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I have a bow thruster story.

A 20 some foot Bayliner with a lot of tophamper came into Fernandina Harbor 
Marina a couple of years ago.  The current was near max ebb (2kts) and the 
wind was from the west 15-18.  The entrance to the marina is at the south end 
of the face dock.  The north end is boxed in by the dockhouse.  The wind was 
blowing straight across the fairway between the face dock and inside docks.

The skipper of the Bayliner was sure of himself.  He came in hot.  His plan 
was to stop short of the dockhouse and use his bow thruster to spin the boat 
in place, so that he could tie up on the inside of the face dock bow out.

He got stopped before reaching the dockhouse and that was the last thing that 
went right for him.  The bow thruster was not strong enough to swing the bow 
through the wind.  His topsides probably had as much area exposed to the 
cross wind as I carry sail.

Before it was over, he had managed to bounce off 6 boats and two different 
docks and only made it around by the help of every able bodied person at the 
marina fending him off and hauling him around by hand.

In the end, no damage was done, except to the expression on the fellow's face 
when he finally got tied up.  However, this was well compensated for by the 
expressions of all the rest of our faces while it was going on.

Because of this one incident, I have never again coveted bow thrusters.

-------Original Message-------
From: Dan Allen 
Sent: 04/17/03 03:37 PM
To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM
Subject: Re: Wind & Current Navigation

>
> On Thursday, April 17, 2003, at 12:29 PM, kliment wrote:

> As an ASA instructor I teach the "standing turn" method of maneuvering
> a boat and also teach students to back into a slip.

I have done standing turns in the past with good luck.  Yesterday was
the first time I attempted something different, with not so good of an
outcome.  I think for the short term I will go back to doing the
standing turns.  For me this means doing a 270 clockwise turn rather
than a 90 degree counter-clockwise turn, but so be it.

Thanks,

Dan
>

Dave Weilacher
.US Coast Guard licensed captain
.    #889968
.ASA instructor evaluator and celestial
.    navigation instructor #990800
.IBM AS400 RPG contract programmer

   

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