With the unusually cold and breezy weather I had to jump at the chance to get in a little on the water time. Light south winds were forecast to increase later in the afternoon ahead of an approaching cold front the following day. As I am still struggling with backing the boat into its slip I stayed close to avoid the complications a gusty breeze would bring. I have a cat rigged sailboat, and with its large mast positioned so far forward it acts like a wind vane pushing the bow. I'm slowly building my skills backing the boat and a plan for dealing with a variety of wind directions and intensity as well as tidal current within the marina.
My initial technique was drive forward into the marina, pass my fairway as the boat coasted almost to a stop. Then angle to offset the propwalk before shifting into reverse. This worked most of the time. However, particularly with an east wind, with the combination of propwalk and wind vane effect I was unable to control the boat in the narrow area available. The solution to this that has worked a few times is to get the boat backing outside ot the marina so I have sufficient water movement over the fin keel and rudder before entering the marina from the opposite direction.
I usually have enought fuel to do this until the sun comes up so as long as I never hit anything or anybody else...
Images are infrared 720nm