How To Dock in Wind or Current

Here some great advice from Skipper Tips about how to dock safely even when there’s a strong wind or current. Take heed:

Imagine you need to dock your boat in a strong, gusty wind between two other boats. The wind is blowing from ahead of your bow and parallel to the pier. How can you make this docking challenge easier? Follow these five easy steps.

Stop into any marina on a weekend and you’re bound to see several great and not-so-great docking approaches. The best approaches are never about speed or quickness, but about command and control. Keep your bow as close to the dominant element for as long as possible. This puts YOU in the driver’s seat.

Out of all the docking maneuvers we performed in the US Coast Guard, I believe at least 25% of those required us to squeeze between two other vessels with wind or current from ahead. We often turned to the crabbing approach because it provides positive control. Use this boat docking technique when you need to:

Retrieve an object in the water when short- or singlehanded.
Slide across the wind or current down a slipway under control.
Dock between two boats with the wind or current from ahead.
Dock between two boats with the wind or current from astern.
Pick up a mooring buoy under sail in wind and current.

Practice the steps below to learn what it takes to get your boat to crab under control. Our goal will be to do everything from the cockpit as if we are singlehanded. In this exercise, we will concentrate on the first bullet point above.

1. Deploy a life ring over the side or make up a float from a milk container, Clorox bottle or similar jug. Tie a long light line to the bottom of your container with a heavy shackle or short length of chain on the opposite end. Toss it over the side.

2. Maneuver your boat into a position with her bow into the wind, about three to four boat lengths to one side of the object. Align the boat so that your sightline to the object looks like the dashed line above. When ready, fall off the wind just a slight bit to angle the bow toward the object (far left boat in the illustration).

3. Turn the wheel hard toward the elements. Hold the wheel in this position throughout the maneuver. This allows you to concentrate on keeping the boat aligned to the object.

4. Use short bursts of ahead propulsion as often as necessary to maintain a consistent bow angle. Note how we keep our bow in the same relative position as we drift across the wind to the object.

5. Come alongside, straighten the bow into the wind and hold your position. Repeat the exercise, but this time, crab AWAY FROM the float (lighter gray boat in the illustration). Use all the techniques described earlier.