Dock mate crushes comment by another

[psneeld]

by the use of a remote control or what?

Yep...remote control...weird but impressive!!

Bought my boat with 2 LORANs that the PO was so proud of...didn't have the heart to tell him the shut LORAN off the summer before...

So I brought the boat to NJ from Ft Lauderdale with just a handheld GPS, depthfinder and chartbooks...really didn't need the handheld but for a couple of moments in the fog in Port Royal Sound cause the tidal current was rippin pretty good...

 

[Rambler]

by the use of a remote control or what?

Maybe it's "the what" that impressed him greatly.

 

[Rambler]

Wanted to get a good view of how well the sails set. Looked good.

Oh yeah. She looks great.

I had thought you had maybe just washed the sails and were hanging them to dry.

 

[ben2go]

I've never used a bow or stern thruster.Multi tasking thruster controls,engine controls,and the wheel seems more impressive than docking a single engine boat with no thrusters.That statement tells on me and my area of boating.

 

[skipperdude]

Say that again. I am not sure what you mean.
Are you saying for someone to dock with all the gadgets is more impressive than without.
Why?

SD

 

[ben2go]

Say that again. I am not sure what you mean.
Are you saying for someone to dock with all the gadgets is more impressive than without.
Why?

SD

Requires to much consetration and cordination for my feeble mind.

 

[skipperdude]

Gotcha. Docks to dingys my mind is just as feeble.

 

[ben2go]

Gotcha. Docks to dingys my mind is just as feeble.

I see we are in the same boat,so to speak.

 

[Norwester]

My boat is a single and had a bow thruster on it when I bought it 3 years ago. I added a stern thruster after I bought it. Because my schedule revolves around agriculture and I'm 4 hours from my boat, I don't get to boat much in the summer. We are only able to use the boat in the spring and fall and it's chartered during the summer.

This has been a busy year and I've not been able to use the boat in over 3 months. I was able to get 4 days on it a couple of weekends ago. The bow and stern thrusters meant that I could easily handle the boat after an extended absence. They also mean that probably anybody on this forum would feel comfortable on the boat almost immediately. That prevents a lot of potential damage from people who charter the boat.

I really don't care what anybody who doesn't know me thinks about me or my boat handling skills. I don't mean that I'm not polite to people or go out of my way to offend them. It's just that if I don't know you or you're not a potential customer of mine, I don't give a rip what you think. I don't want to damage anyone's boat, and I don't want to be stressed in a difficult docking situation so I love my thrusters.

My wife is in charge of the lines, she does it her way and she has no trouble straightening out any "old salt" who messes with her lines or critiques her style.
Lyle

 

[johnma]

I'm not sure what I would have said to that ignorant old ba$tard had I heard him say that, but i would have probably called him an ignorant old ba$tard. I would love for my wife to dock my boat and would be very proud.
My boat has a single with a bow thruster, but the rudder is pretty undersized for the boat . the loa is 39' 8". The distance between my outer piling and my neighbor across the way is exactly 39'.
Maybe a Chesapeake Bay waterman could get in that hole without using the thruster but I highly doubt the ignorant old ba$tard could
John

 

[Edelweiss]

Most every marina has one or two of these eccentrics. . . Usually they're just an old curmudgeon looking for a little respect of their boating knowledge and some attention.

My dock mate of 13 years, a 36' sailboat, with one of these old beer drinking (is Miller Highlife really beer?) red eyed, opinionated “old salts" living on board. He would gripe about everything and everybody, but really he had no family, was just lonely and friendless. We called him the hermit of Guemus Island. LOL

Finally he couldn't stand being around people anymore and he loaded up his boat, sailed off to SE Alaska and we haven't seen him since. It's sad seeing people get like this, they probably weren't always this way. Makes you wonder what went wrong in their world?

Larry B

 

[CPseudonym]

Most every marina has one or two of these eccentrics. . . Usually they're just an old curmudgeon looking for a little respect of their boating knowledge and some attention.

My dock mate of 13 years, a 36' sailboat, with one of these old beer drinking (is Miller Highlife really beer?) red eyed, opinionated “old salts" living on board. He would gripe about everything and everybody, but really he had no family, was just lonely and friendless. We called him the hermit of Guemus Island. LOL

Finally he couldn't stand being around people anymore and he loaded up his boat, sailed off to SE Alaska and we haven't seen him since. It's sad seeing people get like this, they probably weren't always this way. Makes you wonder what went wrong in their world?

Larry B

Most of the opinionated old blowhards I've met follow mostly the same manner as you mention in your post. Lonely with self esteem issues for the most part.

Loneliness is explained by there (anti)social skills.

FWIW had it been my wife that was dressed down by the guy in the opening post, he'd most likely have gone for a swim.

 

[Carey]

Don Moon said
To me the best set up is a single with a bow thruster. It is the best of both worlds.[/QUOTE]


Don
I am with you, but whatever works is good. It's mostly about what you are used to.
Carey

 

[Carey]

You should find a new club to be a member of.

Don't you truly believe this to be the appropriate club for Ancora? He couldn't get into mine.

 

[Moonstruck]

Don Moon said
To me the best set up is a single with a bow thruster. It is the best of both worlds.

Don
I am with you, but whatever works is good. It's mostly about what you are used to.
Carey[/QUOTE]

Carey, I especially like the protection of a big keel and a skeg. It also gives good directional stability. That is if you don't get that big keel perpendicular to the current in a tight place. The simplicity of one engine with handling similar to a twin screw boat. To me it just seems a great set up. I loved the one I had. Just wish it was larger.

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

There is a family in Boston that grew up on one of the Boston Harbor Islands. The mother and 2 daughters and both sons are all tugboat captains . I used to be a deckhand for the mother, (Judy) and she was a top notch boat operator who handled a 110' single screw tug with ease. She was in her 60's back then. Both of the daughters were very skilled captains as well and a joy to work with.
One of the daughters dated the Commanding officer of the Pt Allerton Coast Guard Station (Hull , Ma) in the early 90's and he admitted to her being a much more skilled "Boatman" than he. I would put their skills against most of the people I have worked with-myself included.

 

[Blue Heron]

Good standard Baltimore. A mark of success and instant feedback. Plus a nice reward system!

 

[bobofthenorth]

I think everybody is missing the point in their rush to defend the use of electronics while docking. There's nothing wrong with using all the tools in the arsenal but maybe the original comment had more to do with boasting about having done that. Go ahead and use all the toys but if you strut up the dock boasting about it afterwards then all comments are fair game.

 

[CPseudonym]

I think everybody is missing the point in their rush to defend the use of electronics while docking. There's nothing wrong with using all the tools in the arsenal but maybe the original comment had more to do with boasting about having done that. Go ahead and use all the toys but if you strut up the dock boasting about it afterwards then all comments are fair game.

Perhaps I misunderstood the OP but I read it to say the guy was bragging about his wife handling the docking. Something that many TF members have expressed their wives never do. There are many threads in the archives asking the question of how to get the wife to take the helm for tight quarters docking.

 

[psneeld]

Perhaps I misunderstood the OP but I read it to say the guy was bragging about his wife handling the docking. Something that many TF members have expressed their wives never do. There are many threads in the archives asking the question of how to get the wife to take the helm for tight quarters docking.

True...but isn't bobofthenorth also pointing out the overzealous defense of using thrusters, etc when the bottom line is the respect all seaman show to the guy who sails it into the dock or uses a single screw, single handed and spring lines and makes it look easy?

 

[dwhatty]

To me the best set up is a single with a bow thruster. It is the best of both worlds.

Even better: Our little 32 footer came with a stern thruster as well as a bow thruster. Was contemptuous at first but now find it very nice to have. Someday might come in handy should I ever have to make a first time visit to a marina.

Every man should be able to thrust both bow and stern.

 

[Moonstruck]

Even better: Our little 32 footer came with a stern thruster as well as a bow thruster. Was contemptuous at first but now find it very nice to have. Someday might come in handy should I ever have to make a first time visit to a marina.

Every man should be able to thrust both bow and stern.

David, a propeller on a beanie cap is not a thruster!

 

[Rambler]

Every man should be able to thrust both bow and stern.

That's when you need a good chiropractor on speed dial.

 

[Marin]

Speaking of womens driving boats, Carey will remember this one.

A mutual friend in the San Juans bought a surplus LCM6 landing craft a number of years ago and started a barge service in the islands, ferrying construction equipment and supplies from island to island. He got a long-term contract to provide the barge service to a tiny private island on which the owner was having a VERY expensive and large house built. This required lots of barge deliveries on an almost daily basis for a couple of years.

At the time our friend's daughters were something like 13 and 15 years old or thereabouts. They'd been born in the islands, grew up in the islands, and had been around and in boats pretty much most of their lives.

Gary drove the LCM most of the time but when it came to loading and unloading, he and his wife dealt with that together. The sloping beach on the island where the house was being built was swept almost constantly by strong currents running parallel to the shore. So even though the LCM's bow was on the shore, the rest of it was out in the current. Which meant that someone had to be "running" the boat the entire time using power and rudders to hold the boat up against and perpendicular to the ramp no matter what the current swirls and sweeps tried to do to the boat. So constant power and rudder changes to keep the boat in place. And with the challenges of unloading and loading some pretty big pieces of equipment, the boat had to be held in place for an hour or more sometimes.

With Gary and his wife busy with loading and unloading dump trucks and concrete trucks and loads of lumber and whatnot, it became the responsibility of the two girls to operate the LCM itself and keep it pinned to the shore even though the current was trying to peel it off the island.

Generally just one of the girls went along on any given trip, but both them were equally adept at controling this heavy, clumsy, twin-engine LCM.

Nobody, including Carey and I, who had known the girls long enough to realize their talents, was surprised by this at all. But the construction workers and truck drivers were pretty much stunned when Gary and his wife appeared on deck and started doing the unloading and loading and they learned that the person up in the wheelhouse controlling the fate of their dump truck or concrete mixer or backhoe or grader was a 13 or 15 year old girl. I guess the expressions were pretty funny to see. But it didn't take long for these guys to learn to respect those two little girls and what they were capable of.

 

[skipperdude]

Great story Marin, Oft said from the mouth of babes

In this case from the hands and minds.

Sd

 

[Moonstruck]

Back in the 80's I was helping a couple to bring a new Heritage East 36 double cabin from Clearwater, FL to Chattanooga. I was just to get them to Orange Beach, AL. They had never done any ocean cruising and the owner wanted to run the boat himself to get the feel of it. We started our crossing from Cedar Key to Dog Island off Carabelle.

The seas started at about 2' and built to 5. They were nervous as cats, but when we had the sea bouy at Dog Island in site they both relaxed and got a little giddy. As we started in the pass, the wife said that she wanted to steer. I told them it was a bad idea as we were facing a falling tide current. He said that it would be OK, and moved out of the seat. This happened just as the waves were steepening. She turned the boat then turned it some more. We were going into a serious broach situation. I jumped up, pushed her away, juiced the port engine, and cranked the wheel to starboard. We got straight just in time for about a 6 footer to pick up the stern. They both about crapped.

I got them to Orange Beach, but not without about ten stories to tell. They never took the boat to Tennessee. They listed and sold it in Orange Beach. That was the end of their boating. He said he didn't know why anyone would want to boat on the coast.

I would say that they were about equal in boat handling. He just couldn't get a grasp of the attention it takes to cruise. He believed the boat ads.

 

[dwhatty]

David, a propeller on a beanie cap is not a thruster!

 

[Northern Spy]

Before they built the bridge to Ford Island (in Pearl Harbor) the normal way of getting back and forth was by a 50 foot Utility Boat (aka, the small boat). Most of the coxswains for the boats were typically 18-21 year old women. As a young man of the same age, I remember being really impressed by the boat handling skills most of them had. I suppose their motivation was 100 jeering sailors if they came into the landing a little hard.

 

[Marin]

Not totally boating related but in the later 1980s I spent a week on the USS Constellation filming aircraft operations, specifically F-18 carrier qualifications. The Constellation was the first carrier to get the F-18 which required major modifications to the catapults, so the carrier qualifications were something of a big deal.

The ship at the time was conducting war games against the USS Forestall (IIRC) about 1,000 miles out in the Pacific so I and the cameraman who accompanied me were flown out the Constellation from San Diego in a C-2, a stubby Grumman twin turbo cargo plane a bit like a miniature C-130. The C-2 went by the moniker "Cod" for carrier onboard delivery.

The five "man" crews of the Cods we rode out and back on were all female. Young, cute girls including the two pilots. I thought it was cool that these girls were landing on the wires and taking off on the catapults just like the macho F-14, F-18, and A-6 pilots but my co-worker didn't. He firmly believed a woman's place was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and he grumbled the entire time about how girls shouldn't be trying to do a man's work.

He left the company a few years later but he'd be having a tough time if he was still here--- a good portion of our experimental and production flight test pilots are female now.

 

[angus99]

Several years ago, while taking a J-110 from Annapolis to Providence, we were sailing up the coast of NJ toward Ambrose Light, planning to spend the night behind Sandy Hook. We got into thick fog at about 10 p.m. and, since there was no radar on the boat, we were navigating by GPS, the depth finder and the radio.

We had picked up the owner's 20-something daughter in Cape May, who I'd only casually met and who stood all of 5'2". At about this time, the owner turns to the girl and says, "OK, Erica, she's all yours." I was more than a little concerned about him handing off the helm to this child because we could hear large ships passing us in the dark. They would raise us on the the radio and ask us to hold our course. We made it without incident, but I was more than a little relieved when we were finally moored on a ball that night. We hit the bunks without much conversation.

The next morning, the owner pointed across the bay to a large navy vessel and said, "See that ship? It carries munitions and that's as close as they'll allow it to the City. It's Erica's job to pilot that ship into this harbor." I knew she was in the Navy, but had no idea she had those qualifications. That was when a light went on that the times really were a changin'.