Reading all the comments makes me bring up another aspect.
Not every time will you have a 'recipient' to catch your lines. This points out the difference in how lines are 'thrown'.
There are two parts to using throwing lines.
The first part is when you have to 'reach out' to the dock to get a line ashore, on the dock, or to another boat (or person). This is learned most importantly by practice. Aiming a line where you 'want it' to go is learned only through practice.
The mentioned monkey fist increases range, but immobilizes the ability of the end of the line to 'miraculously' find it's way onto, around or over a cleat, bit, bollard or post on a dock.
Weight on the end of an eye actually closes the eye as its' thrown. (Thus removing the ability of the eye to catch an object)
As Wayfarer mentioned; the eyes of a true 'throwing line' have to be quite large to fit over dockside fixtures.
The second part of line throwing is learning the art of throwing an eye on a dock cleat, a bitt or a post.
One of the differences between commercial and yachting use is that yachts generally make the line fast onboard, and toss the bitter end to the dock hoping someone ashore will make the line fast (and the calamity ensues) as lines come tight and the boat springs into the dock uncontrolled.
The way commercial vessels use lines is to get the line made fast to the shore and the line is tended onboard.
This brings up the method of how to get a line onto a fixture on the dock. The typical yacht docklines are pitifully small eyed. Every dockline I have seen that is sold in yacht stores is made about with about a 12" eye. This is way too small to be useful to throw onto anything ashore. On yachts, a 24, or 36" eye is necessary to use the throw a line over a shoreside fixture. The practice is what is needed to make it happen.
There is an alternative to being able to throw an eye on a bitt ashore, it is to throw a bight of line over a bitt. It is formidable to learn, but actually easier to accomplish with practice. Here is a video From Youtube to show the concept.
Without going too far into detail, leaving one eye on the boats cleat, tossing a multiple loop of line over a dock fastening leaves you with the bitter end in your hand to pull up the slack and make fast as needed. It gives you a larger loop tossed to increase the chance of getting a ringer to use.
And NO. The idea of putting the bitter end under your foot is certain to make you repeat this a couple times until you actually make it fast prior to throwing!!
Unlike the previously posted video, this bight method uses both hands to toss equal parts of line (thus extending the reach) out and over the dock to get a first line.
