Hugo:
You are certainly getting lots of advice! You may even feel overwhelmed, so let's take it one step at a time right from the very basics :-)
Because every design of
boat is different, the handling of a given design has to be adapted to the characteristics and the foibles of that design both while sailing and while powering, but most particularly while coming alongside and while departing.
Because
Tophat was/is an
ENGLISH design, and because she was designed for OCEAN
racing, her handling was optimized for spending her time
offshore with “handiness” alongside barely visible on John Illingsworth's list of design desiderata.
Why the comment about the design being
English? Because back when Tophat was designed,
England did NOT have “marinas” in the sense we know them. In many, many places, yachts simply came alongside a quay or wharf just like any other
boat, or they were anchored out in England's shallow river estuaries. Thus they did not have to cope with “pens”. In short, you have a boat that is not well adapted to your particular circumstances :-)!
But no worries! There is no boat handling problem that cannot be
solved by means of systematic thinking and constant practice.
Your
engine is the right size for the boat conforming to the modern practice of providing 4HP per ton
displacement, so no worries there. However, to verify that you have the right
propeller for the boat, we need to know what
gearbox is fitted to the
engine. On some gearboxes the rotation of the output shaft is the same as that of the input shaft and on others, the rotations are opposites.
We also need to know the “handedness” of the
propeller, for if the prop is the wrong handedness for the
gearbox, it is possible to make the boat APPEAR to be responding normally to the “ahead/astern” control by reversing the linkage of that control. Doing so will result in reduced performance, in behavioural quirks, and possibly in excessive, costly wear of the box.
In your case, I'm suspicious of this because you say your sternwalk is to STARBOARD. That will be the case if the prop is LEFT-handed. The vast majority of
Yanmar powered
boats have RIGHT-handed props, I believe, and that means that their sternwalk is, like
TrentePieds', to PORT.
So do look at the plate on your
transmission and let us know what tranny it is. When we have that, we'll see what prop you SHOULD have. Then, on your next haul-out, you can check to see what you DO have :-)!
Now, duty calls! I'll write you a screed on boat handling tomorrow morning, so be patient :-)
Best :-)!
TP