It Happened! Hit another boat!

fwebster said:
Somebody said:

" If you don't have a few dings on your boat it means you don't use it."
I'd beg to differ on a couple of counts. There are a lot of us who have boated for years and remain scratch free. I've had my present boat for 12+ years and you won't find a blemish on it.



Holy cow! Way to ring your own bell, hope you don't live in a glass house.

Poo poo occurs. It's embarassing but sometimes you get caught with your proverbial pants down. Learn from it, and never leave the scene of a gouging. LOL! I hate it when I get back to the boat and find new scratches, I put enough of them on my boat all by myself.
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islandhopper00 said:
fwebster said:
Somebody said:

" If you don't have a few dings on your boat it means you don't use it."
I'd beg to differ on a couple of counts. There are a lot of us who have boated for years and remain scratch free. I've had my present boat for 12+ years and you won't find a blemish on it.



Holy cow! Way to ring your own bell, hope you don't live in a glass house.

Poo poo occurs. It's embarassing but sometimes you get caught with your proverbial pants down. Learn from it, and never leave the scene of a gouging. LOL! I hate it when I get back to the boat and find new scratches, I put enough of them on my boat all by myself.
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Hopper take it easy. He said you won't find a blemish. Maybe he is skilled in fiberglass and gelcoat repair.:lol:
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Welcome to the strong wind blowing club. :grin:. The wind blew me into the dock and this is what happen. :smt021. After that little boo boo they lowered the dock. :smt038
DSCF1440.jpg
 
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spimik said:
Well, today was my day! I knew it was coming from reading other threads.

First time out with the new camper top- strong and gusty winds at the dock today and the bow thruster could not overcome it.

Lost the bow and it 'touched' the anchor of the 31 Searay in the slip next to me. Two small but irratiating marks just under the port navigation light.

12-16 people on the dock watching- wife not impressed.

My ego is still in pain. My heart is broken. My 'baby' has her first war wound. Already emailed service at the marina for a full buff, compound and wax to remove the surface mark.

My son said "Let's sue the marina Dad- they shouldn't put anyone next to us". LOL.

All my fault. Should have taken more time with the camper top before I tried to dock under these tougher conditions today. I need to find the new pivot point and I now know that the bow thruster can NOT overcome wind like today.

Chalk this up as another chapter in the learning curve.

Hope everyone had an incident free weekend.
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Hi Spimik,
Sorry to hear about your "anchor-kissing" incident today. We wintered indoors at Clark's Marina in Gananoque and we are scheduled to splash this Tuesday morning. I am praying for good weather and a smooth landing at our slip on D-Dock at Huck's Marina. We are looking forward to meeting you and your crew in the very near future. We live in the Joyceville area and we just said good evening to a pair of fellow D-Docker amigos who shared a great BBQ steak dinner with us this evening. (Morris & Maurine Caiger of "First Dance" & Denis & Betty Gagne of " Nauti by Nature") Put it behind you Bud and remember that there will always be better days ahead. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to greater acheivments of the future.

~Ken :thumbsup:
 
I view dock hits as inevitable.

Doesn't mean I don't strive for perfection. Doesn't mean I expect a free pass. I don't lose sleep over every error, but I do look to learn from every incident.

The car analogy is a bad one. . .in a car if you get messed up, you stop moving. In a boat, if you stop the engines, the boat continues to move (and indeed. . that's usually the problem!).
 
Mr Salt said:
Spimik Becareful the pivot point of the boat has not chaged because of the camper top, but the sail area has and that is what you have to take into account when docking a t slow speeds.
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Mr.Salt- thank you for the advice. That makes me feel a bit more comfortable since I am pretty confident that I know the pivot point of her. Under normal circumstances, we will have the canvas sides off all the way around, with just the top up which will of course cut down the potential for the sail effect.

ALL of the help and pointers have been great and the support is priceless- thanks all. I admire those of you who have years of flawless boating. Perhaps a combination of good skill and good luck.

This week is looking wonderful, so the wife and I will pull here off the dock and bring her in several times with plenty of fenders and patience. It is hard on your confidence when this happens. Today is a beautiul sunny day, but a Holiday Monday here in Canada so too much dock traffic for that routine. I think I will go to work today to get ahead a bit and then slip down later in the week and practice, practice practice.

Problem is, wind is such a factor with the new camper top that it seems to me that each time is an educated guess on "how" much room to leave, swing angle, speed, etc.

I have a whole new level of respect for the "big boys", 40+ especially the Sedan guys who must catch a ton of wind each time coming in.

Have a safe and "blemish" free summer all!!
 
islandhopper00 said:
Poo poo occurs. It's embarassing but sometimes you get caught with your proverbial pants down. Learn from it, and never leave the scene of a gouging. LOL! I hate it when I get back to the boat and find new scratches, I put enough of them on my boat all by myself.
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I can relate to this as a couple of years ago I went to our boat and found that someone hit the bow bending the anchor and anchor chute so bad it couldn't be used. 800.00 dollars later and out of my pocket. Last year a guy was backing in across from us and wacked another boat's bow taking out a large chunk of fiberglass about 6" long. A few days later I asked the Dockmaster if the guy who hit the boat told him about it and he said no?? WTF? If your going to smash someone elses boat at least be man enough and stand up for it.
 
One look at the rub rails of a boat tells you immediately about the skill level of the owner. There are lots of older boats with nary a scratch.
 
Sorry Frank, just not true. If your rig doesn't have a blemish on it you are either storing it wherer nothing can get to it, never coming near ANYTHING (boat, person, land, man made object), always stay in the middle of 10 plus foot water and/or are constantly performing various cosmetic repair jobs. My vote is for the last. Just as with a car, or anything else for that gets used for that matter, a ding WILL appear.

To Todd's comment, this line of thinking doe not give you a pass. I don't think that was the intent of the original comment. Simply that if you use it, something will occur.

I am also the proud owner of 2003 Corvette. I take meticulous care of it, garage kept. However, she is not a Garage Queen. She is a daily driver. She is always strategically parked (end of the parking lot). But it doesn't matter. There always seems to be a little blemish that I need to buff out.
 
JuliaValentine said:
Judge the wind and current. Put all your fenders on the leeward side, then switch them later after you are in the slip. There is no way to avoid drifting into my slip neighbor with any wind or current.
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I have not bought fiberglass yet.... But these wonderful things called fenders have assisted me in a couple close quarter situations.... Best advice... Get fenders out and have a mate at the ready with a another fender in hand to place where needed, if it can be done safely. No fiberglass is worth injury or life.... And not just your regular docking fenders, I keep a big ball fender on board too.
 
Boatingfool said:
Scratch free crowd must be fair weather boaters ;) Even the best of us use the rub-rails when its windy or storming. Here is a neat video of docking contest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUiGrWDqGNE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I69eg1P42Dk
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I'm not sure where that contest was held, but I was shocked when I saw those video's. I stayed at the Brielle Yacht club a few years ago in Brielle, NJ. The marina is on the Manasquan river inlet and has a strong current running through it during tide changes. The marina has several multimillion dollar sport fisher’s docked there. (50 to 70 footers)

While I was there, this guy come cruising in to the marina at a very fast pace with a boat that looked exactly like the boats in the video. (A commercial fishing boat, single screw). When I saw how fast he was coming in and realized that it was a single engine boat, I thought, "Oh boy.. this should be interesting". Much to my surprise the guy gets the end of the marina, slams it in reverse, pulls a K-turn and backs it in without touching anything. It was by far the most impressive docking maneuver I ever witnessed. It was just like those videos. I wonder if it was the same guy.


That went under the category of “don’t try this at home”.

This is how I like to dock : -)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8F_GyUBYU&feature=related
 
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