Tip of the Month
July, 2009 - Put Some Spring Into Your Summer Boating
Occasionally, we all find ourselves in a less than ideal mooring situation. It might have been easy on the way in - wind blowing you onto the pontoon, no tide to contend with, other moored boats miles away… but you come to leave and it’s all changed. The tide is ‘hoofing’ through and the wind that blew you gracefully alongside the pontoon is now a hurricane - you have inches to spare at either end of your suddenly massive boat.
So what are our options? You could go back into the pub until the wind has died and the tide has stopped running. This isn’t as daft as it seems; if you’re not in a hurry and the wind is due to ease, then why make life difficult for yourself – just remember to stay on the soft stuff, drinking
and skippering don’t mix.
Option two is to utilise the bow thruster and hope there’s enough power to pull the bow across the tide and then make a dash for it, before you get swept onto the boat behind you. This isn’t a good plan, because it relies heavily on perfect timing and there is too great a chance of it all going badly wrong; you would be trying to organise the releasing of lines the bow thruster and the engines all at the same time – add huge amounts of tide and wind and you have a recipe for disaster.
The best option is one where you have control of the boat the whole time - I suggest using a spring. Assuming your boat is facing into the tide, you will need to set the forward and stern lines as slips, making sure that the stern line is kept as short as possible. Have a roving fender at the stern to protect the bathing platform.
Ideally, if you have enough crew, you should have a separate person for letting go of the stern line.
Once everyone is correctly briefed, slip the bow line. The tide will drift you gently backwards, as the stern line tightens up the stern will turn into the pontoon - the bow will swing out into the tide. When the bow is pointing out far enough to clear the boat in front, slip the stern line and motor away from the berth. If the wind is really strong, you may need to come astern on the outside (opposite side
to pontoon) engine to ease the bow out against the wind.
Beware though. If the tide is particularly strong, the moment your bow comes across the tide it will exert increasingly stronger sideways pressure on your boat, sweeping you side onto the channel and drift you down the channel sideways. The answer is to keep your bow pointing almost directly into the tide flow and continually adjust the ferry-glide as you make your way away from the pontoon.
richard.corbett@sealine.com
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