A note on docking

During sea trials the docking was done by previous captain and expert, Glen. The first time Nootka was docked by us was at LaConner during favorable conditions and no other boats on a huge, long empty dock. It was no surprise that we were successful. Hooray! In a previous blog post I described our docking experience bringing her home to Semiahmoo. Disgraceful, but no actual harm done. Then we took her out for a quick trip to Sucia in the rain in March with kid #3 during her spring break. This time with Captain Jess at the helm with two catchers standing by. This was possibly worse than our first attempt so now we are genuinely nervous about taking her out. Trying to back out, the stern was blown down the fairway and we had to back all the way out. That is not really a big deal, but it does make us look like we don’t know what we are doing. Accurate, but embarrassing. Bringing her back in was also a mad dash scramble to prevent property damage. This results in low confidence and a reluctance to leave the dock. It happened again when we took our friends out in July. Actually, it was probably worse when we took her out in July – both coming and going. A lady from across the fairway yelled at us that we were stupid to take her out when the current wasn’t slack. Ok, so we didn’t even check what the current was doing. Sigh. Fortunately, due to the quick action of our crew, no damage was done but it is clear that we need a better strategy.  

So September comes and we want to take a vacation on our boat. We drive across the state to do so and we are excited for our first real cruise, but there is that nagging thought the whole way that we are going to have to leave the dock (scary) and bring her back (also scary). We arrive at the marina and to our great delight the giant power boat next to us is gone. Gone! We have all the room we need to back out and let the bow swing wide. But we decide that we want to practice as if that boat were there. If the boat had been there, it would have been another fending off situation. But it wasn’t there and we just backed out and left like normal people. We had an amazing week in Canada. Bringing her back was in the back of our minds the whole time we were there but not so much that we didn’t have fun. The day we brought her home we were dreading the docking. We know we can’t let this stop us from using the boat, but the fear is with us.

Maybe I should explain the problem. The boat has a full keel and is very heavy. This means that she doesn’t really make a 90 degree turn. At least not on her own. If you think about what is happening below the waterline on a full keel boat, it is a lot of boat under there that doesn’t want to turn sharply. The fairway is narrow. Technically it is wider than the boat is long, but when you are in the fairway it sure doesn’t feel like it! Because of the keel, the boat doesn’t turn sharp. Some boats have a bow thruster, but not our boat. There are other factors in docking that come into play. The first time we brought our boat in the wind was blowing 16 knots and was blowing us away from the dock (and into our neighbor).The other factor is the current. Our sailing experience has not included current. Darn that current! So you have to worry about the wind above the water and the current below you while you try to maneuver a lumbering giant in a tight space lined with expensive boats. Super fun!

And then a breakthrough! Maybe less than a breakthrough and more of a remembering what we previously learned during docking class. That’s right we took a docking class with a docking expert. I guess we forgot about that. The secret? Use the engine to spin the boat. Get her close enough to the dock and use a spring line. A spring line! Forgot about that too. If you can get the right line on the dock (on the right cleat) you can use the engine and the line to control the boat. Geesh. The key is a burst of power with the rudder in the right position to get the boat to spin without moving forward. So getting out requires a short burst in reverse and then coast out with a line on the dock to keep the boat straight. We were backing out slowly in idle which exposes you to prop walk (to port) and swings your gnarly anchored bow into your neighbor (bad). When bringing her in to the dock a burst of power with the helm turned over results in … a spin move! Ta da! We need to keep practicing, but we are getting better.

Back to the September trip to the gulf islands. We are enjoying our time on the water but we are thinking about whether or not the huge neighboring Bayliner will be there when we get back. It doesn’t prevent us from having fun while we are out and about but we are thinking about it. Not talking about it, but thinking about it. We have practiced our spin moves and talked a lot about spring lines, but not talked about that Bayliner. The day comes that we need to come home and we head back to the dock. We come around the corner and enter the fairway. Confidence is improved but not as high as we would like. The first mate is on the helm. What do we see? Is that a sailboat in the slip next to us? Can it be? Do we have a new neighbor? Is our new neighbor a sailboat with a stern that doesn’t stick out squarely (massively squarely) taking up every bit of their half of the slip and extending PAST the end of the dock with very little margin? It is a sailboat! A 40’ Hunter. A thing of beauty that doesn’t require us to make a 90 degree turn. We are so excited, but we still need to dock. The first mate gets lined up on the far side of the fairway, the skipper gives the signal to start the turn. The first mate lines up with the pilon at the end of the dock, the skipper signals to turn her over hard to starboard, Nootka slips past the Hunter with room to spare. The first mate puts her into idle reverse and … this is the best part … she comes to rest exactly in the right spot on the dock and the skipper steps right off the boat onto the dock steps with a very loose line that isn’t urgently needed because Nootka is resting happily in her slip. OMG!!! It has happened. A perfect docking.

One perfect docking is a thing of beauty, but we need repeatability. The next voyage away from the dock is for haul out in Bellingham. Departure goes just as well as the previous departure. Smooth as can be with no stress or anxiety. Docking at the guest dock in Bellingham goes very smoothly. Docking at the haul out dock is less gracefully done as the wind and waves are a force to be reckoned with but there are many hands on deck for the catch. After the haul out, Nootka is let loose with a new cutlass bearing and a fresh coat of bottom paint (more info in separate post) and after a bumpy ride home we return to Semiahmoo and land on the fuel dock. That goes pretty well. From there we have a talk about our docking strategy. The wind is blowing and the current is moving. Should we wait on the fuel dock and then land in our slip when we have less wind and current or do we just go for it? The sky looks ominous and there are no guarantees that things will improve with a slack tide so we decide to just go for it, but we ask someone from the marina to help catch us. We bring the boat around to our slip and it goes exactly the way it went the time before. Perfectly. The guy that came to catch was wondering why he bothered because he didn’t do anything at all, except stand there. So now we are basically professionals.

Not so fast. We took our boat out for Memorial Day weekend and we timed departure for slack tide. There was almost no wind. That part went text book. We backed out, did our spin move and headed out to sea. When we came back it was not slack so we had some current. The current was making us crab in, which means that in additional to going forward we were also sliding sideways. It was the first time I was on the helm with that much crabbing and I wasn’t sure how it would go. It didn’t go great. I didn’t feel I could come in on the far side of the fairway because I was getting pushed that way by the current and there are some fancy boats on that side of the fairway (there are fancy boats everywhere in our marina) that I didn’t want to crash into. I also had an audience. An older couple on a giant power boat were set up to watch me come in and I could tell that they were watching. I think I was the highlight of their evening entertainment and I wanted to crush it. I didn’t. Coming in I couldn’t get the boat sideways enough to safely get into the slip. But … I was able to back out down the fairway to the entrance to reset for another try. Even though this is a docking failure, it is also a boat handling win because I stayed calm, backed out under control and then set up for another try. This time I gave myself more room by staying closer to the fancy boats. I waved to my audience. They offered some encouragement and I tried again. Not my smoothest docking, but not our worst effort either. CJ had to fend off the sailboat because I was getting blown down into our neighbor, but nothing as scary as when it happened with the power boat. When the boat was safely tied up at the dock we held a debrief to talk about what went wrong and how we can do better next time. Ultimately it was a win. We didn’t cause property damage and we maintain our perfect record of not yelling at each other while docking. We stayed calm and we look forward to getting more practice and continuing to improve our boat handling skills.