New member in South Florida

M

Marvin Silverman

New Member
Oct 22, 2019
14
Dania Beach, Florida
Boat Info
290 Sundancer 1995
Engines
Twin 4.3 Mercruiser alpha one gen two drives
I’m a long time member of the Lauderdale Small Boat Club in Dania. I just bought a 1995 290 Sundancer from a fellow member of the club. I’m a little worried about backing her into my slip with outdrives. Any advice?
 
Marvin Silverman said:
I’m a long time member of the Lauderdale Small Boat Club in Dania. I just bought a 1995 290 Sundancer from a fellow member of the club. I’m a little worried about backing her into my slip with outdrives. Any advice?
Click to expand...

Be slow
 
Marvin Silverman said:
I’m a long time member of the Lauderdale Small Boat Club in Dania. I just bought a 1995 290 Sundancer from a fellow member of the club. I’m a little worried about backing her into my slip with outdrives. Any advice?
Click to expand...
Congrats and Welcome Aboard.... I think you'll be just fine. Twins are easier to handle than you think. Just remember "Don't go any faster than you want to hit"
 
Agree slow...but.......one must overcome wind and current. So, slow but fast enough to have sufficient momentum to overcome opposing forces. Your best bet is to find an accomplished person with similar boat and have them ride with you around the docks. Also lots of helm time practicing in open water to gauge your boat's behavior in differing conditions.
 
The best advice I was given was when you are beginning with twin engines, do not use the wheel. You have to use the forward/reverse engines to properly back in, and having the wheel turned messes up how it works and how the boat will react to gear changes. Keep the drives/rudders centered and only use the engines to turn the boat by bumping into and out of gear. Forward port and reverse starboard will pivot the boat clockwise. and vise versa. Try to get the angle of the boat perfect before doing your backing in straight. Get the boat pisitioned and not moving in front of your slip, and hten back straight in. Wind and current might mean positioning slightly differently before beginning to back in. That just takes practice and knowing your slip and your boat and it reacts. Go slow and NEVER use the throttle above idle around the dock (at least as a beginner with twins). Just leave it at idle and use the transmissions.

Google youtube videos about docking twin engine boats and watch them all.
 
is it twin or single engine? if twin, dock it just like an inboard - you WILL need throttle on the reverse engine to start the "kick" - keep the drives centered - a good way to do this is knowing how may turns it takes lock to lock, cut that in half and as you approach the slip, with the gears in neutral, quickly bring it hard over and then go back that number of turns - If its a single, steer out of gear and bump it into gear once the drive is pointed where you need it to be - not a lot of current to worry about in that basin - I kept my 300DA at Sundance for awhile.....good luck with the new boat!
 
Ididntdoit said:
is it twin or single engine? if twin, dock it just like an inboard - you WILL need throttle on the reverse engine to start the "kick" - keep the drives centered - a good way to do this is knowing how may turns it takes lock to lock, cut that in half and as you approach the slip, with the gears in neutral, quickly bring it hard over and then go back that number of turns - If its a single, steer out of gear and bump it into gear once the drive is pointed where you need it to be - not a lot of current to worry about in that basin - I kept my 300DA at Sundance for awhile.....good luck with the new boat!
Click to expand...

OP's signature says its a 290 with 4.3. Doesn't say twins, but it would be.
 
It is twins but Alpha one outdrives. I was cautioned that they don’t pivot the boat as well as v-drives or straight inboards because they are farther aft and closer together than the aforementioned drives.
 
Marvin Silverman said:
It is twins but Alpha one outdrives. I was cautioned that they don’t pivot the boat as well as v-drives or straight inboards because they are farther aft and closer together than the aforementioned drives.
Click to expand...

That is true, and the props are small. But that doesn't change the thoughts above. You don't want to turn the wheel. Once you are really good, you may start to use the wheel to deal with unusual issues, but as a beginner with twins, trust me, it will mess you up.

As an example. If if you are backing in with the dock to port, and notice your bow is too far away from the dock:

I would bump the starboard engine into forward briefly. That will start to pivot the bow to the port. The stern will not move much as the drives are back there and that is the center of the pivot point.

If you tried to use your wheel, you would probably turn the wheel to the port and go into forward. The drives being now turned, will push your stern away from the dock and the bow won't come in at all. So you now have your bow AND your stern too far away from the dock and you have hit the piling or the boat beside you if you are in shared slip. You will be forced to pull out and start all over.

Or instead of this you keep the engines in reverse and you turn the wheel to starboard. Now the stern will again move away from the dock. The bow still wont come in, and you are now moving quickly back in the wrong direction too far away from the dock. And by the time you realize it, you go back into forward, turn left and hit the piling or boat beside you. But because in this instance you started closer to the right and farther in the slip, you hit them right away and drag alongside getting back out of the slip.

So....

The beauty of keeping the wheel centered and using the props to turn the boat is that you have a known fixed pivot point that gives you predictable handling once you know how your boat reacts. The pivot point is at the transom or close, so your stern becomes a nice predictable thing, and your bow can be swung with forward/reverse.

If you introduce steering, you make it much harder to predict the motion because you have added another dimension to the handling movements.
 
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As mentioned before, wind and current can be a factor. You may have 2 completely different approaches based on the wind and current direction.

Watch the flags and see what other slipped boats are doing, which lines of theirs are taught and which ones have slack.

This will give you some info on what the wind and current (if any) will do to your boat.

I have a side tie on my starboard side facing south, with a 180° u turn because I approach heading north. My U-turn happens in different spots based on the wind direction.
 
Marvin,

When I lived in Pembroke Pines I too was a member there. I slipped my 25ft Sea Ray.

Please have your slip checked for electrical currents in the water.

I got a bad case of electrolysis on my Bravo I drive. I tried everything, tons of zincs, I even hung a huge zinc off the dock next to my outdrive.

I had a marine electrician come and he found the entire dock area was “hot”. Bad grounding and wiring of the marina in general.

My outdrive eventually cracked open like an egg. I left there and dry slipped in Davie just up the river.

Good luck.
 
Marvin Silverman said:
I’m a long time member of the Lauderdale Small Boat Club in Dania. I just bought a 1995 290 Sundancer from a fellow member of the club. I’m a little worried about backing her into my slip with outdrives. Any advice?
Click to expand...
Unlike straight inboards with out drives using steering will help at times. The key is the slow moves everyone is talking about and to keep the wind at your back as much as possible this will help you maintain the most control of the boat It doesn't matter how many times it takes you as long as you get in the slip without damage good luck!
 
and, don't be afraid to bail out on an attempt and go around for another approach...

Best of luck and welcome to CSR!
 
Go Slow...Like a Pro
 
Marvin Silverman said:
It is twins but Alpha one outdrives. I was cautioned that they don’t pivot the boat as well as v-drives or straight inboards because they are farther aft and closer together than the aforementioned drives.
Click to expand...

I had twin Alphas on my 1987 300 Sundancer. They were originally both standard rotation.
Once I made one of the Counter Rotation, backing in to slips got a whole lot easier.
Center your wheel when coming in to the marina and use the motors to steer the boat at idle speed.
Don’t touch the wheel.
A good way to practice is to find a long no wake zone that has some curves and turns. Go from one end to the other steering with the motors instead of the wheel.
Approach the slip and use the motors to back in to the slip just as you would with inboards.
Bumping in and out of gear will serve you well.
Just put either, or both, in gear long enough to get movement then pop it back in to neutral.
The idea is to back as slow as possible so if you happen to bump a pole or something you will barely feel it.
Don’t be afraid to abort and come around again.
Practice when the Marina is empty so you’ll be less nervous.
 
Marvin Silverman said:
I’m a long time member of the Lauderdale Small Boat Club in Dania. I just bought a 1995 290 Sundancer from a fellow member of the club. I’m a little worried about backing her into my slip with outdrives. Any advice?
Click to expand...

You might want to try changing your props to 4 blade, best thing I did to mine, low speed handling is so much improved and overall fuel use has improved. Your outdrives are alpha 1 Gen II drives
 
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