Advice please

cagey

cagey

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Offered a weeks course on 36ft motor cruiser for rya qually.
Grabbed it as I had always wanted to try MB's.
The RYA cert I try for will be decided on 4th day
Me 30 years sailing exp with Yachtmaster Practical and Comm Endorsment.
The basics and Nav is not a prob, although I think the speed of things evolving will be a challenge, what I am asking is can anyone give me basic handling tips.
Thanks
Keith
PS Course starts this Monday Forecast Heavy rain 30 + knot winds
 
Hmm! Might be a bit of a CRASH course. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

If it's on twin shafts, forget the wheel till out of the marina.

You need to flight plan, you cant navigate at 30 knots. Well not without a chart plotter anyway.
 
On a planing mobo, your passage planning strategy with respect to tides may be quite different to a sail yacht. A 1-2kt tidal streams effect on SOG when cruising at 15-25kt is irrelevant, and the COG effect also minimal, so CTS can easily be done by DR. You tend to plan passages more around sea state comfort rather than SOG availability (ie minimise wind against tide head sea in a blow).

As to handling as hlb says centre the rudders but steer only using throttles at tick over speeds and for mooring maneouvers. Use only short clicks of tick over power and neutral. Asymmetric tick over thrust very useful for spinning boat or to push stern sideways. Planing mobo rudders are tiny and very ineffective at low speed. In a lumpy head sea find the comfortable speed that works with the wave length to minimise slamming. On passage if fitted with auto pilot (vital imho), use it to free hands for gps plotter, backup paper chart work, using HBC for bearings, etc. Autohelm also vital imho to reduce helm fatigue on longer passages.

Best advice when mooring is do everything slowly and use minimal power (ie just neutral and tick over). Planning mobos have enough grount to get you into trouble if you get trigger happy with too much throttle. Short clicks backwards and forwards independantly on throttle levers give you immense control when mooring. If you also have a bowthruster you can make the boat move sideways in or out of a berth when combined with assymetric thrust.

Other than that nav is much the same if not easier because of straight lines rather than tacking and the windows of opportunity offered by cruising speed. Fenders work the same, so does the gas cooker and heads /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif You may find it strange without all the rope thingies and no washing on the line flapping about /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Main difference between power boats and sail boats is that power boats will slide sideways, swing out more, on a turn. You will need time just to play with the boat, if you can find a couple of buoys in open water and do a figure of 8 back wards and forward around them , this will give you a chance to see the difference. you will be effected by tide, as a sail boat going slow but more so by wind, learn to use these as a help and you will have cracked it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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look forward to a full report on how you found it, as stated a world of differance than when sailing. who knows, may turn you to the dark side.

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he's already on the dark side, and now coming over to see the light /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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The RYA cert I try for will be decided on 4th day

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Check this one out. Based on your post I'm assuming that you are going for an exam on the 5th day. Do you have the required mileage under power? As a Yachtmaster sail you are entitled to do a conversion to power which invloves a shorter exam but you will need at least 1250 power miles to qualify of which 50% must be tidal. Like wise Coastal skipper exam will require you to have qualifying miles under power. If you don't have the qualifying miles then you can't do the exam.

The Day Skipper course is an ongoing assesment with no exam and no power mileage requirements. Based on the questions you have asked this is the most likely result.


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can anyone give me basic handling tips.


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Yes, leave it to your instructor! That what he is there to do - teach you the correct way!
 
Think Cagey was asking for tips before meeting trainer. Just to get a basic idea.

Also think most folk here could be trainers, just to busy doing something far more rewarding. Kwackers accepted. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
The best tip I have been given for manouvering a mobo with twin throttles is to look at the shape of them to help you quickly understand what way the boat will turn. The throttles curve in towards themselves. Push the left throttle forward only and the boat goes to starboard and vice versa with the right. That bit is straightforward, but it helped me no end going astern. Pull back on the left throttle only and the stern will go to starboard and the bow to port. The same visual support will help to understand what happens when you go forward with one throttle and astern with the other.

Apologies if this is too basic, but as a very visual learner, it helped me greatly the first time I took the helm of a twin throttled boat rather than the single throttle I was used to.
 
1) I was taught to think of the throttles as if they were your shoulders. Port (left shoulder) forward and starboard (right shoulder) back means the boat will turn to starboard (right).

2) If stern drives remember Wheel before Throttles!

3) Use very short throttle movements in close quarters.

4) Deploy fenders!

5) Always be prepared to stop, think and start again if in doubt.

5) And finally, when it all goes wrong, blame the wind first, then the tide, then an object that was flloating in the marina that you had to avoid.
 
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