GroupWBench

If you think it can sometimes be tricky to park a 4,000 car that steers from the front with a sure grip on the road and 160 or so horsepower, then you should try sticking a 6,700 boat into a tight slip with an 8 horsepower engine steering from the back and on a surface that is moving around. It can go bad really easily.

The first time I tried to dock the Still Unnamed Boat (SUB) I overshot the slip by a few feet. The boat turns slower than our old one and has more momentum that I didn't account for. Fortunately, the previous owner and several friends were around to rescue us from careening down the fairway.

The first time I tried to take SUB out of the slip I managed to grab the handle for the throttle rather than the transmission. Instead of going from reverse to forward, I managed to accelerate us in reverse. Fortunately, we had our friend Dwight aboard to help as Ivy and I fended us off the various boats we would have hit.

With those two experiences in mind, I was kind of holding my breath when Ivy and I took the boat out Friday evening. I had watched an awsome video course about docking a  sailboat and thought everything through very carefully. For motivation I also watched this little bit of docking.

While I didn't put on an eye patch and Ivy wasn't hugging the mast in terror, our pulling out of the slip couldn't have gone better. We dropped the lines and I started back, Ivy climbed aboard and we motored out. It didn't look much different than pulling out of a parking space at HEB despite the much higher potential for disaster.

We are still getting the feel for the boat and sails, but managed just fine sailing up and down the lake. Ivy did a great job of raising the main and letting the jib out. She is also really good at handling the lines throughout the whole tacking and jibing (turning the boat) process. We enjoyed an early evening sailing together. However, the entire time we were out I had a little voice in my head asking me "How in the heck are you going to get this thing in that little slip without breaking something?"

We sailed back to the marina, dropped the sails without drama. I put on a brave face and we headed into the marina. Fortunately, there was no traffic to worry about. We rounded the sixty foot houseboat and as I aimed us into our fairway I felt a pretty good kick of adrenaline. Ivy stood at the shrouds with a dockline ready. As I started the turn I could tell that I was very close to on the mark. I flattened the turn out and we drifted into the slip and stopped without touching a thing. Ivy stepped down and put on the lines. I may be no Captain Ron, but I think we'll actually learn to be able to get the boat in and out without too much drama.