One of the trickiest (read: “most harrowing“) aspects of coastal sailboat-cruising is the process of DOCKING. Precisely placing a 40-foot boat into a right-angle slip is a maneuver that requires adroit steering, precise timing, 360-degree situational awareness, and (preferably) steel nerves.
A sailboat doesn’t have brakes, of course—so you’d better not come in too fast. But you do need some speed (water movement over the rudder) for your steering to work, so there’s that. A boat doesn’t turn like a car, either—when you steer the bow to starboard, the stern swings out to port, so there’s that.
The wind also likes to play a part here: even with sails down, it can push your bow to one side or other, interfering with your turn. So there’s that. In many places there’s current or tidal movement tugging your entire boat toward or away from a dock, so there’s that. And of course you’re generally surrounded by things you really don’t want to hit: the dock itself, pilings, buoys, dinghies, and other people’s expensive boats. So there’s that.
Oh, and not for nothing: watching other people try to dock is a time-honored spectator sport among boaters, so you’re never without a judging audience. So there’s that.
When I was learning to sail we spent a whole afternoon at Roche Harbor Marina, motoring out of the marina, turning around, and coming back in for another run—practice-docking over and over in an empty arm of the marina where we weren’t endangering anyone (else’s) boat. It came my turn to do it “for real,” coming into jam-packed Friday Harbor with wind pushing one direction and current the other, and the deck of every docked boat occupied by late-afternoon drinkers intent on the amusement of watching arrivals try to dock.
Our instructor had told us he’d wait till the last second before intervening—but if he yelled “I’ve got it!” the student-docker was to jump out of the way and let him save the situation.
Motoring past all those gawkers with my palms sweating inside my fingerless gloves, I wanted SO badly not to be humiliated by an “instructor save.” No dice, though—for the only time on that Learning Cruise, Gary had to grab the wheel and avert disaster.
Following which, of course, we had to motor back out—past all the watchers, a few of whom had now called others on deck to watch the second attempt—and turn around and try again. With my anxiety exponentially increased, and all the other sailing-students positioned around the boat with fenders at the ready, I gave it a second go. I got it that time—but I knew that in “real life” there’s not a maneuver-saver there to grab the helm.
The pleasant foil to that embarrassing arrival followed a few years later, when we chartered a boat in the same islands to spend a week cruising with my mom and my small kids. Coming in, once again, to Friday Harbor—once again jam-packed with onlookers—I pulled off the docking this time with such finesse I may never in my life better it.
The boat-owner next to our slip, who had stepped onto the dock to take a docking line for us (as the most courteous of sailors do) believed it was our boat. I took that as the compliment it was: I’d been mistaken for the “real thing.” (I also have to confess to an uncharacteristic moment of schadenfreude—or at least, smugness—an hour later, when we watched a guy who WAS the real thing crash right into someone else’s vessel. The danger is real!)
All the boats on which I’ve learned and cruised—in Washington State’s San Juan Islands, in the Florida Keys, on Lake Michigan, in the Caribbean—are what I would characterize as “coastal” cruisers. They have flat sterns and wide beams, sometimes even a “swimming step” on the transom from which you can step from the cockpit directly into the water… and all of them have a fin keel. If you’ve seen a drawing or model of a sailboat out of water, you can probably picture that narrow downward extension that looks like a stand. (Or, if you turn it upside-down, like a shark fin).
A fin keel is great for steering, in the sense that it provides a pivot-point on which you can turn with some finesse. The trade-off is that it can be “squirrely” in bad weather, or in blue-water (meaning oceanic) passaging. A serious blue-water cruiser probably has a full keel—one that might reach down just as deeply, but also runs the whole length of the boat rather than just a “fin-long” portion of it.
A full keel means a steadier boat in heavy weather, and a straighter-steering passage across blue water… In other words, a full keel is probably what a serious voyager wants. But oh, what havoc that can wreak on one’s ability to DOCK with any ease!
We were recently in the cockpit of such a boat, with a seasoned sailor at her helm in the harbor—and I’ve never seen such a painful piece of jockeying, trying to turn her ninety degrees to exit the row after backing out of the slip. I spent the long minutes imagining myself at the helm (with far less experience or confidence) while the wind sported with the bow, repeatedly pushing it in the “wrong” direction, and while our stern and sides kept coming within an arm’s length of pylons and other boats. It’s the only time in my life that I’ve been grateful NOT to be at the helm.
I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time, in the weeks since, obsessing about those long five minutes in Shilshole Marina. Thinking of sailboat-voyaging—as Jon and I have been doing—there are plenty of fears in that picture… But my own self-doubt is the biggest seamonster.
Phil Cosineau writes about mindful travel—or Pilgrimage, as he calls to his mode of traveling—“a transformative journey,” by his definition. “Always, it is a journey of risk and renewal,” he writes; “For a journey without challenge has no meaning; one without purpose has no soul.”
It’s oddly encouraging to think that my fears can have a purpose, of sorts: the built-in Challenge… the Seamonster to slay… the alchemical ingredient to create, from a mere trip, a Transformative Journey.
But perhaps, after all, I have thought about this wrong. Perhaps I’m not supposed to slay the Seamonster to succeed in this. Perhaps, instead, I should welcome it aboard, and fit it with a life-jacket, and teach it how to crew.
So, as Captain Jack Sparrow would say… “Bring me that horizon!”
My Seamonster and I are game.
Kana's Chronicles 
Wow, Kana! I’ve learned more about boating just reading this one post than I ever have! Thank you!
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