First Sail, One Captain, no crunch

[Equator]

Finally got the boat in the water, had a great day out. Got to do some sailing and found the boat to be very well behaved, checked out all the systems and there are a few things to tweak, of course.

I'll be paying close attention to ways to make docking easier single handed. The friend that I recruited as deck ape had never been sailing before, he's a car guy and an adherant of the "speed is good" philosophy so I was a bit concerned with his tolerance.

It was only after about two hours sailing at 2-3 knots that he asked "So... if you pull on one of those ropes, will it go faster" ;D

Happy Sailing to all!
Pete

[Cruise]

Glad your first trip was a success.
I stay at anchor and hate docking, but when I do I go by the philosophy 'never approach a dock faster than you are willing to hit it'.

[jmpeltier]

"...make docking easier single handed."  I think you made the right choice of words there..."easier" vs "easy".  Of course it all depends on how your boat handles.  And mine doesn't make it easy.  Coming back into the slip I always have long warping (spring) lines on each side of the boat ready to throw around pilings, cleats, other boats, girls on the decks of other boats, whatever I need to in order to get things under control when I'm by myself in a tricky wind or current, and clean it all up once in place.  Balance that out with a clean deck so I don't trip and fall in the drink while sprinting between the bow and my engine controls. I do agree that slow is better, but speed is also life in some situations!
Enjoy it!

[John Bailey]

I single handed a lot when I had my Alberg 30.  I kept it at a dock, so I got pretty good at docking by myself.

I always put a couple of fenders  in the middle of the docking side.  Then, I would run both a bow and stern line to the middle also.  I always came into the dock at a slight angle so my last move was to turn the stern towards the dock.  At that point I wanted to be going as slow as possible to allow me to leave the tiller and go to the lines to control the boat.  Of course, you had to be going very slow and be coasting in neutral to be able to accomplish this.

The only problem came when you had a strong wind pushing you away from the dock.  The timing became more critical, but the process was the same.

I've always noticed the folks that were the best at this went very slowly.

John

John

[CharlieJ]

Pretty much what I do. Key word is slowly ;)

I run the bow and stern lines to just at the aft edge of the cabin which is an easy place to step off from.

[Equator]

Thanks for the tips, I've been making progress.

I got a new motor which should marginally increase my manouverability. I've also gotten better at line handling.

Practice, practice, practice... I'll just have to do much more sailing!

[Captain Smollett]

Pretty much what I do. Key word is slowly ;)

I run the bow and stern lines to just at the aft edge of the cabin which is an easy place to step off from.

Ditto.  Generally, that's how I dock.  Also, I have a rule on board "no jumping."  It galls me to see people jump from boat to dock...that simply strikes me as "out of control," and I perceive it as being very dangerous (a simple slip while jumping puts one in the water between boat and dock...not good).

A midship cleat is VERY handy for single handed (other other) docking.

Another trick I've often used, at least on smaller boats, is run a continuous line from bow to stern cleats with a fair amount of slack.  Upon SLOWLY approaching the dock, simply lay the loop of line over a cleat.  This will hold the boat well enough while other "regular" docklines are secured.\

I used this one to great effect one time approaching a very bouncy floating dock in very choppy conditions on a Colorado lake (on a motorboat) a few years ago.  We tried to dock several times and things were just too boisterous...with the dock and boat lift, pitch and roll out of phase with those of the dock.

Finally, I secured the lines into a "loop," approached the dock, looped it over the cleat to simply keep the boat "in the area" of the dock while I stepped to the dock with the lines in hand.  It was a tricky docking maneuver with a cross wind (and another boat nearby), but this method worked like a charm.

I've since used it numerous times in less demanding conditions. 

Worth a try as simply "another tool in the toolbox."  The single loop acts in effect like a pair of spring lines you get with one simple maneuver.