Maneuvering in Forward

Maneuvering isn’t just about jamming the gear in forward and going. There are a lot of considerations. One of the biggest mistakes early on that you will make is mistaking that the boat dives like a car. In a car the turning wheels are at the front of the car and thus the rear follows the wheels. Conversely, in a boat the drive units and steering are at the aft. This makes the stern of the boat swing wider than you expect.

See this animation and watch the stern. If this was a car (on land) there would not have been a problem. 

But for now, since we are out in open water away from the dock, lets just start with doing some donuts.

Exercise T1 – Donuts:

Position the boat abeam of a buoy and about half a boat length away. Check for traffic! Now put the wheel hard over and do 5 donuts around the buoy at 2500 rpm. Yipee!

What you learned

You’ll see that the boat turns in an extremely tight circle, not much larger than the length of the boat. You’ll see that on a windy day, the track of the boat is not affected by the wind. Now do the same at 1000 rpm. Especially on a windy day, you’ll notice that the circle diameter is larger and you have much less turning control.

Note

Water flowing past the rudder gives you control of the boat. The more water flow, the more control. When the prop is pushing water over the rudder, the effect is additive—that is, you have water flow from the boat speed and water flow from the propeller. The downside effect of the propeller pushing water over the rudder is that you continue to gain boat speed, which is not what you want in a marina.

Exercise T2 – Burst Turning:

With the boat lying still, pointing downwind and the engine in neutral, first, turn the wheel hard over and increase the engine in forward to 2500 rpm for 2 seconds, then back to 1000 rpm.

What you learned

You’ll see that the boat turns very fast but does not gain any appreciable forward speed. Try the same exercise but only rev the engine to 1000 rpm max. You’ll see that the boat does not turn as fast and, in fact, on a windy day you may not be able to turn the boat up into the wind at all. If there was a boat in front of you, you’d probably hit it. Revving the engine for 2 seconds shoots a wash of water over the rudder to give you a burst of control. This method should be used in most situations to gain greater control of the boat.

Exercise T3 – Figure 8s:

To gain an appreciation of control of the boat, do figure 8’s around 2 buoys that are spaced close to each other—or just use some imaginary buoys. As you begin the turn, rev the engine to 2500 rpm and then back down to 1500 as you come out of the turn and straighten up to approach the next buoy.

What you learned

The simple series of exercises will give you a good feeling of how to maneuver and control the boat in forward gear.

Exercise T4a – Turning When Going Downwind:

Pretend you are going to maneuver into a slip as follows. Use the buoy and imagine the slip. You have heavy downwind.

What you learned

You’ll probably overshoot on the resultant track and cause some pretty big damage because the momentum of the boat with the force of the wind will carry you past your intended track. Instead, you’ll find that the boat is much more stable if it is driving into the wind when in forward gear.

Exercise T4b – Downwind Circle Turn

Redo the above exercise using the following method. You’ll realize that this is much less risky. 

Exercise T5 – Burst turns with no distance:

Maneuver the boat next to a buoy so that it is stopped with the stern facing to the wind. Turn the wheel hard to port then apply a short burst of power for 2 seconds then back to neutral.  Repeat the exercise but with the wheel turned to starboard. Repeat the exercise at various RPMs and get the feel for RPM versus boat response. 

What you learned

Using the buoy as a reference point for observing the distance traveled with each burst, you saw the boat turn sharply without any appreciable speed gain nor did the boat move much in distance. You can see how you could use this to maneuver without gaining excessive speed in a marina. You also learned about boat response versus RPM brust.