Departure
The Yacht Rigger had completed the work on Utopia, so she was ready to move back to her slip over at the Harborage. We planned to leave the slip first this morning while we were feeling fresh and before the afternoon rains arrived.
Utopia was sitting in a slip without any finger piers. To get onto her we had to cross over another boat and step onto Utopia’s starboard side, amidships. At least our side gates lined up well.
There were only two piles in our slip. These were located on Utopia’s port side, one ahead of the bow at the seawall, and one at the stern, with no piles between us and the adjacent boat.
Utopia was secured in her slip with two bowlines, (one tied to port pile, and one tied to the deck above the seawall), two stern lines (one attached to the pile to port, and the other was tied from our starboard cleat to a cleat of the adjacent boat), and one spring line from the stern pile to our midship cleat.
We spent some time discussing how to exit the slip, trying to decide whether or not to push her out using the adjacent boat’s toe rail, or to use the engine to reverse out. Since the wind was coming across our port side, we were concerned about our bow clearing the stern of that adjacent boat if the wind caught the bow. In the end we decided to use the motor to reverse out of the slip, hoping the current would help counteract the prop walk some.
After spending what appeared to be a large amount of time re-positioning the lines attached to the stern pile, the adjacent boat, and the seawall so that they would all (but one) double back to the boat, we were finally ready to begin our departure. The starboard side lines were removed first since the breeze was coming from the portside, then the spring line was released. As Jimmy held the portside bow line in place, I slipped the port stern line from the pile and very slowly reversed the boat into the creek. Jimmy used the long bow line to keep us centered in our slip. This worked well.
Eventually he tossed the line towards the seawall since it was paid out. Then things got very interesting. The difficulty came as our bow exited the slip and the wind turned us up the creek when we needed to go down the creek. Of course, there was another boat approaching as this was happening. If all went well, we would have simply completed our turn and passed him as we headed out of the creek.
With the wind catching the bow and pointing us in the wrong direction, I made a quick decision to immediately attempt to do a 270-degree turn by doing a back and fill in Salt Creek. With hindsight, I realized that I should’ve moved forward, up the creek to a wider area and began my back and fill as we approached the wide area. But I was concerned about the waiting boat and began the maneuver right there.
It all started out okay in this tight spot, but a couple of things made it way more difficult than it should have been: Wind & communication.
The wind from the west made it difficult to complete the nearly 270-degree turn. Once the boat was crosswise across the creek, the wind just pushed us up the creek. As I started to make the last turn, the wind really deterred my being able to get the bow turned into the wind, our final desired direction.
This also introduced a lesson learned (or one that we had to re-learn): the person at the helm is ultimately in charge. It is hard to explain how this works here, but when you are at the helm and things go awry, you are constantly creating a new plan that the deckhand is not aware of. Instead of providing me with information about the conditions around the boat, Jimmy started to make commands, which I started to blindly follow, only to realize, that the latest plan forming in my head was no longer valid. Eventually I got thoughts back under control and followed what I thought was best using what information he was providing, while considering his commands before simply executing them without thought. It turns out we have a difference in opinion of how the back and fill is performed, so we both plan to re-study this maneuver and come to an agreement on how to pull it off in the future.
We eventually were able to turn around to point in the correct direction without hitting anything, but it sure was close. The other boat kindly was waiting for us (and probably entertained). We both gave him a hearty, thank you as we passed him.
Arrival
Needing a moment to calm down and let my adrenaline ebb, motored around a bit while we prepared our dock lines. Once ready, we turned around to head to dock at the Harborage with better communication between us.
I knew that I needed to turn early into our slip because of the wind out of the east. However, my turn was too late, and I was unable to get into the slip, once again finding myself being pushed downwind, sideways across the fairway. Using reverse and prop walk, I was able to back us into the fairway, now on the other side of our slip for an attempt to come in from that direction.
When I was unsure of clearing the neighboring boat due to my location in the fairway, Jimmy said that that there is no shame in heading back out to the main fairway to turn the boat around for another attempt (he called it “doing a Captain Boomies”). I had decided that might be the best course of action and placed her in forward and gave a good throttle. About a split second later I felt better about swinging into our slip and went for it.
It turned out that my angle was fine enough to avoid the anchor on the adjacent boat, but there was some wind pushing us away from our dock. Somehow or another, I was able to get to the boat about 12 inches away from the dock, and Jimmy was able to calmly step off and wrap the stopping line around the cleat. I put the boat into forward idle and was to turn the wheel all the way to port, away from the dock so that the stern would snug up against the dock, and the stopping line would keep the bow under control.
Unfortunately, I did not have the wheel turned all the way (I had thought it was), and I had to fend us off the adjacent boat from the cockpit. I then finished turning the wheel all the way over as it should have been, which made the rest of the docking a breeze. I was now able to walk forward to the bow and toss that line to Jimmy and then come back to hand him the stern line.
So, both leaving The Yacht Rigger and approaching the Harborage slip both were very stressful docking maneuvers. However, I consider them a success since we did not hit anything.
Car Retrieval
The same cannot be said for the run we took back to The Yacht Rigger to collect our car. Unfortunately, during the run, my foot found a large rectangular cut in the asphalt, in the middle of the road, in the shade of a large oak tree. My left ankle rolled into the hole and down I went with my skin making contact with the asphalt. I lay in shock in the middle of the road, looking up at the sky. Then as a wave of embarrassment came across me, I asked Jimmy to help me up, regardless of the pain I was in. I looked everything over felt that it was just a bad sprain with nothing broken and decided to hobble back to the Harborage while Jimmy continued on his run to pick up the car.
Oh well. At least the boat is intact. Tomorrow we will do a systems walkthrough with The Yacht Rigger over at our boat at the Harborage. Maybe we will get a chance to do a shakedown out in Tampa Bay later this month.
23-22
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