Ferrying Docking Technique

Ferrying is a technique whereby you can maneuver your boat in high wind and current easily. Effectively you make the boat go sideways while pointing into the wind or current.

You’ve probably done this yourself when swimming across a river. You swim mostly upstream but angle your body slightly sideways by an amount proportional to the flow of the river.

As you cross the river, you adjust your angle depending on how you are making it to your target landing area. This adjustment is called Opening and Closing the Maneuver. i.e. you open the angle by swimming more upstream and you close the angle by swimming more across stream.

Play the animation below. This shows how to make your boat go sideways to the wind using the wind as your friend and a combination of power and rudder to keep a balance.

It takes time to get into a slot but, given practice, you make yourself look like a real professional.

Here is a video of using this technique in our virtual reality course.

Exercise D1 – Experiencing Ferrying:

On a windy day, set up so that you are facing into the wind and a mooring ball is directly across the wind from you perhaps 50 yards (~ 50 meters) off your beam.  Use a combination of forward gear/neutral and the rudder to angle the boat every so slightly off the wind. Allow the wind to push the bow downwind a little, then gain back the ground and straighten the boat back upwind with the rudder and forward gear. Find an equilibrium state where the boat is going directly sideways towards the mooring ball with your angle slightly off the wind.

What You Learned

After some finesse, you ease between forward and neutral with minimal turn on the rudder. The boat goes sideways.