Things You Need to Know When Docking a Boat
About the Book. . .
Learning how to dock a boat is the single most crucial part of boating, as well as the most terrifying for most people. It is so much so, that most women will never even attempt to try. Consequently the men are almost always at the helm and women the crew.
The reality is, short-handed sailing makes docking more challenging, and it is what couples do every day. Docking is easy if you have plenty of crew, but when you have only one helmsman and one crew it’s more difficult.
When you combine the fear issues with the fact that most people only retain three things in their short-term memory (as you are learning especially), you have a cocktail for disasters. Consequently it is also a blueprint for lots of yelling.
There are a myriad of factors to consider when maneuvering a large object in a fluid environment. Forget one thing and suddenly it all becomes chaos, and you become the entertainment for the rest of the marina.
There is a systematic approach to learning those elements. However, you must first know all the various components that you must consider including the boats inherent tendencies, wind and current, docks, dock line configurations, line handling, necessary knots for the job and communication between helmsman and crew.
There are at least 49 Things You Need to Know is a collection of all the tidbits I have shared with students in my classes over the years, but now in an organized and complete fashion for both helmsman and crew.