golfers practice before they play a round. Professional baseball players still hit off a tee. Basketball players hoist lots of free throws before a game. A good way to make sure that your first entry to a new marina goes smoothly is to review the basics and create a plan.
The first thing that Cross stresses is keeping your cool. “Stay calm,” he says. “Docking, especially if there are other boats and people around, can be stressful. If your first attempt doesn’t go right, don’t try to force the boat into the spot. If you need to back up or turn around and come back and try again. You learned from the first time.”
Tom Tursi is the founder of the Maryland School of Sailing and a licensed Coast Guard Ocean Master. Before entering a port for the first time, he calls the local dockmaster for information about current, winds and anything else that a captain should know about. When he arrives, he doesn’t even try to make a landing on the first pass.
“I want to get as much intelligence from the dockmaster and second I’m going to look at a chart,” he says. “I’m going to do a slow fly by and decide which way to make the approach. Then I go back out and get my crew and lines ready.”
Tursi’s school has a series of instructional videos on its YouTube page including No-Panic Docking Class, Docking Techniques Demonstration and Docking Techniques Seminar that offer a good review of basic skills.
Especially for short-handed crews — think husband and wife — the more preparation for docking, the better. Tursi says that one way to reduce stress is to prepare a docking bridle in advance. On a bridle for a 40-foot boat, he recommends about 50 feet of line with a loop tied about a third of the way down from one end. This becomes the bow line and the long end becomes the amidships forward-leading spring and that has to be pre-rigged before the loop can be applied. Approach the dock from about a 30-degree angle. “Put the loop on a piling or cleat and bock on an amidship-forward leading spring and pulls the stern sweetly into the dock. “I think spring lines are the most valuable tool in docking and many people aren’t fully skilled on applying spring lines. They have to understand the forces being applied.”
The next decision that must be made is determining if you’re going to enter the slip bow first or back in. “The benefit of backing in (with a sailboat) is that you have a finger pier easily accessible from the cockpit,” said Tursi. “The other thing is that you’re near the back end of the boat and you have a better perspective of how close you are to the dock.” With a trawler or flying bridge equipped powerboat, that vantage point might be different. An owner who wants a better vantage point in this case may want to add a docking station near the aft end of the cockpit.
When backing in, Tursi says that one of the biggest mistakes a person at the helm makes is not staying aware of how the boat’s bow swings against the background. “I have to be aware of what the bow is doing relative to the background scene,” says Tursi. “People don’t bring the wheel back to counter the swing until it’s too late. They may have brought the helm back to neutral but haven’t corrected the bow swing.”
If Tursi is backing into a slip port-side-to and he’s at right angles to the centerline line of the slip, he turns the wheel to starboard and starts reversing. The rudder is pointed to the right and he’s going to hold it there until he sees the bow swing past the centerline.
Continuing to hold the right to the right, he’ll shift alternately into forward and reverse. As long as the bow is angled to port, he can bump into forward to avoid a hazard.
The key to Tursi’s monitoring of the bow angle is anticipation. With a 35- or 40-foot boat that weighs 20,000 pounds and has a 50-hp single engine, a captain must predict things before they happen because he or she doesn’t have the luxury of having twin high-output engines and a pair of propellers to get him or her out of trouble.
Cross has spent 13 years cruising on his Grand Soleil 39 and has been a sailing instructor for 20 years. He says that anticipation comes into play in other aspects of operating virtually any boat.
“One thing I find when I’m teaching someone to run a boat from 35 to 60’ is understanding the glide zone,” says Cross. “How far will the boat move before it loses steerage?”
Cross says that most captains are going too fast and not considering things like windage. He does much of his sailing in the British Virgin Islands where mooring fields are prevalent. “I have them at the helm and I tell them, look at that mooring ball that’s four boat lengths from us and go into neutral two balls from it,” says Cross. “Once you get all that weight moving, it’s physics.”
When it comes to accessories that help a captain, Tursi says that a bow thruster can be helpful, but stresses that an operator shouldn’t depend on it. Cross says that many experienced cruisers started out on boats without thrusters and when they get a new vessel with one, they need to learn how to take advantage of this new toy.
“I teach people to use just a little shot for a second or two and then off,” said Cross. Whether it’s using learning how to use a bow thruster or setting dock lines before approaching, a little advance preparation will make entering a new port or marina less stressful.
