John Mendez here again, we're doing one of our How Tos. This
time it's berthing, I happen to be on my own we've got quite a breezy day and we're
looking at how do we think about that and how do we berth
with quite a bit of breeze to think about. Today we've got the breeze going
the way we're going, down the aisle, so we've got to be really careful about a
couple of bits, when we turn into the aisle we've got to control the bow, make
sure that we're not getting pushed down onto the other
boats, and when we actually go to reverse into our berth
thinking about where do we put that bow, how to keep
it under control, so we reverse gently in with a nice bit of
weigh-on to get those lines on. We're going to do
with and without a bow thruster, so we'll show you without a bow thruster first,
because not every boat's got one, and that'll be quite handy, we're on a
single out drive, it's got quite a bit of grunt in and out
of gear, I've already tried to knock the cameraman off his feet,
stern's quite abrupt and so is ahead, so we've just got to be thinking about
using lots of neutral, wheel before gear. So we'll go down, think about the wind,
turn in, reverse up. So key two key bits as we're approaching
where we turn, we want to stop the boat before we turn, and that might sound a
bit counterintuitive, but if i turn with the boat still going
forward I'll slide, and the boat on my starboard side is
actually called Blitz, so we don't really want to hit Blitz
that would not be good! But as I come up towards the space I'm
going to turn, I'm going to stop the boat, then it'll be wheel over, into gear,
control that bow, push the bow around, so it's nicely upwind,
slide along the aisle in a similar fashion
to when we left, and again lots and lots of neutral, we don't want
to be gaining momentum, that just gets us into trouble.
One more little click, just want to get there,
and you can see out the window we're not slowing down, that wind is pushing us
down the aisle, doesn't look it but it's actually quite
a stiff breeze today. So we're nearly at the hole and I'm just
going to have helm straight, little click of astern,
and that's started to slow me, now i'm going to put the wheel
to starboard first and have a little click of astern, and that's slowing me
and starting to turn my bow, wheel all the way over to port,
that little click is just enough so that I'm getting
a turning movement, but not much ahead, and as we turn you can see the wind on
the water, nice little gasp, all this side is quite
dangerous, just keeping that bow nicely up, and again 90 percent of the
time I'm in neutral, so we're just going to
slide along here, again we're using the angle of the boat to compensate for the
amount of wind, the more wind the steeper the angle,
but when we get to our berth we're going to use this wind as our friend, because
we need our bow well over to starboard to reverse in.
I'm just straightening up a wee bit, we're going to put
our bow over towards the rather nice shiny sharp anchor on the boat, that's
more or less opposite where we are, and that will just allow us
to then reverse up towards the wind, it'll click that way first, now I'm going
to deliberately put a little bit of wheel to starboard and a click ahead
to make my boat go downwind, so boat's going nicely
downwind and we can see the anchor coming into
view now, we better stop before we get there, so we're going to put the wheel
over to port, little click astern, and that will slow
me down and pivot me. I'm gonna straighten the
wheel for a second and have just a another one of astern, that stops my
forward momentum, boat's still turning from the spin I
gave, another little click now, now we're
actually very gently, moving astern,
and now I've got all the time in the world, the wind is actually taking me off
the berth, which is fine, all right you're going to
have a wheel to starboard and a click ahead, that just allows me to line up,
now I can wheel over, let's bring that stern in,
and now I've got to be very careful because the bow
is going to starboard at the moment, so I put the wheel over to starboard and a little
click astern, just allows me to bring the bow back to
where I want, straighten up the wheel a bit,
keep going back, it's a bit of a funny-shaped pontoon,
it's got a cut-out at the end, so we have to be careful,
and then just as I get here, little click ahead,
wheel hard over and one little click, and that just pushes my stern in,
leave the helm,
walk down, there's my cleat nicely round, make it off on my boat,
and you can see that tension on the line's just started to bring the bow in,
so I can step ashore now, walk gently down, hand on the boat,
line up,
and as that wind increases again it's just going to continue berthing the boat,
and then I can put the rest of the lines on.
So we're just doing the berthing exercise with the wind
blowing us off our berth, me on my own a second time, and this time I've got the
added bonus of a bow thruster, so key thing is: make sure it's on
and don't turn it on too early, because they all timeout and it'll be a bit of
a disaster if it timed out just at the moment you actually needed
it, so make sure the bowthruster is on, if you end up having to go in and out a
couple of times because you can't get it right,
turn it off when you're in a safe spot and then turn it back on, because
otherwise it will at the crucial moment that you need it
turn itself off, been there. Okay, so we'll go down the aisle, get
ourselves nice and stopped, turn in, control that bow, little a bit of
thruster to make it easier, and onto the berth. Okay, so just approaching
our turn point, good practices again, bring the boat
almost to a halt, and that's looking good, and now I can
obviously use the wheel to bring the bow around, and if I'm not
happy and I don't want to gain too much forward momentum,
I can have a little bow thrust as well, and that really helps the boat spin,
and when you're on 31 foot of single engine
if the wind gets the bow, having a bowthruster is a really nice position to be
in, nice little cross breeze, I think the
wind's picked up a little bit, always the way when you go to moor,
and again we're just going to keep that bow
nicely up using the engine, the engine's far more powerful than the bowthruster,
but we've got it if we need it, so as we get all the way down
again we're going to use the same technique, but rather than have to
deliberately force the boat downwind to bring it back
up, we can use this little cheat stick to
make life just that little bit easier. So I'm just going to bring her to a halt
and then same, just a little push of the bow downwind, but now
that little click of bowthruster just makes that easier because I'm not having
to add momentum. Ready with my stern
one more just to take me around, where the bow thruster is fab is if I haven't
got that all spot on and I'm not quite in
the right spot for the hole, and I'm not, I'm a bit far over,
as I come astern the problem with just using the engine is it makes the bow
swing quite dramatically, but this time I've
got the added advantage that I can just stop the valve
wherever I wish, click of astern,
straighten the boat up,
and again remember the bowthruster makes both ends of the boat work,
so my bowthrust across brings the stern out,
a little bit too much that time, just a touch to slow the
bow down there, another little click of astern,
bring that stern in, and this is where, if you haven't got a thruster, it's a
bit of a pain, because as you bring the stern in the bow goes out, so
now, with a bit of luck,
missed that, a little click now just to straighten me up,
and stop the boat, but where it's nice now,
bow's moving away, I can just stop it with that thruster
and then step off as before.
Line on, now if i'm not comfy with where the boat is in the berth, it's all
twisted, I can walk back to the helm and bring the bow
back on. Luckily for me the wind's just kind of
pushed me around a little bit and the bow's quite close.