I’ve sailed my boat into the dock more times than many people have had hot dinners. And I do it for a several reasons: (1) I love doing it (2) It’s a good skill to have for WHEN (not if) the engine won’t start (3) There is peacefulness about ending a sailing trip in this manner and (4) it always impresses a landlubber.
It’s probably not something that you should do if you’re just learning to sail but as you grow your sailing skills it’s something that you should certainly adopt.
You can start out to learn how to sail with this this docking skill by using a mooring buoy, channel marker, or race marker and setting up a pretend scenario about how your fictitious dock might align next to the floating object with various wind directions.
The biggest trick is understanding your boat’s momentum. And if you don’t understand it then you’re about to do damage. This is why I advise learning where you can’t hit anything except pretend docks.
Once you’ve dowsed your sails and the wind is acting solely on your boat hull, you’ve also got to understand how your boat slows with the wind speed and direction. I.E. Going down wind, your boat will take a long time to slow down. Going upwind, your boat slows comparatively faster. Also remember that force is proportional to the square of the velocity. So in fact, going downwind, your boat might not slow down at all. In this case you’ll have to bleed off speed by turning the boat side to side.
The set up:
As you approach your marina, you need to make your plan.
Factors to consider are:
• Wind speed and direction: How will the wind direction affect your approach will it speed up your boat or slow it down and by how much?
• Other boats: Is there other moving traffic in the marina?
• Obstacles: Is there anything in front of you when you come to your final resting position and how expensive is it?
• Your crew: How experienced are they, can they get the sails down when you tell them to, tack the boat with out your instruction, anticipate the situation, get dock lines tied to the dock and boat to stop forward motion.
• Which sail will you use?
• You final approach: Will you make a turn onto final? What wind direction will that be?
Certainly if any of these are out of alignment of you be able to execute the docking maneuver perfectly then you should abort the attempt and do it another day.
Sailing with the headsail only is quite advantageous when docking under sail. You can make easy adjustments and let it flap if you want to reduce speed. The disadvantage is that you may have to gybe or tack at the last minute, which creates a bit of extra stuff going on in the cockpit when you might not need the distraction. Take this into account when making your plan.
A roller furling headsail is pretty cool because you can adjust the driving force until the last minute.
Even at a close reach it’s hard to remove the power out of the mainsail when you let it out all the way. So if you’re going to be docking downwind or anywhere downwind of a close reach, you have to assume that you might not reliably get down your mainsail at the last minute. Therefore, get your mainsail down way in advance and just use your headsail.
When docking upwind, perhaps your mainsail is the best choice because it doesn’t necessarily need to be lowered. The boom can be let out to allow the sail to flap. It’s best to come in under one sail so if you’re going to use the mainsail – get the head sail down and out of the way.
If you need to make a turn at the last minute to align with the dock then consider the wind direction and wind speed prior to the turn versus the momentum of your boat.
How is the wind direction considering your final landing position? If it’s going to be blowing you off the dock then it’s a good idea to approach at an angle so that you control your position to the dock at the very last minute rather than allowing the wind to blow you away from the dock.
If the wind direction will blow you onto the dock then a flatter approach will mean you’ll pick up less speed from down wind approach.
Have your crew positioned and fully understanding what they must do. Often the most important job is to get the back of the boat cleated to the dock fast to prevent the boat hitting anything in front. Assign your best crew member to this function. Ensure that they know how to tie a cleat hitch and that they are not going to just step off and try to stop the boat by pulling on the dock line in their hand.
Ensure every one knows to keep limbs clear of the boat. Assign crew with roving fenders. Unclip line lines so that crew can step onto the dock easily with out lifting feet over the lifelines at the last minute. Ensure that everyone knows not to jump off the boat to the dock – which they only move when they can step off. All of this is why you must start the plan out of the marina so that you have plenty of time. One thing is for sure, in the last few seconds, you have no time.
Finally, most of the time, I’m practicing the sailing into the dock maneuver with the engine on. Thus if anything goes wrong in those last few seconds I have the back up of the engine to take over.
Docking a sailboat under sail when you really don’t have an engine.
The key here is to dock your boat with out damage. So prudence is vital. You might consider parking it at the tee head of the dock rather than in your slip. Or you might consider facing it a different direction than you normally do just because of the wind direction. The goal is to get the boat tied up in a manner you’re most comfortable with and deal with moving the boat afterwards.
Learning how to dock with NauticEd on the water, not by reading about it here. If you remember these simple tips, and remember this procedure you will never have trouble docking your boat! Good luck and safe boating!
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