Docking - I made several mistakes

[stnick]

Your wife when docking is under your command as IS the dock helper ! his job is to listen and react not talk to your crew.Since he works there he got to used to expearence skippers. His Mistake. ! Its your job as captain to take control of all dock hands also . !
You dont ask . On the Dock im trowing you this line tie on that pole or cleat ! Understand ? ! a yes captain is normal./'
In would have gone nose in in those conditions . next day if its calm turn her around...
Dont go against nature, go with the flow

[TBW]

Sounds to me like you had a good plan. When the outsider fouled you up you did a good job of fixing things. Good job

[dfelsent]

Whenever we approach any kind of tight quarters maneuver (dock, mooring, crossing situation etc...) my admiral says “What’s the plan.” Oh man those are powerful words. With a big boat you always need a plan. Or three.
Great recovery. Well done.

[nortonscove]

Having been the DPA for years combined with some tug and barge work I live by the spring line whatever the situation. It removes confusion about the other lines and allows control in a manner that takes away the stress. Once it's in place you can manage everything else yourself.

[sanibel sailor]

what's DPA?

[gonesail]

when docking I have a few goals. make sure nobody gets hurt. make sure you don't damage other boats. make sure you don't damage your boat. try to get your boat into the slip the easiest way possible.

[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by sanibel sailor

what's DPA?

Designated Person Ashore

https://www.google.com/search?q=desi...hrome&ie=UTF-8

[nortonscove]

DPA =designated person ashore. I followed ships all over the province and assist in docking and assuring the facilities were capable and free once the vessel arrived.

[Montanan]

Recommend that have your wife handle the helm, engine and bow thrust controls and then you are freed to handle the lines and take the step to the shore. Unless she is more agile and stronger than you give her the less physically challenging task and definitely don't turn over control of the lines to helpers on the dock / quay unless you have clearly expressed the plan and their specific role in the procedure. Can't figure out why Guys feel compelled to be the skipper. With a bollard or a cleat one can typically just toss a loop of line over it and keep a hold of both ends and control the line from the boat and not need a shore person to aid. Bull rails are more difficult to attach a line.
Windward aft line first when backing in, windward spring line when bow first is my favored typical sequence, but it does depend on the circumstances.

[TrentePieds]

Nortons Cove has it right. The springline is king! Coming and going!

The particular techniques we use are less important than that whatever we do, we do safely.

Coming alongside under conditions of no drift and no set is the starting point for developing these techniques. They need to be practiced again and again until skipper and crew can do them in their sleep. The objective is to lay the boat dead in the water in the designated slip 6" off the 'toon or wharf

Modifications must necessarily be made for drift and set as well as for the boat's propensity to change heading when steerage way dies away. The key to these modifications of basic technique is the ability of the OOW (even in a 30 footer there is an OOW) to predict and utilize to his benefit the TRACK the boat will make as a result of the combined forces of drift and set. The track is never the same as the heading. Again, "practice makes perfect"!

Handling of lines by the crew is, likewise, something that needs to be reduced to a basic routine, which then is modified in light of obtaining circumstances. Generally a crew member should be able to step off across the 6" distance twixt boat and 'toon or wharf right there at the gate, springline in hand, and belay that springline on the toon or wharf.

Ideally, you, as skipper, should be able to come single-handing into a slip you've never seen before, a slip with no "mooring committee" and no mooring lines on the 'toon or wharf, with all YOUR mooring lines in readiness on deck, step off YOURSELF right there at that magic 6" gap, and belay your spring lines.

None of it is particularly difficult. For your delectation here is a clip of a boat whose skipper OBVIOUSLY had never done what I've counselled above :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s_H-FhEvAc

TrentePieds

[LongRange]

Thank you everyone for the invaluable advice. I learned a lot from reading the responses.

Key takeaways:

- Better communication between my wife and I, to ensure we both agree on The Plan and our respective parts.

- Politely declining to follow offers of advice from the "docking committee" (love it!) when in conflict with The Plan. My wife also suffers from insufferable politeness, coupled with an innate distrust of authoritarian behaviour, especially from opinionated males (i.e. me!).

- More practice with side-on mooring (what they call "English mooring") in these parts, and specifically with spring lines. It is my discomfiture with both that almost resulted in significant damage in this situation.

- Resisting the urge to secure lines on the boat before they are correctly fastened on the shore side. This won't be easy for us. I understand the logic, but I also suffer from a phobia of ropes in the water, and the thought of dumping a rope that someone on shore has tied incorrectly fills me with dread.

- Practice more bow-into-the-wind docking. Our boat does not like that. The bow is relatively large and light, and it wants to blow off downwind. Usually I can reverse into the wind with much more control, but I recognise that there will be times when it's necessary to go in bow-first.

- Try not to stew over it afterwards. This too I find difficult. The boat is our home, and our way of life, and I intensely dislike creating risks by messing up a docking attempt.


One more thing, I would LOVE it if my wife was willing to take the wheel during docking, and I speak to her about it often, but she is nervous and she does not want to do it. We are both in our mid-40s and reasonably fit, and since I can exert more physical force than her it would make sense for me to do the grunt work of running around pulling ropes while she handles the finesse and subtlety of steering and throttle.

It did not work out that way, unfortunately. Almost right off the bat we somehow defaulted to me doing all the steering when approaching a dock, and with me now literally having a hundred times more steering/docking experience than her, I cannot talk her into it at all.

My advice to couples in a similar situation, where both of you are equally clueless when you start, is to have the physically weaker person at the wheel when docking. It is a cerebral activity.

Thanks again for all the invaluable input!

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

None of it is particularly difficult. For your delectation here is a clip of a boat whose skipper OBVIOUSLY had never done what I've counselled above :-)

TrentePieds

You could have picked a better clip for your sermon than an obviously disabled fishing trawler, they quite clearly had no astern propulsion, nobody to blame but the deckhand needs a bit of training....

[MV Wanderlust]

LR,

You had a good plan and you communicated it ahead of time.. The random element of the dock hand having a different idea was thrown into the mix and complicated things. This has happened to pretty much all of us at some point. It takes a strong or stern crew to say, "No. Tie this line there, please."

What you did right:
1. You had a plan (amazing how many people pull into dock and don't.)
2. You communicated it.
3. When things started going sideways (in this care, literally), you had the bowline untied and you pulled out to start over. Good for you.

What you could have done differently:
1. With your bow secured to starboard and the stern kicking out to port, you could have turned your wheel hard to port and applied forward thrust. The boat would have tried to spin to port but the bow would not be able to move so the end effect would have been to pull against the bowline and bring the stern back to the concrete wall.

It's easy to sit back and armchair quarterback this after the fact. The bottom line is docking sometimes doesn't go as planned. You aborted and pulled out to try your plan again and make it work. Kudos to you, LR. You did exactly the right thing.

John

[Juho]

I think your actions were perfect, except that maybe you should have been one step more bossy towards the man that wanted to help you (or politely give him some guidance).

I offer quite often some help to arriving boats. My method is pretty much to just stand there and be ready for possible requests. I think we should give up our tendency to give advice or recommendations, and our eagerness to actively "help" as much and as early as possible. We should just follow the orders of that captain and crew of the boat.

[Montanan]

Lots of good advice in the previous reply posts as to handling docking procedures.

And if things didn't go smoothly and / or as planned, and if "orders" instead of instructions & requests, or commanding/demanding attitudes were exchanged, I'll add my best guidance for post docking protocol and the appropriate change of attitudes and attire, by reference to the images below.

That is if you wish to remain and to have the voyage recalled as a Bon Voyage.

And I'll contribute remarks directed to the all too often dismal displays of male chauvinism and seaMANism, I will reiterate my prior post recommendation that particularly if you guys are more agile and stronger than your wife that you guys tend to the dock lineage tasks and have your wife / lady fellow crew handle the helm, throttle, bow thruster and have her request the sequencing of your lineMANship tasks. All too often I see total failure of proper MENtoring when I see husband and wife crews such that the lady or ladies are not given the ability to become as proficient or preferably to become even more proficient than the male spouse in all aspects of seaPERSONship skills and duties and responsibilities. I hear men call their wives, The Admiral, in an honorific only manner; well guess what in the real world, Admirals are Captains first and then become promoted to Admiral because the Admirals have proven greater proficiency and decision making and leadership capabilities than the Captains. If the lady aboard a ship remains not as proficient as her male counterpart(s), it is due to her male counterpart(s) failing in the MENtoring. If you can't train your fellow crew to be as skilled and knowledgeable as you are then you don't deserve to be of Captain status and certainly not be raised to be the Admiralty status. Well at least that is this male Montañan's humble opinion.

As to the images below: There should never be the second "I" in the sincere apology. It should read: "I'm sorry for what I said when WE were trying to dock the boat." There is no I in the term crew.