Reversing woes.

I had a Jag 23 that had a transom mounted outboard. It made manoeuvring in any direction massively easy as in effect you had a stern thruster. The outboard could turn nearly 180 degrees on its mount. You mentioned earlier in this thread putting an aux outboard on the transom - I reckon thats your best bet.
 
I've been through this thread but and I may have overlooked it but I don't seem to see the vital question asked: which way does prop walk take you when you reverse?
 
laika said:
I've been through this thread but and I may have overlooked it but I don't seem to see the vital question asked: which way does prop walk take you when you reverse?
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being as the only way to steer in reverse is either straight back or stern to port I say it is walking me to port. having said that, I have only tied this at low revs and am beginning to understand I need be less gentle. As soon as we have any side wind all bets are off anyway. :D
I am grateful for all the input. I am one of those guys who normally naturally turns his hand to anything, can fix anything etc, so I am finding not getting this right very frustrating indeed. More practice, less delicate use of the throttle, and even more practice. If you see us arsing about give us a wave.
 
solent clown said:
You jest, but I did consider it for about 30 seconds. :encouragement:
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Dunno, it could really change your life... I was doing a couple of jobs on a tin residential barge. It had a diesel 65hp bow thruster with vectored thrust. I was quite impressed, it could drag itself around without firing up the 2X 120hp main engines. Bit overkill for you, but a bit of scaling down....
 
solent clown said:
being as the only way to steer in reverse is either straight back or stern to port I say it is walking me to port. having said that, I have only tied this at low revs and am beginning to understand I need be less gentle. As soon as we have any side wind all bets are off anyway. :D
I am grateful for all the input. I am one of those guys who normally naturally turns his hand to anything, can fix anything etc, so I am finding not getting this right very frustrating indeed. More practice, less delicate use of the throttle, and even more practice. If you see us arsing about give us a wave.
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You've got it! None of this creeping out of the berth as if you were trying to steal the boat. Lots of welly. One big blast to get the boat moving, then either cut it back or knock into neutral to give you steering that is, er, neutral.
 
We had a similar problem, we have reverse out of berth with creak bank just over a boat length of water, she’s 29’ and at first could not do it and ended up spinning around as tide pushes the bow round. Solution was more revs to get moving then neutral to stop prop wash and just let her turn. When nearly round helm over and quick full forward. Seems to work apart from when strong winds and tide both pushing bow, then it’s which ever way she wants to go often doing 270 turn with careful pushing off next boat.
Suggest try more power.
 
solent clown said:
it is not as tight as this sketch, but that is the general layout

2017_06_24_11_15_56 by mark punksteel, on Flickr
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The boat will do what it will do, if it won't respond to rudder, it won't respond to rudder. If the prop walks to port, that's what it will do. Your mistake is in trying to get the boat to do what you want it to do, it will not work. You need to understand what she'll do and work with that, no good fighting it, you'll lose every time.

Lines are your friends, think about what would happen if you rig a line from here or there and motor against it, ahead or astern. If you can get in close enough (in reverse) for Karen to get off (safely, no gymnastics) then send her ashore with a line from the port stern cleat. Get her to take a turn around the cleat at the pontoon end of the finger and keep taking the slack in. Every time the boat gets out of shape she pulls against the line while you engage ahead. The boat will come straight along the finger, at which time you engage astern, she takes up the slack and you repeat as many times as necessary, at slow speed.

Or, lets say you came in forwards. When you want to depart, what do you think would happen if you rigged a long slip line from the starboard stern cleat to the cleat on the end of the finger, then motor astern until your bow clears the boat next door, when you snub the line. Depending on the weather you might need to get Karen to look after another long slip line from the bow cleat to the other finger cleat. As the bow clears the next door boat she slips her line and you snub yours, leaving the boat in astern. If it doesn't turn you far enough around try the stern line on the port aft cleat, if it clears the rudder etc. Picture in your mind what would happen, go try it.

Generally, avoid bow lines for close quarters work, unless using them for spring, certainly dont have Karen at the bow when coming along side a pontoon. Let her do the stern line, then leave the engine ahead while you do midships and/or bow lines.
 
my 2p's worth. I am another Duncan Wells fan and still very much an amateur boat handler. You are going to a big boat from your dinghy background and this is the most stressful bit by miles. The advice about knowing which way your own boat responds to the wind is crucial, and you say it has always been pretty windy. So you can be kind to yourself, no major clonks reported here by you! Normally (in Duncan Wells land) you use the pontoon and lines to get in and out of a berth....google "stern bridle"...........but having shallows to dodge from a standing start really not easy..... so if it is windy maybe you are asking the impossible. I would want to know wind direction and tide before making any plan and you have left that bit out. But as a general thought you have said you are happier with the idea of driving out forwards. I like the idea of reversing in as you can establish rudder control in reverse in open water ....but there will be merits according to each situation at the time . And if it is looking tricky I am usually consulting Duncan Wells. Good luck with the practice. I wish I got more, that is the down side of our swinging mooring. (Hope I haven't written garbage, I need to go to bed!)
 
StormNorm said:
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see how springing off will work in a finger berth with another boat alongside.
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Depending on how close the boat in the adjacent berth is and how far they're sticking out it might work if you're mostly out of the berth before doing it. e.g. fender up the bow, rig slip line from bow to pontoon-end cleat,, walk/slowly motor backwards until mostly out while crew takes in the bow line. Then snub the line, a bit of forwards to spring out the back end, into astern, crew slips the line and away (helped by prop walk hopefully).
 
I think it very much depends on what wind and tide are doing at the time. Sometimes it's easier just to drive it into the berth (in your diagram if wind is from the left it's always going to be tricky to stop the bow blowing off) and then exit using appropriate springs, fenders and judicious use of the throttle. I echo what others have said about bursts to get it moving/use propwash then throttle back. I did a Coastal skipper course last year and was surprised at how often I was encouraged to give it a good burst on the throttle. And it worked.

Bursts astern then coasting is definitely the way backwards. And go faster.

Five, ten minutes or so spend faffing around putting lines to slip, getting fenders in the right places and springs on the right end while the engine idles is time well spent.

The advice to spend time on the river practicing is also really good, we tend to do it at the start of the season. Some of the first, rusty, attempts are staggeringly incompetent! We usually pick a sparsely populated pontoon and hang out more fenders than a pusher tugboat for obvious reasons.

There are usually only two of us on board, we never jump ashore for the first line on (practice lassooing cleats with a loop of rope) and always release lines from onboard. That way no-one gets left behind...unless it's deliberate...

Once the first line is on, use the engine to hold the boat in place against the line then the helm can assist getting the others on.

Think about you doing the ropey bits and Karen doing some of the steering, for easy ones at first, like nosing up to a mooring buoy. We've realised after a few "incidents" and subsequent gelcoat polishing it's so much easier for a 15 stone "chap" (me) to do the lines and fenders. Massive confidence booster too, for both of you. Although we have gone through a surprising number of boathooks...

Brief the crew too, talk it through beforehand so that everyone understands which lines are important and what order to let slip or attach before the engine is racing, the boat is going the wrong way and next door's freshly polished topsides are looming.

I feel your pain. We were on a trot river mooring for our last boat (Moody 33) so it was really a simple berthing exercise. The first time we then went into a marina with expensive boats all around I thought I was going to have a heart attack. We generally got by with springs and fenders, sometimes turning the boat and resecuring alongside before we then set off. And definitely using other boats to spring from.

Good luck!
Andrew
 
We had a lot of prop walk on our heavy displacement boat. The solution tie a doubled back warp to a cleat on the pontoon at the back boat then tie to an amidships cleat, run the engine in revs at 800 rpm and wait until water is flowing over the rudder, release the warp and the boat will go straight back and can be steered,
 
I'm by no means an expert, but I'm not sure that wanting to go out forward is really your best bet? Is it worth rethinking that? Bearing in mind you currently have hassle either way, once you sort that, it shouldn't be necessary?

I would repeat what others have said, gun the throtlle like hell! Don't pussyfoot with it, then slap it into neutral quickly, or if you think you are moving too fast, forward and rev hard again briefly.

But the absolute simplest thing in your case may well be to use that outboard, you'll probably find it will turn you on a sixpence. Make sure the tiller is centered thoughif your controlling her with the outboard :)

On your sketch, I would prefer reversing out, if the wind/tide is pushing "north" I'd be looking to turn my stern to port on the way out and go back for a bit, then head south, if it was pushing south, I'd be looking to turn it to stb, and then reverse south between the mudbank and your pontoon side until clear then turn.
 
As we know all boats are different. The biggest lesson I learned was some time spent practicing from standstill in benign conditions. There fore everything I did was due to prop wash etc.
I simply put the rudder hard over and gave a serious burst ahead, going to neutral before any way was made. Repeated for astern and then the other rudder direction. I ended up with 4 useful "stern thruster" settings which I use all the time when Gilling around as we have to over here for sometimes half an hour in a very busy outer harbour.
Yours may not do it, but a useful tool.
 
steve yates said:
I'm by no means an expert, but I'm not sure that wanting to go out forward is really your best bet? Is it worth rethinking that? Bearing in mind you currently have hassle either way, once you sort that, it shouldn't be necessary?

I would repeat what others have said, gun the throtlle like hell! Don't pussyfoot with it, then slap it into neutral quickly, or if you think you are moving too fast, forward and rev hard again briefly.

But the absolute simplest thing in your case may well be to use that outboard, you'll probably find it will turn you on a sixpence. Make sure the tiller is centered thoughif your controlling her with the outboard :)

On your sketch, I would prefer reversing out, if the wind/tide is pushing "north" I'd be looking to turn my stern to port on the way out and go back for a bit, then head south, if it was pushing south, I'd be looking to turn it to stb, and then reverse south between the mudbank and your pontoon side until clear then turn.
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I only changed to reversing in after buying a boat in the Med as that's simply the habit there but adopted it after that for berthing in the UK too. Basically almost any fin keel boat will reverse brilliantly once momentum is built up - particularly if you you hard bursts and neutral, but starting from a fixed constrained position then forward is easy but reverse is harder.

So as long as you go into reverse well before you turn into the constrained area - so outside that drawing altogher then you have momentum and steerage as long as you keep your speed up until tucked right into your berth - a big thrust ahead will stop your boat from speedy reverse in a couple of feet so all under control. And as you don't have a transom hung rudder you can hang a great big fender on the stern and hold yourself against the pontoon whilst tying ropes.
 
Good point rupert, as my longbow doesn't reverse too well for me, I try and avoid it. But as you say, if you have to do it all the time, you will get good at it, and it's got to be a very useful skill to cultivate.

Mental note to self, do more reverse practising :)
 
laika said:
Depending on how close the boat in the adjacent berth is and how far they're sticking out it might work if you're mostly out of the berth before doing it. e.g. fender up the bow, rig slip line from bow to pontoon-end cleat,, walk/slowly motor backwards until mostly out while crew takes in the bow line. Then snub the line, a bit of forwards to spring out the back end, into astern, crew slips the line and away (helped by prop walk hopefully).
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Ok, I see. As you say it depends on the length of the adjacent boat. That's an interesting idea.
 
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