Backing a 26X into a narrow slip!

[Captain Steve]

Stand infront of the pedestal and drive in in stern first. The movement of the wheel is true and the throttle movement is correct for travel. Try this on some docks and you will see its easy...point the stern and the bow follows and tracks true. Learned this from posts years ago on this site. oh yeah...all boards down and the ultimate brake is pulling the throttle back(forward wise) stops you immediately .

[Captain Steve]

Stand in front of the pedestal and drive in in stern first. The movement of the wheel is true and the throttle movement is correct for travel. Try this on some docks and you will see its easy...point the stern and the bow follows and tracks true. Learned this from posts years ago on this site. oh yeah...all boards down and the ultimate brake is pulling the throttle back(forward wise) stops you immediately .

[Johnacuda]

Boat Wranglers!

Yeah, remember when beaching stern first it is okay to tilt the motor almost all the way out of the water. That helps a LOT. (Churns up the bottom pretty good too)

In the old boat we beached in Sea of Cortez a lot - but the old boat had a swing centerboard and a huge rudder inside the cockpit. It was hard to pull up at just the right moment so a stern beaching was out of the question. We would throw out an anchor THEN beach bow first THEN tie the stern off to the land THEN back off the beach do a little flip turn and pull the boat back to shore with the stern line we set on land all without getting our feet wet. I remember one time in Mexico we tried it at night and the beach we came into was a LOT steeper than we thought so when I went over the bow I went into the water all the way up to my shoulders and then the boat was trying to push me underwater. I was real mad that night and really wet.

boats and water seem to find ways of humbling us. Last fall, my son put us on the dock, My spring-line was set, And I hopped ashore. Just then, a nice gust pushed the off the dock. All I had to do was let go and have him take another pass. Unfortunately, (unless you were a spectator) , that's not how my mind was working. I decided that 170lbs in sneakers could hold 3500lbs in a 20mph gust. I held on, announced, "I'm going in!", started laughing, and fulfilled my prophecy.

[BOAT]

Yup, he's right - when backing up if you stand in front of the wheelhouse everything works - you can just forget about the rest of the boat - it will follow along. If your going to be getting off the boat then I find it better to stand in the motor well with the helm seat up. Practice driving backwards like that and stopping - throw a paper towel in the water and drive up to it backwards and see if you can stop the boat before it touches the paper. Try going as fast as you can. Once you find the speed that is too fast to stop on you will know what's too fast.

Falling into the water was indeed the one thing my dad used to do - a LOT. They even gave him a nickname in his sailboat club and at the awards dinners he got trophys for falling overboard. I guess even the best ones fall in the drink.