After spending most of my life around marinas, I’ve learned something interesting. Some boaters don’t know what they don’t know.
The worst docking screw-ups are not always the ones that end with bent rails, gouged gelcoat, or raised voices.
Sometimes the biggest screw-ups end with everyone smiling, congratulating each other, and saying: “Nice job!”
This is one of those stories.
Every word is true. Nothing has been exaggerated. In fact, if I hadn’t watched it myself from across the harbour, I probably wouldn’t have believed it.
The Scene
A visiting crew had arrived for a local fish derby in a 31-foot Sedan Flybridge with twin inboards and a full enclosure. A capable boat. A boat that should have slipped into the dock with very little drama.
The captain and his fishing buddy were returning from a day on the water. Waiting at the dock were their wives, eager to see how many fish had been caught.
Everyone involved appeared to be in their 60s or 70s. Old enough to know a thing or two about boating. Or so I thought. I didn’t know what they don’t know.
The captain approached his slip at a reasonable speed and angle. So far, so good. His fishing buddy stood on the side deck holding onto the bridge railing. No dock line. No assigned task. Just standing there.
The captain’s wife stood at the end of the finger dock and began issuing instructions. “You’re coming in too fast! Slow down!”
The captain responded immediately. A little too immediately.
He pulled both shifts into reverse and added throttle. Forward motion disappeared. So did control.
With no momentum left, the light wind took over and began pushing the boat sideways away from the dock and toward the slip-neighbour’s boat. Mother Nature was now in control.
The Show Begins
Trying to recover, the captain turned the wheel and shifted back into forward. Unfortunately, the bow is now headed directly toward the spot where his wife was standing, where the finger dock connects to the main walkway.
The Captain’s wife yelled at the buddy. “Get up to the bow and throw me the bow line”. The line was still piled in a tangled heap from their departure earlier in the day.
The buddy grabbed the mess and threw it. The tangled line landed exactly where most tangled lines land. In the water, short of the dock and the fuming wife.
The soggy wet line was hauled back aboard, loosely recoiled, and thrown again. This time, she caught the wet lump.
She immediately handed the line to the fishing buddy’s wife, who began walking toward a cleat. The captain shouted: “Tie it! Tie it to the cleat!”
She did her best. Unfortunately, her cleat hitch had all the holding power of a wet noodle.
When the captain reversed against it, the line simply unwound itself and fell back into the water. Back to square one.
The line was retrieved again by the buddy. Thrown again. Caught again. Tied again. Eventually, enough wraps were piled onto the cleat that the line held. Unfortunately, it was tied too short.
When the captain reversed against it, the forward section of the boat jammed hard against the dock, while the stern remained stubbornly away from the dock.
The boat was now secured in exactly the wrong position.
Improvisation Takes Over
The captain’s wife grabbed a fender line and began pulling. She instructed the buddy’s wife to loosen the bow line. One fender line at a time, she worked her way aft, physically pulling the boat toward the dock.
Meanwhile, the fishing buddy remained largely decorative. Realizing the stern still wasn’t secured, the captain’s wife ordered him to go aft and retrieve the stern line.
That proved challenging, because the stern line was tangled together with fishing gear, the dog leash, stern rails, and assorted cockpit clutter.
While he untangled the growing knot collection, the captain’s wife continued holding the boat alongside using the last available fender line.
Then came my favourite part.
The captain shut off both engines. The docking operation was still underway. But apparently, the Captain had declared the driving portion complete.
Eventually, the stern line was passed ashore. The bow line was adjusted. Everything was re-tied. The boat finally alongside the finger dock.
The entire process took roughly twenty minutes.
The whole crew congratulated each other on a successful docking.
From my observation point across the fairway, I simply shook my head.
They don’t know what they don’t know.
More Helpers Don’t Fix Bad Docking
The next afternoon, I looked down the fairway and immediately spotted the same Sedan Flybridge returning from another day of fishing.
I smiled. Not because I wanted them to fail. Because I was curious.
Had they learned from yesterday’s adventure?
As it turned out, they had made one major change. Yesterday, they had two female dock helpers. Today they had four. The bossy Captain’s wife had commandeered four muscular guys from along the dock to help her husband dock the boat.
Unfortunately, they still didn’t have a docking plan.
As the captain approached his slip, the four muscular volunteer dock helpers lined the finger dock in what appeared to be a coordinated rescue operation. The captain again approached at a reasonable speed and angle.
The first helper grabbed the bow rail and pulled the boat toward the finger dock. Then he handed it off to the second helper, who handed it off to the third, who then handed it off to the fourth.
The boat was being docked like a relay race—hand over hand.
Meanwhile, the captain’s wife grabbed the bow line and tied it off too short. The stern remained out of reach, again.
And what was the fishing buddy doing through all of this? Standing in the cockpit holding the boat hook. Like a statue. Apparently, guarding it against theft.
The helper nearest the stern needed the stern line but couldn’t reach it. Why? Because it was once again lying in a tangled heap on the cockpit sole.
He finally had to ask Boat Hook Buddy to leave his observation post and hand him the line.
The stern helper then discovered he couldn’t pull the stern alongside the dock, because the bow line had once again been tied too short. No matter how hard he pulled on the stern line, he couldn’t bend the boat.
He asked the captain’s wife to release some slack. Only then could the stern be pulled to the dock.
Eventually the boat was secured. The captain climbed down from the flybridge.
The dock helpers patted him on the back saying:
- “Good job.”
- “Nice docking.”
- “Well done.”
Everyone seemed pleased with the operation. Except perhaps the boat.
The Real Lesson
The interesting part isn’t how poorly these dockings were executed. The interesting part is that every problem was completely preventable.
- A short crew briefing before entering the marina.
- Properly prepared dock lines.
- Assigned crew responsibilities.
- An understanding of how twin inboards respond to wheel, shifts, and throttles.
- A basic understanding of wind.
- And both dockings would have looked effortless.
- The boat wasn’t the problem.
- The dock wasn’t the problem.
- The wind wasn’t the problem.
They don’t know what they don’t know
Knowledge was the missing piece.
What amazes me is that people willingly take lessons for golf, tennis, skiing, pickleball, and just about every other recreational activity. Yet many spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a boat and never take docking lessons.
When lessons are suggested, the common replies are:
- “We’re doing fine.”
- “This is the way we’ve always done it.”
- “We don’t need lessons.”
The challenge is that if you’ve never been shown a better way, it’s hard to know one exists.
From across the fairway, I watched two days of effort, frustration, confusion, and unnecessary work.
What I saw wasn’t a bad captain.
What I saw was a captain and crew who simply don’t know what they don’t know.
And that’s exactly why our docking lessons exist.
We wrote docking lessons specifically for each drive system with an instructional Video.
