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!