This was certainly a bad situation, but fundamentally he did OK.The big thing I noticed was the missing mast, sails and other equipment associated. When boats get confused about their identity they tend to misbehave around other boats and sometimes go with the flow instead of societal or crew pressures.
The helmsman's first mistake was his angle of attack, on approach he should have been far more upstream of the current than he was to come in straight, but that would likely put him properly aligned for the other dock, a different problem in the end.
When he instructed his crew to tie off the bow, and at some point she let go allowing the slack in the rope to take the boat away and making it behave unpredictably because the helmsman had compensated and started taking measures to line up based on the bow's seeming steady position.
Then with the help of other mariners he got his stern line to the dock, at which point the dock crew decided to torque on the bow in an attempt to apparently dislodge their invitation from future expeditions. I have had many crew not realize that boats have a pointy end and when pulling on that pointy end, the motor end tends to liberate from my control and away from the object I am near.
My only advice for our fellow sailors reading this, is fair winds and following seas. Or .. make sure you sail with a crew.. Don't expect passengers to double as hardened boatswains in times of unfair winds and intense seas.
) at any speed. The only time we haul it all the way up is when we are crossing shallow bars or when in our slip. No sense in scraping the leading edge unnecessarily on the bars or having the keel flop back ‘n forth against the trunk in the slip with every little wave.
