Leaving a tight berth in a long-keeled yacht: three options

What happened

In this month's reader question, Yachting Monthly puts a puzzle to its resident expert, Rachael Sprot. Annie and Fred are in Tréguier aboard their Vancouver 38, Gallant, and want to leave for Lézardrieux, 20 miles to the east. They would like to catch the flood tide, but first they have to get off the berth.

The marina makes that hard. According to the article, the tide runs hard through it, and the harbourmaster has advised leaving at high or low water when it is slack. At low water there is only a narrow deep-water channel alongside the marina, with a steep, unmarked mudbank a boat length or so beyond the pontoons. A catamaran moored on the outside of the upstream hammerhead narrows the channel further.

Gallant has a long keel and backs strongly to starboard. She is moored starboard side-to on a short finger berth, bows in, with a large, wide-sterned yacht beside her. A northwesterly breeze funnelling upriver is enough to affect the manoeuvre.

What it means for you

Sprot calls it a tricky dilemma with no clear solution. Her first step is simple: find out whether the adjacent boat is moving, because if it leaves first, things get much easier. If not, she sets out three options.

Option A is to turn the boat within the pen and drive out forwards. With a large, wide-sterned yacht alongside and prop-walk pulling the other way, reversing into the pen is tricky. Sprot says a long midships or stern line on the port side, probably led to the stern of the adjacent yacht with permission, would be needed. It is paid out as the boat reverses and held briefly once the bow is clear, so the stern holds while the bow swings. She adds that good fendering is needed on the port bow and shoulder, and that the downside of long warps is the risk of a snag.

Option B is to reverse out and let the boat follow the prop-walk. Sprot calls it the simpler option, but says it will be hard to turn the bow up into the wind after leaving the pontoons, because the northwesterly and the prop-walk both work against the turn. Many long keelers will not overcome prop-walk enough to follow their rudders, and there is a risk of being blown onto the catamaran.

Option C is to reverse all the way out until there is room to turn. With the wind from the northern sector the boat would reverse out more naturally, but they might have to go a long way astern before finding space.

Many separate factors are in play: tide state, wind direction, prop-walk, the depth beyond the pontoons and other boats. Sprot also says that even in a well-behaved fin-keeler she would favour high water for this manoeuvre, since it is unclear how much deep water lies beyond the pontoons. Good skippering here is mostly planning before any line is let go.

Where Sail Academy fits

Sail Academy is a theory course, not a substitute for practical training on the water. It does cover all 18 modules of the RYA Day Skipper theory syllabus, with a film for each, three boat-handling simulators and a mock exam.

A scenario like Gallant's is a useful one to think through. Before you open the simulators, write down the tide, the wind and which way your boat's prop-walk pulls, then decide which of Sprot's three options you would try and why. You can then test that thinking against the theory, and practise on the water.