Precision Docking and Boat Handling

In the Summer of 2007, I began the courtship of she who was described to me as a woman who “…lives on the water surrounded by books…”, the latter half of which I found more enticing than the former. A few dates into things, she took me out with her girls for some tubing on the river (the Miles River, her backyard). Our conveyance was a 15ft Montauk, which zipped along at speeds sufficient to elicit screams of joy from 40 lb. girlies and their friends. She and a neighbor bought the boat together, and we have shared it ever since. The boat resides in a lift at their dock, as our cove is a bit shallow, and the dock needs TLC.

As the tide was high, we brought the boat into our cove for a stop (bathroom or some other), and when we alighted to the dock, Catherine bid me tie us off to one of the pilings. Catherine is a skilled sailor and mariner, who had been on the water her entire life and who had several jobs working with boats. She was an expert and moved easily from task to task. I, however, was—and am—an imposter. Twenty-one years in the Navy including command of a mighty destroyer, and I did not know how to tie the boat off properly. So, when she handed me the bow line, I sorta wrapped it around the piling a few times and tied something of a worthless knot. She stared in disbelief, and at that moment, I suspected I was not long for this relationship.

Our boat is like this one. These fine people are not us.

“That’s how you tie us off?” was her question (or something very much like it).

“I guess so.”

“Really? Is that how you learned to do it in the Navy?” she continued.

“No,” I answered, “I have a feeling that at some point I learned a better knot, but I don’t remember it. I had people who knew how to tie knots. Tying knots wasn’t something I was paid to do.”

The look of utter disappointment on her face is forever etched in my brain.

“You mean to tell me that you were in charge of a giant ship with hundreds of people at sea and you don’t know how to tie a bowline knot?”

“It seems that is the case,” I said. Taking pity on the pitiful, she held a little lesson on tying bowlines right there, and to this day, I do not believe I can tie one.

The bottom line is that I am not a very capable mariner. I was a fine warship captain. I understood how things worked and I knew who knew more than I did about the things that mattered. But my marlinespike seamanship skills were about zero. That was not even the worst part. That came when we got underway again, and she asked me if I wanted to drive. I certainly demurred, but by now there was blood in the water, and she wanted to plumb the depths of my incompetence. I took the wheel and was obviously not comfortable. I am not sure I had ever “driven” a boat like this before, except the times when a seasoned Second-Class Boatswain’s Mate would give me the wheel of the RHIB or in the way back—the motor whaleboat.

Truth be told, I was not the world’s greatest ship driver when I was in the Navy. I was cautious, and not entirely comfortable with the power that four airplane engines and controllable-reversible pitch propellers gave me. But I was safe and competent, and for some reason the concept of driving a two screw 9500-ton destroyer was easier than driving this damn 15-foot speedster.

Sixteen summers later, my skills had not improved. We do not use the boat all that much, a crime against all that is holy really, and something I would like to change. I have friends who have proper sailboats with a single screw and one engine who maneuver those things around a pier like it is nobody’s business. And so, I decided to address my deficiency. I signed up for a class. Precision Docking and Boat Handling, to be exact (or precise). If I have any HOPE of convincing my paramour of adding serious boating to our leisure repertoire, I was going to have to act. On the last Saturday in July, I joined two other erstwhile boaters for Captain Smitty’s three-hour course.

Captain Smitty had a gentle touch and maneuvered that 23-foot Grady White like a pro. He was patient with each of us as we moved through our paces, and by the end of the class I had confidence enough to determine that I just need to get on with it. Walk over to our boat and get underway. Do some 180’s. And lots of pier landings. And getting underway from the pier. So that is what I did last week. I took the boat out all by myself (a first—but I made sure Catherine was available and by her phone) and I drove around, did some 180’s, and did eleven pier landings, eight of which I judged to be satisfactory.

The weather this coming week looks very good for boating, and I think I’ll get back out and chalk off another 30 or 40 landings. I do not go far from the dock, because anyone can stand behind a wheel and go straight. My aim is to get better in tight spaces.

But I still do not know how to tie a bowline.

September

As time goes on, I become more of a fan of summer, which makes the transition into fall less desirable. Before I embarked on this life of Eastern Shore domesticity, I was a fall and winter man, not just because of my pasty whiteness, but because I did not like the rain or the heat. I was one of those kids who did not like summer vacation—year-round school would definitely have been my jam. But as I got older, I found that even our tamer winters can last too long, and I have grown to love the unbelievably beautiful assortment of flowers and flowering trees that Catherine nurtures from March through October.

I learned this love of summer from her. Again, back in the early days of our courting (begun in late July), I realized that this woman I was falling in love with almost never wore shoes. I wrote a poem about her and the girls that first summer that I cannot seem to find, and I called it “Dirty Feet Girls”. I was never unshod. Of late, you can occasionally find me barefooted.

Unlike any adult in my universe at the time, the end of summer impacted Catherine mightily. She was an Eastern Shore girl, a sailor. She packed a lot of living into those three months, and the calendar change to September—bringing with it school (first for her, then the Kittens) was really meaningful. As a hard-bitten 42-year-old man, who had at that point been working for 21 years, the end of summer meant little or nothing. September 1st was just another day. Hell, Labor Day Weekend was just another long weekend.

But I find myself these days where Catherine is. I woke up on September 1st and looked out at the river with a little sadness. Summer is ending. The slow pace of August will soon be destroyed by work and elections and continuing resolutions and legislative sclerosis. Shortly, I will hear the first geese in the cove, a cacophony that will be a constant for a few months. Football has begun, or at least whatever it is masquerading as football in Charlottesville these days.

I will miss summer, and I will spend a good part of the next few months making schemes for how I will enjoy it more next summer. I only paddle-boarded once this year. I hit balls on the driving range, but I did not actually PLAY any golf. I still owe Catherine a full-moon row on the Miles.