How To Dock a Single Engine Boat

[Music] what is going on everyone nickol ly here and today we're on the 23 Albury as you can see beautiful boat yall haven't seen the reveal of everything we've done to it yet so don't look too hard but that's a video for another day today we're out here talking about how to properly dock a single engine outboard boat about a year ago I made the same video about how to dock a big center console and that was with our Bahama 41 with quad engines on it and that's a whole different animal that requires not a whole different skill set but a much more refined skill set to control that boat properly and so this video is more for the people with the smaller uh center consoles the single engine center consoles because in some ways a single engine center console it's a little bit more difficult to completely control your boat than a multi-engine center console and so we're going to go over all that today but the first thing we're going to talk about is how the boat responds to different inputs you know when you turn the boat to port and put it in forward and reverse and starboard and forward and reverse and so without further Ado let's go ahead and get on into it and really quick before we start and I don't do this too much but if you like these boating videos I make and all the Bahamas content I make please subscribe to the channel it really does help me continue to make these videos and lets me know that you guys are enjoying this content liking the video also helps and then of course Down Below in the comment section section just comment what videos y'all want to see whether it be more Bahamas Vlog stuff or information about the Bahamas or more boating how-tos and how to do this and how to do that I am making these videos for you guys and so please let me know what you want to see but enough of that let's make the video all right and so when I made this video for the bigger center consoles I mentioned that there were two ways to control the movement of your boat on that boat you can either one turn the steering wheel and give it throttle and forward or reverse or two you can move the two throttle separately you know move your two on that boat the two Port engines and forward the two starboard engines in Reverse to spin the boat or vice versa obviously on a single engine center console you lose that entire um method of controlling the boat you only have your steering wheel to turn and your throttle to go forward and reverse and so obviously you know it goes without saying that if your boat needs to go forward you put the motor in a straight line put it in forward if it needs to go reverse you put it in reverse that goes without saying that's simple everyone knows that what gets more is how to maneuver your boat into tight spaces how to turn your boat if you need to bring your Stern over or your bow over or both or bring your entire boat sideways that's when it gets a little bit tricky and so the first thing I'm going to say and this is the same thing I mentioned the other video too if I turn my wheel hard to Port my wheel's over and I give it throttle you'll see yes the bowel is going to move over to the port side very simple what what many people um neglect to realize when this happens is when you do this yes your bows moving to the port but your Stern is also kicking out to the outside a little bit because the center of rotation when you do that it's not back there in the motor it's used usually somewhere around the helm right here every boat is different um just kind of takes getting used to the boat and but I say that because if you're you know side to a dock directly next to the dock and you need to you know turn to the to the starboard side to get out and you just turn the M of starboard and hit it and forward your bow would want to go to the starboard side but it's not going to be able to because the minute you do that it's going to be shoving this corner of the boat straight into the dock and so that's not a feasible way to um to get out of that situation and so you just need to be the the the whole moral of what I said there was you need to be aware of the entire boat and how the entire boat is going to react to your inputs so if you turn the boat to port and put it in forward yes your bow is going to go over to the port side but your Stern is also going to kick out to the starboard side a little bit if you turn the boat all the way to the starboard side and put it in forward yes your bow is going to go towards the starboard side but this corner of your Stern is also going to kick out to the port side a little bit and so you know it's it's something that comes relatively naturally once you get the hang of it and do it a couple times but new boers really need to keep an eye on that because if if if you're not careful and you don't know what you're doing you get hit another boat hit the dock hurt your boat hurt someone else's boat you know and in the worst case scenario if everything does hit the fan you know hurt someone and so that's not what you know anybody wants and so know how your boat is going to react when you turn and put the throttle in forward here is an example of exactly what I was talking about you can see here that I'm turning the motor hard all the way to port and when I put it in gear here you can see that the bow of the boat wants to go off to the port side and wants to turn the boat left however that same turning motion is also pushing the stern of the boat into the dock and that pressure it's keeping the bowel from going off to the port side and the boat just tracks straight along the dock rubbing every piling along the way it clearly does not work okay so we just went over what happens when you you know turn the boat to port or starbard it and put it in forward now we're going to talk about what happens when you put it in reverse and this one it's a little more simple than you know forward if I turn the boat all the way to Port you can see the motor is facing that way when I put it in reverse your motor is pulling the boat that way and so it's pull if the boat turn to the port side your motor is pulling the boat towards that port side you know and of course vice versa turn it all the way to starboard put it in reverse your motor is pulling the boat this way and so whatever motor whatever way your motor's turned it's pulling the boat that way and when I say pulling the boat I don't mean the entire boat it's pulling the stern so you know your entire boat is not going to move you know to the port side or to the to the to the sarbo side basically if this is your boat right here you know the back of my hand is the um the motor if it's turn to starboard side your boat's going to turn like this with your Stern kicking or leading towards the direction that your motor is pushing towards and so and I would just mention in when you put it in forward how when you put it in like port forward you know your bow goes to the port your starboard side kicks out to the starboard side when the boats in Reverse it doesn't quite work the same way I don't know the physics of it someone else can um chime in the comments below and you know let us know why it's not as big when it's in Reverse but basically like this when I had the boat fully oops there it is fully to the starboard side and put it in reverse OB your Stern is going to lead going out to this side but for whatever reason your bow does not really kick out much to the port side at all you know you can be directly side to a dock touching a dock on most boats and do that turn your motor all the way out hit reverse and your boats is kind of going to kind of go in reverse out you're not really going to be pinned up against the dock like you would if you tried you know to turn away from the dock and hit forward um and that's hard for me to explain so I'm going to go ahead and get the Drone out and pin myself up to a dock right here and illustrate exactly what I'm talking about because I feel like I'm not doing a great job doing it telling youall but let me get the Drone and put it on the dock here here is an example of what I was talking about you can see that the motor is turned hard to the port side and as I put it in reverse the stern kind of leads the entire boat just swinging out to the port side and the bow doesn't kick out to the starboard side whatsoever it didn't even hit the dock when I was doing this and like I said I don't know the physics of behind why it's a little bit different in Reverse but it is and it's something to knowe all right so I hope that little drone video helped yall better understand kind of what I was talking about with how the boat reacts differently when you turn the same direction but going forward and AP and so that's pretty much Su just you know with a with a single engine boat that's the only way you can control the boat steering wheel and throttle so you have to master how your boat feels with all of those Maneuvers because at the end of the day docking is all about knowing how your boat is going to react to different inputs and knowing what inputs use at the right time to get it perfectly parallel to the dock and so now that we've gone over that I'm going to head back in the canal because there's actually two boats at our dock right now which means it's a little bit of a tight docking um docking space which is good for the benefit of this video so let me head back into the canal to the dock where all of my boats are it's my grandparents Dock and I'll pick up there and actually go into how to properly dock the boat all right so we're back in the canal now and you can see we have a little bit of a tight spot we have a sailboat here that's my uncle's girlfriend sailboat and the Bahama on the lift there and between the two we probably have 1 2 3 4 40ish feet to dock so plenty of room but definitely a little bit of a tight fit getting in there and so the first thing to talk about is the angle at which you want to attack the dock I'm going to illustrate the improper way to do it now and let me be very clear that someone who's very skilled as a captain um can handle these situations of coming at the dock at way too sharp of an angle like this yes they're still going to be able to dock but when you're learning when you're early on that's not best practice and so you want to be coming to the dock somewhere around at a 45° angle that's going to give you the the the the easiest opportunity to get your boat parallel in the part of the dock where you want your boat where you absolutely do not want is to do what I'm going to do right now to show y'all is all right let me turn turn turn all right so many people I see who are new boers they assume oh I need to go towards the dock and so they do this and head straight towards the dock this is not a good way to do it if you don't have to now I will admit there are some situations where you have to do that it's the only way where you're going to get the boat where you needed to go but in general when you're learning do not approach the dock at a 90° angle like that it's going to make your life a whole lot more difficult you then have to spin the boat 90° to get it parallel to the dock whereas if you come at the dock at roughly a 45° angle all you have to do is spin the boat 45° and you're parallel at the dock and a vast majority like 95% of all the docks you're ever going to dock at are going to give you the opportunity to approach it from somewhere around a 45° angle and so enough of me yapping I'm going to go ahead and do a full actual docking right now and talk yall through exactly what I'm doing um cuz it's easier for you all to see it rather than me try to explain this so let's do that and one thing I want to do real quick before we actually leave the dock and get into the docking is quickly walk you guys through the theory of what should be happening and so we just talked about how the boat's going to react and spin with different inputs you know forward reverse P forward reverse um starboard and so your theory is you want to be coming at the dock at an angle and then when you get close enough to the dock you want to use your knowledge that those inputs and how your boat's going to react to spin the boat to where the boat is parallel with the dock and ideally you want to do this so by the time the boat's parallel you're a foot or two maybe three off of the dock you're close enough where someone can grab a dock line where someone can grab the dock and um or and something too to note too is because you're coming at the dock when you're making yourself parallel your boat has momentum going into the dock so if you make it so your boat's parallel to the you know 3 ft before you reach the dock chances are if there's not a strong wind off the dock or anything your momentum is going to push your boat nice and softly into the dock and you're going to be just fine um and so that's the theory come at it at an angle and then start rotating your boat with the skills and way that I just went into at the beginning of this video and one thing to note is when you're doing that is when you're going to rotate the boat you know cuz you can rotate the boat in two different ways and have the same result whether it be you know forward Port reverse staro all that stuff it just takes a little bit of playing with it cuz if you're you know we have a 40ft slip here so there are times when I need the you know the bowel to go to the port side where it makes more sense for me to turn the wheel hard to port and hit forward but there was also times when it makes more sense to turn the wheel hard to starboard and hit reverse that's just something that is in your skill of where you are on the dock sorry I got I got cut short there but basically you're going to use the the different methods depending on if you need to go a little bit further down the dock or a little bit back that way on the dock it just depends you have to get a Fel for it but that's the theory let's get into the actual docking part of it now and something real quick that I want to interject of this video right before I actually docked the boat for the first time for y'all is speed when you're docking is usually not your best friend the old saying goes never go faster than you're willing to hit the dock and that is 100% true so you know take take your time there's no need to rush it you know at the end of the day if it takes you an extra 30 seconds who cares you know 30 seconds isn't going to kill you um and yeah there are a couple situations you know if you're in super super windy conditions well yes you are going to want a little bit of speed to keep some momentum but in the vast majority of situations speed is not your friend take it slow take it easy that way if you do hit the dock it's really not a big deal at all but let's get into actual full docking all right so as you can see I'm approaching the dock in between the sailboat and the lift here and because my bowel is going to be going towards the Bahama on the lift initially I'm going to keep the boat a little bit closer to that sailboat and as I approach the dock I'm just going to be bumping the throttle between forward and neutral that way I don't have too much momentum coming into the dock here and so you can see I'm coming at a pretty steep angle but as I get closer to the dock I'm going to turn to shallow up the angle and bring my boat a little bit more towards parallel and so what you basically want to do when docking like this is you want to come at a super shallow angle and get your bow pretty close to the dock because once you do that you can kick the boat in reverse and turn the wheel in this situation all the way to starboard and this is kind of going to bring the boat nicely over to the do so you can see I'm coming you can see how close I'm going to get my bow over here right about now I'm turning all the way to starboard and kicking it in reverse that's going to start to rotate the boat like I talked about and so just kicking it in and out of gear in Reverse you can see it's rotating the stern over I don't want it to go that much so turn it to starboard put it in reverse and just like that we're on the dock it's going to be easier for you guys to see this whole procedure with the bird's ey so I'm going to get the Drone up to where you can see how the boat is reacting and exactly what I'm doing and I'm also going to put the GoPro on my chest facing the controls that way and put them side by side that way you can see synchronized what I'm doing and how the boat's reacting to it I think that would be the best way to really show you guys what's going on and so let's get to some docking looking at the little screen you can see that I'm bumping the boat in and out of gear to control my speed just like I mentioned earlier in this video but as I approach approach the dock I'm going to turn the boat hard to Port while in gear and this is going to start the rotation of the boat so I'm more parallel to the dock and once I get close enough you're going to see me turn hard to starboard and kick it in reverse and what that's going to do is going to continue my rotation but kill all the forward momentum and you can see I over rotated a little bit so I brought it back to the port side hit reverse and what that does it kills all my rotation and also kills my forward progress and once I'm here I just brought it back a little bit to the starboard side hit reverse and and that pretty much brought the boat straight into the dock I'm going to show another attempt from this angle just so that I can really drive home the point of exactly what's going on I'm approaching the dock at a fairly sharp angle and as I get as I get closer I'm starting to turn the boat to the port side to start that rotation of the boat to get it more parallel to the dock here you can see me turning to port and giving it some gas getting that rotation going once I get close here I'm turning the boat over to the starboard side and kicking it in reverse just to stop my forward momentum while keeping that rotation going and you can see here bringing it back a little bit to the port side hitting reverse killing all that rotational momentum and also all that forward momentum and I'm perfectly at the dock here is another view for you guys you can see as I'm approaching the dock I've started my rotation to become more parallel to the dock and as I get closer I bring it hard over to the staro side and kick it into reverse this kills all my forward momentum but keeps my rotational momentum going to rotate that boat parallel to the dock and once I get it pretty much where I want it you're going to see me here turn the boat back to the port side a little bit give it a shot or reverse that's going to kill all rotational momentum and just let the sideways momentum take the boat into the dock here is one more view just to really drive home the point and as I get close to the dock here I'm turning hard to the port side to start the rotation of the boat and once I'm starting to get closer here I'm going to turn it over to the starboard side and hit reverse to kill that Ford momentum but keep that rotation going and you can see I'm not turning hard to the starboard side I'm doing it just a little bit just to manage that rotation and as I get close to parallel to the dock I'm just kind of working port and starboard and the forward and reverse throttle just a little bit to make sure the boat ends up exactly where I want it and just like that we're at the dock and so so you guys just saw me dock a bunch of times drone angles me down here on the boat as you can see it's not that hard once you get the hang of it it almost becomes second nature oh I need to get the boat there and your mind is instantly knows what to do you really don't have to think about it too much and you know there are obviously some people who are going to have to work a little bit harder than others you know some people controlling Machinery just comes easier but um it's not that hard and I hope that was helpful and now before we you know sign off the video video I do want to go into one last thing and that's with getting off the dock remember earlier in the video I mentioned how when you put the boat in reverse and you're turned one way typically the bow doesn't go out the other way and that's a generalization sometimes it will depending on the boat the situation the wind all that stuff but in this situation here you can see I clearly have a boat ahead of me I clearly have the sailboat behind me the easiest way for me to get out of this situation is to completely absolutely do not attempt to go forward out of the situation I'm simply going to turn the wheel so the motor is away from the dock and hit reverse and you'll see you know the bowel is just going to spin out not even touch the dock and we're just going to leave the the area and so it's super super easy that's just a little hint on getting the boat out of tight spots like this and so that's about it for this video I try to keep it as brief into the point as possible again and if this was even remotely helpful and you like these kind of videos or the Bahamas content I post any of it please subscribe to the channel it really does help me like the video that helps me as well and then of course comment what you guys want to see down below what how-to videos you want to see what Adventures you want to see please comment all of that it helps me big time but that's about that's about it I'll see you guys in the next one n [Music]

Channel: Nick Olinde

Views: 20,989

Keywords: boat, boats, boating, yacht, yachts, yachting, how to, how to boat, how to drive a boat, how to dock a boat, how to dock, docking, docking a boat, center console, outboard boat, outboard powered boat, 23 albury, albury 23, 23 albury brothers, albury brothers 23, albury brothers, driving a boat, boat safety, small boat, small center console, single engine boat, single engine center console, how to captain a boat, boating how to, yamaha outboard, boating instruction

Id: puBhEy1xu2E

Length: 21min 11sec (1271 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024