Entering or Leaving Slip . . . Most Embarrassing Moment

[otherthan]

Everybody has one!!

[hummingway]

Oh yeah. It was blowing about 25 knots out in the channel but quieted down in the bay so I figured I'd back into the slip. Honeysuckle doesn't have a bow thruster and has a significant prop walk. Anyway as I started to back in the wind came up and blew my bow around leaving me no choice but to move down the dock to turn around and take another shot at it. Did I mention it was Sunday and there were a lot of people around watching? It gets real tight down at the end of that particular dock. I got turned around and facing forward but my port side sidled up against the reciprocal dock to do it. Sure enough a helpful visitor grabbed my bow line and began tying it off. I was solo so had to yell from the cockpit thanks but this isn't actually where I'm going. I managed to put her in my slip the next pass.

[Weyalan]

Our boat came with an extremely old, extremely worn 2-blade feathering prop. It worked ok, but just occasionally, when you put it into reverse, it wouldn't feather properly and instead of slowing the boat down,would accelerate you instead... it happened one time coming into a marina berth with a stiff following breeze... lets just say that we now have a brand new pulpit and a new prop!

[JiffyLube]

Once we broke the transmisson cable after getting out of our slip (unbenounced to us), and coming back into the slip reverse did not work...talk about a shock when we hit the dock at 3 knots.

[hummingway]

Apropos to JiffyLube's tale:

I was out of the first time in my new boat and learning to control her. I had gone done a finger where several large yachts were tied up, including Ellen Degeneres' yacht "Strange Fruit". I was practising turning around when the shifter for the transmission came off in my hand. Fortunately the fellow with me was able to hold it in place while I got in gear and going in a direction other then a collision course with Ms. Degeneres' stern. I could picture the headlines, "Strange Fruit takes it in the rear".

(true story).

[Capt Phil]

Coming into the dock at Angel Island, San Francisco Bay to tie up on a sunny saturday with a couple of thousand onlookers, my ex on the wheel, I grabbed the bitter end of the bow line in one hand and jumped for the dock. Unfortunately the dock was about 1 foot further away than the slack in the bow line and I went down like a stone to the applause of many ashore. Just another of life's little embarrassing moments aboard... Capt Phil

[Bash]

I used to have a slip straight across from a restaurant's outdoor dining patio. One day I pulled out with the water hose clipped to the bow pulpit. No sooner did I get the boat out of the slip, it stopped cold. Some of the restaurant's customers started to scream something about, "You're stretching your...." Just at that moment, the nozzle popped off the end of the hose, it shot back like a 50-foot-long bungee, cleared both the dock and the fence, and then started to drench everyone in the restaurant.

I guess I'd forgotten to turn the water off as well.

[Pblais]

I've done the transmission cable thing going into the slip with a big crosswind. We were at our home dock and 20% into the slip and we were able to yell for someone to grab a line. I had already slowed down too. Takes a while to realize what happened and that will dirty your shorts.

I've also got into a slip in a strange to me marina where the aisle was not as wide as the boat. With no cross wind it was hard (davits and bowsprit). I've gone down a dead end aisle and missed the slip with a tail wind only to be going broadside into a bulkhead and have to spin back. None of those made damages.

Bottom line - being lucky still counts!

The one that did me was being pinned on a bulkhead with a 20 gusting to 25 knot wind a beam. With a 6 ft bowsprit and 5 foot davits we don't just spin off anything even in 10 knots. We took all the damage and inflicted none on anyone else (makes for a clean getaway). I was wrapped up in pylons on both sides of the wide aisle. My barn door rudder won't steer in reverse without 2.5 knots of steerage. I still feel being pinned against a bulkhead is the hardest thing going and gives me cause anytime I go some place strange to me. It's the time you really hate davits.

Bash - having an audience is always the worst even if it ends up costing not very much. I would love to (successfully) do a Capt. Ron on a bulkhead.

[Zednotzee]

Probably the worst I've done was when I came in with the wind directly astern. Also, I can't really use reverse since I have a lot of prop walk, & it would kick the stern away from my slip, so I use a measured line for the final stop. I didn't do any damage, but I made maximum use of my fenders!

[John A]

As I approched my single-finger slip with crew aboard and normal cross wind/current, I had instructed one of the crew to stand on the foredeck and when I had stopped the boat next to the side of the slip, he was to step ashore and secure the dockline to the cleat, a second crew member was to do the same for the stearn.

Unbeknowst to me my neighbor had sprained his ankle that day and was at the end of our shared walkway, leaning on crutches.

Just as I entered the slip he turned around and my crew tossed him the dockline, and when he tried to catch the line both crutches fell into the water, and he didn't catch the dockline because he was grabbing and missing the crutches, which fell into the water anyway.

I backed out of the slip into the fairway, retrieved the crutches, did a 270* propwalk and left the marina to re-rig the docklines for my normal singlehandle singlefinger docking.

[capn_billl]

iI usually use only a single set of spring lines. One time there was a big storm coming and I added a third to the starboard stern, (floating dock). A few months later I removed the bow and stern lines and the two spring lines, put er in gear and motored out,... about... 10ft, and came to an abrupt stop. Remembered the third spring line, ... backed back in , only to be reminded by a growing crowd of unlookers that I had forgotten a line. Of course they waited until the boat jarred to a stop before mentioning anything.

[Johnathon123]

I had spent nearly every night for a year with my father putting together a brand new boat including the throttle. I maintain to this day he assembled the cables, He thinks it was me.

Launch day came, champagne on the bow ceremoniously dumped in the water and towed around to our pen (slip). This was in the day before floating slips.

That afternoon at high tide the family and friends assembled for a quick motor before taking it around to get the rig dropped in.

Now my old boat required full throttle to reverse out of the pen so this boat copped a full throttle reverse out of habit. Well the old man had connected the throttle cables backwards the boat took off forwards, being high tide rode over the concrete and steel wharf ripped open its belly slid back into the water and sank!

All 50 metres from the yacht club bar.

Still talked about 20 years later like a fond memory. Owned the boat for less than 12 hours but no one was hurt.

[otherthan]

Last spring we had a few stormy nights in montreal...The following day id go to my boat to empty from 12-18in of water accumulation in the cabine...iv remouved the hatches and some rutten deck wood...every time id take a bucket and throw the water out the companion way into the cockpit and then finish off with a sponge...it was alot more work then id expected...the fifth time as I was bailing out water the owner of the boat came by to see how my work was comming along...looked at me all sweaty and said you know thers a bilge pump right?
oh sure (I said) but the batterie is unpluged...he opens the cockpit hatch and gave a few pumps and says its manual

I look at him and arrogantly say as I discard my bucket in the cockpit (this is faster) ...come up here let me show you something...he shows me the Y valve that alows to empty the front part of the bilge with the same pump...wow I didnt know that (this is easy)...now look under the cockpit what do you see....nothing?...look at the cockpit drains...dang thers only one hose?...yap every time you empty a bucket half your water come back to the bilge.

[Capt Phil]

That's a beaut', jobo!

[rhhmadry]

I watched an 84' steel charter boat returning to its berth in Morehead City, NC. The captain would gun her into the slip, throw her into reverse, and manage to bring her to a halt a foot or two from the doc. This time, no reverse gear. Boat slams into the doc, takes a good six foot gouge out of the doc, sending tourists scattering in all directions. Transmission problems are a real bitch, and made a very accomplished captain look not so accomplished.