I was going to post this in my thread on cruising the bay but I’ll put it here since not everyone is reading that bore of a writeup.
One of my pet peeves when coming into a marina are dockhands and their handling of dock lines. Most of these people, both kids and older people, probably don’t have that much boating and docking experience and when they feel like they have to help, they tend to just mess things up.
For example…
When we come in to dock, I want my crew that is on the boat to have control of the lines. The loop end of the rope goes to the dock to loop over a pole or loop on a dock cleat. It seams everywhere we have stopped this summer, my crew ends up in a brief argument with the dockhand wanting my crew to loop the rope on the boat cleat and just tossing them the rope so the dockhand can tug and yank on it for some reason. Not happening. It’s my boat and I’m docking it and I’m not giving rope control to someone who probably never docked a boat before. I’ve even had to come off the bridge a few times and tell the dockhands to just put the ropes on the pilings and let us control them to dock the boat. They always seem upset by this. I think it’s because they don’t have to do much but stand there and watch. We can dock this boat in 5 minutes or less.
We have a pretty simple routine when we dock. If we are in a slip, we criss-cross the ropes on the stern and snug up to the finger pier with one bow line, one (maybe two) spring lines, and 2 fenders. If we are on a t-head, it’s a bow line, a spring line, and crossed-over stern line with 2 fenders again.
I’m thinking maybe next time I’ll loop the rope on the stern cleat and toss the dockhand the line and then as he’s playing tug-o-war with me, I’ll yank his butt in the drink.
One of my pet peeves when coming into a marina are dockhands and their handling of dock lines. Most of these people, both kids and older people, probably don’t have that much boating and docking experience and when they feel like they have to help, they tend to just mess things up.
For example…
When we come in to dock, I want my crew that is on the boat to have control of the lines. The loop end of the rope goes to the dock to loop over a pole or loop on a dock cleat. It seams everywhere we have stopped this summer, my crew ends up in a brief argument with the dockhand wanting my crew to loop the rope on the boat cleat and just tossing them the rope so the dockhand can tug and yank on it for some reason. Not happening. It’s my boat and I’m docking it and I’m not giving rope control to someone who probably never docked a boat before. I’ve even had to come off the bridge a few times and tell the dockhands to just put the ropes on the pilings and let us control them to dock the boat. They always seem upset by this. I think it’s because they don’t have to do much but stand there and watch. We can dock this boat in 5 minutes or less.
We have a pretty simple routine when we dock. If we are in a slip, we criss-cross the ropes on the stern and snug up to the finger pier with one bow line, one (maybe two) spring lines, and 2 fenders. If we are on a t-head, it’s a bow line, a spring line, and crossed-over stern line with 2 fenders again.
I’m thinking maybe next time I’ll loop the rope on the stern cleat and toss the dockhand the line and then as he’s playing tug-o-war with me, I’ll yank his butt in the drink.