I had a somewhat similar experience to OP: I chartered a
boat in
Greece without having any
med style
mooring experience, and with inexperienced crew. I went out with an instructor ahead of the
charter and we practiced
med mooring at a local park's day-dock that nobody was using. As another poster mentioned, you can practice at any
dock as long as it's open for the time you want to spend.
For the drills, we started easy by going to an empty t-head
dock with no
current. We practiced dropping the
anchor a few
boat lengths out, backing up to within about 6 feet of the T-head dock, then driving forward and recovering the
anchor. After a few rounds of that, we started actually tying up to the t-head. Then we placed markers on the dock to signify where other
boats were, and practiced getting precise with the landing spot. Then we went and did it all again in a somewhat more exposed spot with a light
current.
It would have been nice to do more of those kinds of drills, but we ran out of time. There were also 2 big issues we failed to prepare for. The first was that the boat I chartered in
Greece turned out to be an absolute pig in reverse, and I never was able to achieve the same precision I had on the practice boat. I would recommend specifically finding a boat to practice with that is worse at backing than your
charter boat. That may not be as big an issue with catamarans, but it was frustrating not to be able to back as confidently in our charter boat.
The second issue was that we had no way to practice with lazy lines, so I wasn't very well prepared for them when I got to Greece. All of the dock hands, helpful neighbors, and spectators that cheered us on when we got there made a big deal of the risk of catching a lazy line in your prop during the approach. They all wanted me to have the boat in neutral for the final boatlength or so of the approach. I had not practiced that way, so it was quite stressful to make that change under pressure. This problem may actually be worse in a
catamaran, since you have 2 props in the
water, and the
advice is to use only the props and not the rudders when backing. I imagine that means you'll be spinning at least one prop through most/all of the approach. Just something to keep in mind if you do find yourself in a marina with lazy lines. I'll also mention that when I researched our intended
ports, I was under the impression they would not have lazy lines, but every one of them actually did. This was a charter out of Athens, so your mileage may vary.