Anyway, I had an idea. It worked. Quite well in fact. So I thought I’d share it here.
No doubt the idea isn’t unique to me. Perhaps everyone else in the world has used it, but being unaware of that, I kind of like to think it’s my invention. LOL.
This is a simple system I now use to assist in docking my boat. It might help you, although I am aware that many of you own Carver’s much to large to be manhandled this way.
You can see my boat tied up in the picture below. To dock the boat I come into the floating docks at an angle. I try to go slow, alternating between Forward and Neutral and when I get very close I turn the wheel hard to starboard and as it comes about, select Reverse, turn the wheel hard to Port and that brings the stern in.
When I do this right, the boat ends up parallel and very close to the dock. Someone then jumps from the boat to the dock and gets the lines on before I drift away.
Nothing to it, right? Wrong. I often wind up being parallel to the docks but too far away, and have to try again. But there was once a serious problem. When I went to select Reverse, the engine stalled (due to a sticking lower shift cable that kept the ignition interrupter switch open) and I kept going towards the wharf part.
In the picture below (docks not in yet), you can see the rocks around the wharf. The river here has a 6 foot tide and the rocks are there to break up the ice as the tide changes so it can’t get a grip on the wood and destroy the wharf. To drift into those rocks would be quite catastrophic to the boat. I needed a way to prevent this.
During the aforementioned incident, my son fortunately assessed the situation very quickly (probably hearing me say “Oh SHooT“, or something rather similar, helped him notice), made the leap to the dock and managed to get the boat stopped before it hit the rocks.
So I decided to add a rope to the outer floating dock cleats, A and B. One can easily hook this with a boathook and pull the boat in. If the engine were to die, the hook will slip along the rope until it jams against cleat B. Originally I thought of a grappling hook on a rope with the other end tied to my midship cleat, but the boathook is easy, and works well.
I also added a small piece of wood with a hole in it. I lay it down when not in use so the rope won’t stretch over time, and stand it up before I leave to make sure the rope is not touching the dock deck. This makes it easier to grab with the boat hook. The hole in the block is large enough that if the boathook is to the left of it, the block will slide along to the right, with the boathook, until it jams up against cleat B.
So that’s that. No brilliance here, but a simple system that may work if you have to dock in close quarters, even if it’s another boat tied up, and not rocks like I have.
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