A short story. Skipper is new to the boat, and family (four boys and wifey) set sail from Everett marina to Blake Island for the weekend. Clear skies, but wind picks up and seas become lumpy. Wifey says to stow the sails and maybe layover in Edmonds marina until seas settle. Okay.
No mid ship cleat, just bow and stern. High freeboard, and inexperienced skipper, gives us trouble maneuvering the boat close enough so that a fisherman on the dock can help us tie up on a finger. My one son on the bow throws the line to the fisherman not realizing that the dock line eye was on only one horn. Fisherman grabs the line and begins to muscle the boat toward the finger. Eye slips off the horn and in the drink he goes and it's cold.
Another fisherman comes to our aid, we get the boat tied up while the other fisherman helps his partner out of the water. We bring blankets and hot tea to help get the wet fisherman warmed up. All ends well and later the seas settle enough so that we can head out for Blake Island and a nice weekend sail.
Needless to say, my next project was to add mid ship cleats to the boat, which has helped immensely solo docking. When making dock line eyes I make it a point of placing a half twist in the eye so that to place or remove the eye on the boat cleat requires a slight untwist. This half twist assures a secure cleat mount and avoids an accidental dismount.
