Don't Be Embarrassed - With A Story

Ok, maybe that wasn't the best choice for a title, but its fitting.  What I mean is that you shouldn't get embarrassed if you ever find yourself needing to ask for help while on the water.  Here's a perfect example....

My neighbor has a 20' pontoon boat.  Now I think that we can all agree that pontoons can be pretty tricky to drive, especially in the wind.  At least for me, the biggest part that a captain needs to get used to is that they dont usually have as tight of a turning circle.  After being on the same dock and having the same slip at the same marina he got very used to being able to park his boat in almost any conditions.  His contract was up on his slip and decided to move to a marina closer to our house.  The slip was the same size, but the setup getting to the slip was much different.

1. The old slip faced the south, the direction the prevailing winds came from.  When coming into the dock, he was able to point the bow into the wind and slow enough to maneuver the boat into the slip.  The new slip however faced the north, thus pushing the boat onto the dock when turning into the slip causing the boat to slowly gain speed, which works against the first rule of docking, never come into the dock faster than you are willing to hit it.  
2. The fairway of the old dock was about 40 feet wide, just about two boat lengths in this case.  The wide fairway allowed him to just drive down the aisle and make a wide enough turn to get into the slip in one simple move.  However the fairway in the new marina is only about 30 feet wide and leaving enough margin for error, this would not allow him to come in with one simple swoop, rather he needed two.  

It just so happened that he was single handed on "move in day" and I tagged along.  I launched the boat as he parked the truck as we agreed to meed back at the boat slip.  Mind you, I had only driven this boat one time before, earlier in the year across the open lake to help him put it on the trailer, so pulling up, I could see on his face that he was a little bit nervous.  But as I like to say to my friends "Do not fear, captain P is here!"  His nervousness was actually getting to me but I wasn't going to allow that to bother me, this wasn't the first time I had been under pressure while driving someone else's boat.  

It was go time, I had to stick it on the first try so that I could prove to him that I knew just as much as him, well kind of, hes almost 40 years older than me.  Needless to say, I did it and he was quite impressed.  It also just so happened that he installed a new fish finder that he wanted to test out.  We plugged it in and I gave him his wheel back.  We headed out for a quick spin to find the fish.  

Later when coming back in, him docking in this slip for the very first time, he told me that he wanted me to show him how I did it.  He saw just what I saw, he didn't have near enough room to make his turn as he used to.  He asked if I could show him how I did it, of course, I will never turn down the opportunity to teach someone, that's one of my favorite parts about boating, watching people learn the ways that fit them best and sharing my way of doing it but not forcing it upon them, after all, it was his boat.

Moral of the story, don't be afraid to ask for help.  

In case you were wondering, a fairway is used in boating just as it is used in golf.  Its a long open area usually in a straight line.  It almost can usually be interchanged with the word "aisle".  The fairway is usually the word that is used when describing the area that is used to get to the boat slips.  Below is not the fairway that was at hand in the story, but its almost exactly the same.