Backing

[Arthur Bricker]

Not new to boating but very new to a trawler. With wind on my bow, I can't back her any where without the bow swinging around. SO, start again and same results. Give up and go in bow first. Is this the curse of a single screw trawler?Archie Bricker REMEDY

 

[Steve]

Read up on backing,docking, using "prop walk" to your advantage and filling, give it a try. A bow thruster is a big help, I have one and use it. Go to a commercial fishing dock
Watch those guys, many will be single engine no thruster, there are good books an articles on the net.
Good luck

 

[Aquafarm]

We have viewed some of these videos from the Maryland school of sailing.
The techniques are the same for single engine trawlers. Loads of good info from them.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCEMS7GT52N5KgxHdPUVv-Ag

 

[DHeckrotte]

I'm new to trawlers, too. But ours is twin engine. Years of experience in sailboats has taught me that there's no dishonor in docking when you've not pasted anything, going into a slip forward or backing. Neither our Morgan 27 nor our LeComte NE 38 had any sort of manners in reverse, neither knew the effects of propwalk, both had relatively high bows a long way from the center of lateral resistance that they'd swing around.

Practice, practice, practice...and ignore the dock lizards.

 

[psneeld]

In many situations where the wind or current is strong enough, whether one screw or two, letting the bow get a tiny bit out of either of the major players and it is tough to recover.

Often single screw, you have to make many small adjustments even just backing 50 feet into a slip.

So the answer really is, no trick , just enough experience and practice to see you are starting to lose it and recover quickly enough.

 

[bayview]

DH: sailboats with separate rudders will back very well. The key is to get some sped then you have all the control you need.

 

[bayview]

In wind or current when backing the bow will want to fall off or down wind. A key is to time and angle your backing to allow that to happen as you line up for the dock.


having some speed is necessary it is impossible to control a stopped boat.
When away from the dock try backing at some speed and see if you can get the bow to follow and see if the rudder has any control when you ease off the power to reduce prop walk.


remember those carnival rides that spun in a circle while you steered with a rudder in front? The same can happen with enough speed and a large enough rudder.

 

[dhays]

Arthur, I sympathize with your plight. I am new to powerboats and after a couple of months I still don't back the boat well at all. My sailboat was easier. As others have said, get to know your boat and how it behaves. In some situations, I am convinced that backing into a slip will simply not be worth it.

 

[psneeld]

Arthur, I sympathize with your plight. I am new to powerboats and after a couple of months I still don't back the boat well at all. My sailboat was easier. As others have said, get to know your boat and how it behaves. In some situations, I am convinced that backing into a slip will simply not be worth it.

Good point....

I don't back in anymore as my boat loads from the side and had a dingy aft that gets used even in marinas. I can back pretty well, but just not a priority anymore.

I don't have a sitting area aft, and if I did, I might still pull in for a bit more privacy.

The best of both worlds is full length floating finger piers on both sides...unfortunately not as common as I would like.

 

[jleonard]

First and foremost...you cannot fight the wind.
So take advantage of it.
You know by the wind which way the bow will go. So, plan ahead and let the wind do that bit of steering for you.
You may have to turn ahead of your slip or after your slip depending on wind direction.
And practice, practice, practice.
And after that practice a little more and you'll be as good as anyone.

 

[O C Diver]

Single screw backing takes an understanding of the mechanics of prop walk, the technique of "back and fill", and practice. More often than not, I find myself backing in a curve, intentionally. This is to take advantage of the prop walk and offset wind and water flow. If you fixate on backing straight in, it will actually be more difficult.

Practice, practice, and practice some more. Practice a couple of times before you go out each day, not at the end of the day when you're ready to quit. Also it's good to practice in slips other than yours so that you will be proficient in other situations. See lots of people that can stick their own slip every time but get in trouble turning the other way when backing into a different slip.

Ted

 

[dhays]

Good point....

I don't back in anymore as my boat loads from the side and had a dingy aft that gets used even in marinas. I can back pretty well, but just not a priority anymore.

I don't have a sitting area aft, and if I did, I might still pull in for a bit more privacy.

The best of both worlds is full length floating finger piers on both sides...unfortunately not as common as I would like.

Very true. I am fortunate that I have fingers on both sides. Plus, the view off the stern out into the harbor and Mt. Rainier in the background can't be beat. So we like to be bow in in our home slip for the view and privacy. It is such a nice location that we will go down to the boat and just enjoy it in place.

 

[Hawgwash]

Good points all around.
Ted sed..."Practice a couple of times before you go out each day, not at the end of the day when you're (tired, cranky and) ready to quit." Great advice for anyone.

Don't know the lay of the land where you are but given that conditions change from day to day, even hour to hour you can never practice too much.

And don't forget you have spring lines for a reason. If applicable to your slip, use them early and often.

 

[Capt.Bill11]

As others have said, practice, get instruction, use spring lines (using a running spring can be very helpful) and use the wind and current as your bow thruster.

 

[tadhana]

Archie, what make model trawler do you have? With practice, practice, practice you will be able to do it. Sailboats are easier to handle in a cross wind because the keel slows the sideways drift and the large rudder steers well even at low speeds. But using short burst of forward thrust you can make the stern move left and or right. Once you have the stern moving to the side you wish it to go, spin the wheel hard to that side and back on it. You may have to back and fill several times to get into the slip. And as others have said there is no shame in going bow in when you need it. Yes I also have a thruster, but since I grew up in boats and never had one, I try not to use it.

 

[DHeckrotte]

Bayview, Adequate speed for backing was my opinion as well; y'gotta' get water flowing past the rudder, and you don't have nearly as much w/o prop wash. Both our sailboats had (still have) big spade rudders. The Morgan 27 sails beautifully, like a big dinghy. The NE 38 sails beautifully, too. However, the NE 38 requires active steering going forward. Neither would back reliably. Interestingly, the NE 38's waterline length is 26', same as the Morgan 27.

Now, our Flying Dutchman, a 20' racing, planing dinghy, is delightfully responsive in either direction.

Happily, with twins, I need not worry too much about the itty-bitty powerboat rudders at low speed forward or reverse.

 

[markpierce]

"I always go backwards when I'm backing up." -- Rooster Cogburn.

I enter forward and exit backward. Mostly use the bow thruster when backing to steer: "back and fill" is tiresome. Have the good fortune of fingers on both sides.

 

[bayview]

DH I had a Catalena with spade rudder. Once you got it moving in reverse you could back that rascal anywhere you wanted . Prop was had nothing to do with it in reverse.

 

[bcam]

DH I had a Catalena with spade rudder. Once you got it moving in reverse you could back that rascal anywhere you wanted . Prop was had nothing to do with it in reverse.

I'll second that. On a return trip from Victoria to Seattle, the wind gave out about No Point. We dropped the sails on our Cat 36 and started motoring. By the time we got north of Kingston, the transmission quit working. So we turned the boat around and motored in reverse the last 12 miles to home. No worries! 5.5 knots is better than dead stop.

 

[BruceK]

You can practise reversing and overcoming forces affecting the boat by approaching a mooring ball/buoy as target, that way there is nothing hard or expensive to hit if it all goes pear shaped. Choose one without a pennant in the water or your propshaft may embrace it. Approach the buoy from a variety of directions to get different effects of tide and wind. In early self training stages,you can do a brief extra practice shortly before docking, to "get your eye in".
You may speed up the whole learning process by getting a handling coach, often you have the skills but have trouble choosing the right one to employ, or putting them together in combination, at close quarters.

 

[FF]

The best thing loads of practice will do is to teach you that there ARE wind speeds and currents that make it very foolish to attempt to back in a slip.

You do not have to perform seppuku if you decide to go bow in.

 

[Conall63]

I learned the basics of backing in using the same youtube video posted above, and just like the others have said practice is everything. I'm for sure a rookie at backing, but it's the only way we go now as it makes getting on/off the boat easier. It's sort of like riding a bike in that once you figure it out.....

Being single screw and with no thruster ( it's in the boat just not connected) I prefer to back to port. Everything is done at idle with my ruder hard over until the boat gets between the piers and we're for sure headed backwards and sort of lined up, then I'll straighten the rudder. The rudder is never touched until a quarter of the boat is between the piers. If the wind is playing a factor, I'll sometimes have to give a kick ahead to get things moving in the correct direction, but 99% of the time, I lay off the throttle.

It took me a while to focus on the fact that the stern of the boat is what's turning which controls the bow. At slow speeds backing, once you straighten the rudder, it has not much effect since the boat's moving so slow, but it does respond. Once the rudder gets straightened, while reversing, point the rudder in the direction you want the stern to go. For us, when we get far enough into the slip we get a bow line on a pier, ( preferably the same side as the finger pier ), and at that point holding her in reverse will bring the stern up against the finger pier, and then we start getting lines where they need to be. Our rule is no jumping to finger piers...have to be close enough to step off.

Every so often all the stars line up and I can get her in on the first try, but I'll for sure abort the attempt and come back around if things are not going smooth enough. I"ll do a standing turn in the fairway to ensure we're going in to port, but sometimes we have to back to starboard, for which because of the prop walk, she's not as easy to massage.

That youtube video was spot on for me in regard as to the fundamentals of this skill, and gave me a good base line for having a mental check list in my mind as I bring the boat down the fairway.... stop the boat...begin turn...put stern quarter on line with pier....forward...reverse....forward...reverse...you get the idea. I will say that I'm a happy captain when we're coming into the harbor with the flags pointing straight down, and my neighbor is standing on the pier with waving to me waiting to catch a line.

Conall

 

[SCOTTEDAVIS]

Good point....



I don't have a sitting area aft, and if I did, I might still pull in for a bit more privacy.

I agree, we like our privacy and have a nice seating area aft so I most often bow in, we board from the sides as well as they are low and covered.

We really like looking down the fairway instead of under the dock and up at the dock walkers in the evening.

Thruster so it's not a matter of easier, just what we do.

 

[Blissboat]

Most power and sailing vessels that I have handled tend to fall-off at the bow when there's any wind. The bow being higher than the rest of the hull, it is exposed to greater force, with correspondingly less underwater mass to dig in. When there's more wind, the bow falls away faster. The most extreme example was a 65' aluminum two-decked sightseeing boat with V-drives, meaning every bit of machinery weight was all the way aft. The bow blew around like a kite if anyone so much as sneezed nearby. In any wind at all, the thing demanded constant vigilance.

As the others here have suggested, the wind and the current are your friends. If you let them, they'll often help you make your boat go where you want it to. Backing the stern close to your intended stopping place, you can attenuate the direction of movement, even with a single with no thruster, by slipping the shifter into forward, putting the rudder hard over in opposite direction that you want the stern to go, and goosing the throttle a few times - not enough to gather headway, just enough to kick the stern sideways. Then center the rudder while shifting back to reverse, and give it enough power to resume sternway for another short distance. Repeat as necessary.

I once had an engine failure on a twin-engined sportfisherman. Due to the dock configuration, it had to be backed into its slip. Naturally, this happened after dark at the end of a long day, and with a fresh breeze on the forward quarter. I did as above, beginning the maneuver slightly upwind of the slip, and treating it as if it was a single-engined boat with feeble running gear. It worked.

As others note, some single-engined power or sail boats can be steered in reverse. That requires gathering enough sternway to get water flowing across the rudder surface. When maneuvering in close quarters, that is rarely an option.

 

[dhays]

Most power and sailing vessels that I have handled tend to fall-off at the bow when there's any wind. The bow being higher than the rest of the hull, it is exposed to greater force, with correspondingly less underwater mass to dig in.

This may be why I have had more difficult with my boat. I am used to the same behavior as you describe. However, I am finding that on a beam wind, the bow isn't falling off like I am used to. If I am facing a quartering headwind, the bow will fall off, but only until the wind is on the beam. With a quartering wind from the stern, the stern will fall off. I am not yet used to it so I don't yet have an instinctual sense of how the boat will respond to the wind.

The other, rather silly, issue is that I am used to sailboats that have wind direction and speed indicators. My boat doesn't. I am also used to steering a sailboat out in the open. In my PH, I not only don't have a wind indicator, I don't feel the wind on my face and neck like I am used to. Again, something that I will get used to, but if I was ever going to commission a new boat, I would definitely have wind speed and direction indicators installed in the pilothouse.

 

[Blissboat]

dhays wrote: "I am also used to steering a sailboat out in the open. In my PH, I not only don't have a wind indicator, I don't feel the wind on my face and neck like I am used to."

Yep, it was similar for me when transitioning from captaining charter sailboats to running a passenger vessel from an enclosed, air-conditioned pilothouse three decks above the water. I quickly learned to read the wave shapes - they are pretty much perpendicular to the wind direction.

Your boat, Kinship, has a nice jackstaff on the bow pulpit. If you fly a pennant there, it'll indicate wind relative direction for you at a glance.

 

[Hawgwash]

Your boat, Kinship, has a nice jackstaff on the bow pulpit. If you fly a pennant there, it'll indicate wind relative direction for you at a glance.

He has one.

 

[dhays]

Your boat, Kinship, has a nice jackstaff on the bow pulpit. If you fly a pennant there, it'll indicate wind relative direction for you at a glance.

True. Oddly enough I have found that with brisk, steady winds I have less of a problem than with the variable winds that I get in my home port. Gig Harbor is a small, steep sided harbor. Very nice and protected. However, I learned to sail here when I was 5. Because of the geography, the wind tends to swirl around, changing direction and speed in seemingly random ways. The burgee on the bow is a bit too low and a bit too stiff to be a good indicator in those conditions. I have thought about adding a yarn tell tale to the top.

 

[Blissboat]

dhays wrote: "The burgee on the bow is a bit too low and a bit too stiff to be a good indicator in those conditions. I have thought about adding a yarn tell tale to the top."

Yep, had a similar problem on a big boat with a stubby little jackstaff and a tiny, stiff pennant. There, I drilled into the top of the jackstaff, threaded in a bolt and attached a strip of orange sailboat "telltale" ribbon with a grommet that allowed the telltale to swivel freely around the bolt. Even on a dark night it was helpful.

You are right to note that this can be unreliable in close quarters, surrounded by buildings or other boats that create shifts and backdrafts. Nothing beats a fifty-foot mast with a Windex at the top!

 

[dhays]

Yep, had a similar problem on a big boat with a stubby little jackstaff and a tiny, stiff pennant. There, I drilled into the top of the jackstaff, threaded in a bolt and attached a strip of orange sailboat "telltale" ribbon with a grommet that allowed the telltale to swivel freely around the bolt. Even on a dark night it was helpful.

That is a great idea....