Mates: I was having breakfast this morning in Long Beach and watched a sailor trying to dock his Catalina 30 in a narrow slip way. He missed his slip and then a Chinese fire drill broke out as he bounced off boats trying to turn the boat around.His problem of turning his boat in a narrow area could have been easily avoided if he had used "prop walk" to his advantage. The technique is called "backing and filling" and enables you to almost spin the boat within its own length. Here is how you do it. Assume your boat kicks or walks to port when you put it in reverse. If it kicks to starboard, no big deal. Just reverse the process I'm about to outline.Step 1: Start the turn in forward and turn the wheel hard over to starboard and gain a little headway. DO NOT MOVE THE WHEEL FROM THIS POINT THROUGH THE REST OF THE TURN!! Step 2: Keep the wheel hard over to starboard and now shift to reverse. Your stern will turn to port. At this point you should be about 40% to 50% through the turn.Step 3: When you get 50% into the turn, shift to forward still keeping the wheel hard over to starboard. Gain a little headway - little is the key word.Step 4: Once you gain a little headway, shift to reverse, still keeping the wheel hard over to starboard. The stern will again start to kick over to port.Step 5: At this point, you should have completed your turn and be headed in the opposite direction so just shift to forward and be on your way.A couple of points - water must be flowing past the rudder for it to have any effect and this happens much faster in reverse than forward. Additionally, you MUST resist the temptation to touch the wheel during this process.One last point. Obviously, the place to practice this is in the middle of your turning basin. After you see how easy this process is, narrow slip ways will never again be a problem to you.While I was finishing eating breakfast, I wrote this method on a napkin and then walked down the dock to the C30. On board the boat were a husband and wife. Both were frazzeled. At first, the husband didn't want to hear anything but the wife said "this guy is trying to help you so don't be an idiot". Woman are just so much more open to things than men. After that we had a great conversation about boats and sailing etc. Turned out they were new to sail boats and still trying to figure out the boat.