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Old 07-22-2015, 10:06 PM   #51
BDofMSP
Guru
 
City: Bayfield, WI
Vessel Name: Gopher Broke
Vessel Model: Silverton 410 Sport Bridge
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 904
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawgwash View Post


It will be fun to see how it went and just how far you actually got in 8 days. And of course what happened before-during-after the Harvey Wharf Banger episode and the multitude of lessons learned in that 15 minutes.
To start I feel like I should add a little color to the docking experience. My wife has a very real and rationed anxiety about driving (actually about crashing) big expensive boats. However, she has always insisted that she learn and participate fully, and she has done admirably. In fact, that afternoon our skipper had given us all kudos for our performance with twin engines, but specifically mentioned that she was doing the best.

The whole day long the shifting on the portside had gotten stickier and harder, and I had already told the skipper that we wouldn’t be taking the boat until they did something about that. As I previously mentioned, we had all made it through the full day of docking and maneuvering training, and (of course) my wife was the last one. It was a tough one, with a tight slip and wind blowing you onto the dock but she had it nailed. All she needed to do was reverse to stop the boat and I was ready to step off and cleat it. But instead one engine remained in gear as the cable broke , and we drove straight into the dock. There was definitely some damage to the dock but the boat was okay, and thankfully nobody was injured. She was horribly shaken though and honestly I thought it might be the end of the trip as her very worst fears had just been realized.

We had plenty of time to process the incident as we waited for repairs to come. After a couple hours she acknowledged that it could have been any of us at the helm, and that she had done nothing other than follow the instructions of the skipper. To her credit she backed the boat out after it was repaired and took us back to the charter base.

One good thing that came of this event was that we had time at Cap Sante while we waited for repairs, and there was a Nordic Tug rendezvous that weekend. While walking around admiring the boats, my strategically purchased Trawler Forum t-shirt worked its magic! A nice young man noticed and asked me what my Forum ID was. I was lucky enough to make introduction with forum member Retriever, who is a Waggoner Guide editor! He was at the dock preparing for leading a flotilla up to Alaska, and he was busy making preparations. It was a very nice meeting, and he was a very impressive fellow – I was pleased to have met him.

We had favorable conditions and made Friday Harbor about an hour before sunset. We made fast in our slip without consequence, and celebrated the beginning of what we hoped to be a wonderful adventure . If we only had known how wonderful it would be! I’ll share more details about the other days but I promise to not blather on so long anymore.
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