Today, I accidentally bumped into a parked car, and caused a piece of their bumper to shatter. My mind immediately drew the comparison between parking and docking a sailboat.

Leaving a parking space, I was distracted and the cold snap we are having here in Ottawa makes some things very brittle. It wasn’t a good feeling.

The car I bumped

Up until today, the closest experience I had to docking a sailboat was watching other people park their RVs in tight camping spots. Some people do this with aplomb. Others, create a circus.

Practice: Docking a sailboat

In April, when I go to Antigua for training, I expect to crew and help dock or moor a sail boat for the first time. I’m hoping that the spectacle of docking a boat will be positive without injury to self or the vessel.

It’s encouraging for newbies, like me, to know that even a sailing expert like Jimmy Cornell had a moment when his family first docked their boat in 1975. This is described on page 14 of the book, Child of the Sea, by Doina’s Cornell as follows:

‘Now stop!’ Dad told her as he went onto the foredeck.
Mum pulled at the gear levers. The boat kept on going forwards without slowing down at all…
‘Stop!’ Dad yelled.
‘She won’t stop!’ Mum shouted back.
The boat crunched into the pontoon at full speed…
After Dad had tied the ropes, Mum said, “Why didn’t the boat stop? I put the gears into neutral.’
‘It’s not a car! You have to put it into reverse. Astern, I mean.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so!’
[Their relative, Klaus] stood on the pontoon looking shaken.
‘Welcome to France,’ he said.

Someday soon, when my husband and I sail together on our own boat, I am hoping that docking will be a smooth experience. I have aspirations that docking will involve me holding the boat gently away from the dock, as my husband guides our boat into position, and then our eyes will meet, and we will laugh together before deciding who should wrap the lines first, round-and-round into tidy circles. That might happen. With some experience, imagination and training.

Now that we’ve been sailing for more than a decade I can report that docking has everything to do with wind, current, speed and space. But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t thank my lucky stars when the fenders are in place, the lines tied and our boat is safely in it’s berth.

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