How to deal with helpful people?

[johnalison]

I too like to offer assistance if it is needed however I always do what I’m told by the crew, even if that seems madness to me.

When we moor, two up, we have stern line ready with loop shoreside end, bitter end around the genoa winch. Bow line with loop boat end. Crew steps off, drops stern line loop over cleat, I can then control stern from the helm via the genoa winch. Crew then takes a turn around a cleat with bow line, works well. However on more than one occasion we have passed the stern line to helpful line taker standing on the pontoon with request to drop it over the cleat, but this blows the helpers mind. Line taker is freaked because they have a loop so start to pull but when they pull they pull it off the genoa winch - chaos ensues. So if offering help I do exactly what I’m told to do, if others did the same I think it would be better all around.

It is very rare for anyone on board to tell me what to do; perhaps I have a forbidding appearance. As a general rule, I will take a line, pass it round a cleat, and then leave it slack until it is evident that the boat has settled or it appears that tension is needed. We don’t have a specific system but tend to modify it according to the situation. Most commonly, we approach with a single line at each corner, with the lazy bow or stern line being taken across if the side is established and a centre spring is needed, but cleat arrangements are so varied that one has to be ready to improvise.

 

[dunedin]

As my preferred mooring system is a rope with a loop (in hosepipe to keep open) to mid cleat and back to the genoa winch, if somebody offers help and I am not certain of being able to loop first time, I hand them th loop and say “please put over that cleat”. A few then try to pull the rope and then it’s “let go the rope please” - as I am about to power onto it!!
Seems to work in most cases - if experienced they often then take the bow rope, but that is fine as once on the mid spring and engine on we are on berth.

 

[Baddox]

If a boat is mooring close to us I usually go to offer help and ask what they want doing.
It's not always the helpers who get things wrong though. Last year a boat came in, crew handed a bow line and skipper asked me to secure it before his boat was even half way into the berth. I obliged, very slowly to give him time he didn’t realise he needed.

 

[Frayed Knot]

We were once approaching a (rare) alongside berth in Sweden with a moderate breeze blowing us off. My wife threw the bow line to a very young woman who had hurried over. Five foot nothing, in a flowery summer frock, slender (and pretty, not that I noticed) and, it turned out, English.
I was genuinely concerned for her safety and asked her just to make the line fast, which she did & we would do the rest.
Purely by chance the line was made off to a perfect length for a spring which I duly motored in to & berthed quite nicely.
We spoke to her later and found out that she was a permanent crew on a 45 foot cruiser and had several trans-Atlantics under her belt plus Greenland, Iceland and the northern coast of Norway.
I still cringe.

 

[PabloPicasso]

When mooring you have to bear in mind that people often do not do what is asked, even when perfectly clear and precise directions are given.

Its just the modern current culture. Most people just do there own thing, but that doesn't work with boats.

 

[DanTribe]

When I do offer to help it's usually to more senior people on large high sides boats that they can't easily jump off.
Then I think the best action to to take a line, pass it round a cleat and throw it back. Then they still have control.
The last thing they want is lots of experts shouting advice at them.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Is it just me? When I am on my own I am only too pleased if someone offers to help. I have fixed dock lines at my home berth, so I can give clear instructions what to do (mainly get the aft spring onto the midships cleat!). At a strange marina, I would usually inform the marina that I am single-handed; having someone on the finger ready to take lines is helpful. I would pass the line and give them instructions as I did so - usually to get a line from a midships cleat to a cleat on the end of the finger.

Where do people find all these idiots who don't know to take a turn when stopping a boat? In my marina, I'd be very surprised if anyone but a fellow boat-owner was available to take a line; the marina discourages non-owners (or their guests) from going on the pontoons, and that has been the rule in every marina I've used. Indeed, I'd be quite surprised if the person at my home marina was someone I didn't at least know by sight!

 

[srm]

Then I think the best action to to take a line, pass it round a cleat and throw it back. Then they still have control.

Normal practice in Scandinavia, hence the loops rather than cleats on marinas that were fabricated over there.

 

[jbweston]

I offer help and don't mind at all if it's refused. When alone or shorthanded I like it when someone offers help.

I think there are two distinct potential problems.

One is that the shoreside volunteer doesn't have the knowledge and skill to help. For example, can't understand a request to put a turn round a cleat, wants to pull the bow line in tight to the pontoon, or drops the line (or him/herself) in the water.

The second, that exists even when the volunteer is skilled and expereinced, is that he/she isn't clear what the skipper wants done. This akin to the typical problem we've all experienced when the skipper fails to brief his deck crew before coming into the berth - resulting in confusion, surprise, crew taking unexpected initiatives, etc. The difference is that with a shoreside volunteer there isn't time for a leisurely briefing, the skipper (or crew on deck if comptetent and fully briefed him/herself) needs to give a concise, intelligible and audible instruction. If the shoresdide volunteer doesn't get that, the danger is exactly the same as for unbriefed crew on deck - the volunteer won't know what's wanted, and so will either do nothing or use initiative in a possibly surprising way.

From the point of view of those on the boat, it's hard to cater for problem one, but on marina pontoons it's not so likely to exist as on a harbour wall where I'm always wary of offers of help from someone who might just turn out to be an arthritic, hard of hearing drunkard who can't speak English. Problem two is nearly always avoidable by the skipper and crew if the skipper is doing the job properly.

 

[xyachtdave]

Today it happened again: A soon to be neighbor wanted to help us during tying up and stepped of his boat to take our dock line...
...which he then used to stop our boat, ruining our approach, resulting in a bump, luckily without damage.

How to deal with these inherently friendly but useless people?
Do you shout "thanks but no thanks" at the top of your lungs, so they will hear it?
Ignore them?

Even when solo I'd rather be without help and go my own way, but this is a concept that half of boaters do not seem to comprehend?

Quite, it's a PITA when helpful people take control doing things their way.

I never get involved in another boats berthing unless it's blowing old boats and assistance might be helpful, the skipper asks for help or they're about to crunch our boat.

The last time I came into a marina berth in 0 knots of wind on my own, the neighbouring boat enjoying a cockpit dinner jumped off their boat and started running about to help which wasn't required.

I think I upset them when I said 'I'm fine, thanks,'