When I started this blog, I had lofty intentions to post at least weekly. As they say, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Since my last post 18 months ago, we have moved, had our daughter Savannah and started a drone photography business.
I guess I’ll never be a bonafide content creator, if I can't stick to my own damn schedule?
Anyways, Santa brought me a GoPro, and I wasted no time putting it to the test. It’s such a simple, convenient piece of equipment and I can see it becoming a great teaching tool down the road!
For the third year in a row, my wife and I (and daughter!) spent the New Years Holiday motorsailing up the ICW to Fusion Resort, a hotel/marina in storm-battered Treasure Island. We snagged the last available transient slip for New Year’s Eve and had a nice, relaxing time. For the first time in years, I even stayed awake to see the ball drop!
Anyways, we woke up on New Year's Day to see that the wind had in fact veered 180 degrees and was now blowing from the Northwest. This left us with an interesting predicament, as retrieving our docklines would be a task! Small challenges like these (and their creative solutions) are such an enriching component of the cruising/sailing/sailing instruction lifestyle.
So what exactly was our predicament? Fusion Resort (by design) does not use cleats anywhere at the facility- perhaps to prevent toe-stubbing and the colorful sailor words that soon follow?
When I need to secure a vessel around pilings, I generally prefer to use long docklines that are “doubled”; the boat is not in fact secured to the pilings directly but is secured to itself by running from boat cleat, around piling and back to the original boat cleat. This strategy allows for an elegant exit, as the line is simply pulled back onboard.When docklines are not long enough- as was the case for us- you must secure to the piling using either a bowline, round turn/two half hitches or you can use the pre-made eyesplice to “lasso” the piling. This is the option we chose.
Like a good Tarantino flick, the end should come before the beginning. In other words, before committing to a docking plan, always think about how you will leave. Our plan was really easy when we arrived on New Year’s Eve but made for a tough departure on New Years Day. Thanks, 2025.
So to summarize, the problem was that we needed to leave the slip but our windward lines were tight and lassoed around the pilings. Oh and also we didn’t want to get blown down to the leeward side of the slip and scrape along our rubrail and dinghy all the way out.
And before we talk about our solution, remember that there are only two kinds of boats- boats you can push/pull, and boats you can’t. With six tons of lead and concrete ballast in the keel, Hawkeye is decidedly in the “cannot push/pull” category.
So how did we solve the problem?
A good old-fashioned spring line!
We often talk about “springing on” or “springing off” docks, which means using a dockline to create a “moment” (physics term). This asymmetry of force allows you to use the engine, rudder and dockline to vector the vessel around a pivot point. Before I teach students about springing maneuvers, I usually lead with this caveat:
“If you don’t master this, you may find yourself unable to dock/undock because the wind and current are working against you.”
That’s just how strongly I feel about this skill set! Battery-powered bow thrusters and/or stern thrusters are not always the god-card they first appear to be. Yes, thrusters are a great tool to have in the tool box (and I did tap mine in this video), but I find myself reaching for other tools first.
(Hawkeye has bow thrusters but not stern thrusters.)
Springing maneuvers are typically taught along a T-head or face dock, but this particular application was unconventional in that we were springing “within” the slip. I worked with my lovely wife Kathryn to tackle the problem in a logical sequence:
-Remove all starboard side lines because they were “lazy” anyways.
-One of these lines happened to be our longest dockline, which we repurposed as an aft spring. This line started on our port midship cleat, looped around a piling and returned to its original cleat. We selected the midship cleat for this purpose because any other cleat would inhibit the ability to swing the stern as needed.
-By putting the boat in forward and using about half rudder to starboard, this allowed me to motor against the aft spring, which then unloaded all the “stuck” lines.
-As you can see from the video, this brought Kathryn close enough to each piling so she could easily use the boathook to free the lines. All without having to rush!
-Once the “stuck” lines were free, we removed the aft spring and punched out of the slip (briefly coming to neutral while the line was in the water).
How could we have prevented this problem from happening in the future?
-Used longer lines- or connected two lines with a sheet bend- to double around the piling.
-Asked for a slip on the other side of the finger (not an option, as the marina was completely full)
-Anchored out and dinghied in (no dinghy dock to speak of)
Happy sailing! And docking.
Would you like to learn more about these docking evolutions? Contact me to schedule an American Sailing 118 Docking Endorsement!
Kommentare