How to Safely Leave a Dock in a Sailboat

Video Transcript

"Now we're going to get ready to leave the slip. What you want to do is have a plan. A plan for if everything is going good and a plan in case something goes bad. There are three parts to a plan that we teach at Trade Winds. It's location, orientation, and transition. First let's do location. Where are we in the marina? In this slip we have three boats to our side, we're near the end of a fairway, we're going to be leaving out through the fairway to our right side, so check the wind. Today we have a light wind, it's coming from our starboard side. The tendency for the wind will be to push our boat toward the port side or to the port side of the slip, so we can take that into account. Orientation is, how are we going to leave? We definitely will back the boat out and we need to be heading right and down the fairway. You also look at how the wind will affect you. If it's a light wind, we can transition out, that's a T, to the middle of the fairway. If it's a strong wind we need to have a lot of power so we have steerage. We may go out further in the fairway before turning. You need to look at all the factors that are going to affect the boat as you are leaving the dock and come up with a plan. Also have a plan, so what happens if the engine dies. Do you have lines available? Do you have boat hooks available that you can fend yourself off of the other boats? Come up with a plan for if everything works well, and have a plan in case something goes wrong."