Marina Maneuvers

[Foswick]

I kind of like interesting docking/undocking situations. I just like to have tools in my mental toolbox for dealing with odd situations.

We got placed in a slip the other night that we got into OK, but getting out in the morning was a little puzzle.

We are the green boat. When we arrived, there was a small boat to starboard, and the slips to port were also full. The barge-looking thing in this image was not there, and there were no boats parked along that dock. After we arrived, the marina allowed those two boats to tie behind us. Neither crew slept on their boat, so they were not there in the morning. We did manage to chat with the boat immediately behind us and they gave us permission to put hands on their boat to fend and also offered to be there within a half-hour if we texted them. Very nice folks.

In the morning, we had about 5-8 kts blowing in the direction of the blue arrow and winds were projected to build.

Two things to note: We are a full keel with just about no steering control in reverse. Right-handed prop. Also, the bow blows down really hard in even light winds. At 5-8 kts, we could easily get into a situation where we cannot get enough headway to move the bow against the wind.

How we solved it:

We actually just ran a stern line to a crew member who stood about where the tip of the blue arrow is. She pulled the stern in as I walked the bow back until I had to get on. A helpful bystander stood by to fend the bow, if needed. (It wasn't needed, but the insurance was nice.) We pulled the stern all the way to the dock at the blue arrow, where the crew member jumped on. The bow was well clear of the finger, at this point, and the wind tended to move the bow to port. Cranked the wheel hard to port and gave a little thrust to complete the turn and we just drove on out. (I think I could have made a tight turn and brought the starboard stern alongside the finger we just left so my crew member could have boarded there, instead, but she got on no problem over the stern.)

This worked because we were able to get that stern line over to the other dock and we were able to back right up to that dock.

Why we didn't just try to back out and allow prop walk to bring the stern to port and then do a standing turn out in that open area:

We could do that in still wind. But, with the wind in that direction/speed, we'd have to make a really brave reverse thruse to ensure we didn't just drift down and clip our bow on the second boat to port. We would probably make it, but it wouldn't be a very controlled move and there wouldn't be a good Plan B.

We had hoped our neighbor to port would have been gone in the morning so we could have just manually moved to boat around the finger into that slip, stern-in, then just pulled right out.

Curious to hear other ideas/strategies. (The diagram is not exactly to scale. Our boat is 32 feet, and there was about 40+ feet between the end of our finger and the tip of the blue arrow. So, it wasn't quite as tight as I made it look, but still a bit snug.)

 

[shemandr]

If there were a bollard or even cleat in the area your crew stood on the dock, you could maybe double a line to it and avoid the need for the crew to board the boat while not docked.
But I applaud your action in using a warp line to control the situation and make a calm departure. There is some false ethic among boat handlers that they have to do it themselves. With a well executed plan such as yours the drama level goes way down.

 

[Foswick]

If there were a bollard or even cleat in the area your crew stood on the dock, you could maybe double a line to it and avoid the need for the crew to board the boat while not docked.

There was a cleat. If I'd realized it was going to go as smoothly as it did, I would have done exactly what you described. I was frankly a bit uneasy about the departure, so opted to have crew on the dock to also fend or walk the stern. Our last departure from an awkward position did not go so well, so we were feeling extra cautious.

(That situation was not entirely dissimilar and ended up with us having to do an unplanned standing turn in about 30 feet of width. Not my finest moment, but no damage done except to my pride.)

 

[Foswick]

Not sure I get it. Couldn’t you simply back out?

You mean back down the fairway ... like to the northeast? No.

The combination of no steering in reverse and the bow blowing downwind makes that virtually impossible. Not even just a matter of skill, but more physics.

Besides, if I could have safely pulled into the fairway stern-first, I could have pretty easily done a standing turn to starboard and just driven out, no problem. The problem was that my bow would go northeast no matter what else was going on, until I had considerable speed.

As executed, I used that to my advantage.

Had winds been about 180 degrees to where they were, backing out might have been an option.