Last week I walked you through the decisions made in open water: keeping calm, getting the jackets on, covering the sails, positioning the crew, and turning back. All of that happened before we even reached the harbour.
This week is about what came next.
We had made the right call turning back. The harbour was close. The hard part, I thought, was behind us.
It was not.
Spotting your dock in chaos
The first thing I saw coming into the waterway was every boat in the marina pulled hard toward the middle, lines stretched tight, hulls shaking against each other in the wind. It was not what I had hoped to come back to.
But our docking spot still had a thin line of light I could aim for. That became my only reference point. When everything around you is moving and uncertain, finding the one fixed thing you can navigate toward helps. Everything else becomes noise.
Using the wind, not fighting it
The instinct in those conditions is to fight the boat back to where you want it. At least that was my instinct. Instead I felt the wind pushing us sideways and let it. No overcorrecting, no fighting the helm, just holding the settings and working with what the wind was already doing.
Whether that was the right call in a technical sense, I am still not entirely sure. What I know is that it worked in that situation, on that boat, in those conditions. Every dock and every wind is different.
Deploying the fenders early
The fenders were already out before any of this started. We had put them out when we left the dock, before the trip, before the storm, before any of it. At the time it felt like routine. In the chaos of coming back in, it was one less thing to think about.
Whatever else you prepare in advance, fenders and lines should be on that list. Not because it guarantees anything, but because the fewer decisions you have to make under pressure, the better.
Assigning the upwind line
I asked my wife to take the line on the side the wind was hitting hardest and be ready to catch the pole the moment we were close enough. One clear instruction, one clear job, delivered as calmly as I could manage. She did it perfectly.
On a small boat in difficult conditions, trying to do everything yourself is probably the fastest route to doing nothing well. Giving one clear job to someone you trust seems obvious in retrospect. In the moment it took some deliberate thinking.
Bringing the engine down
The moment she had the pole, I brought the engine down. I had read that when the wind is blowing you off or along the dock, you secure the upwind line before reducing power, not after, and that sequence made sense to me in the moment. The logic being that if you cut power before anything is secured, the wind takes the boat back.
That said, I am a beginner who got through one stressful docking. Take the sequencing as one data point, not a manual.
Getting the second line across
With the engine down and one side secured, the second line went across next. Not the fenders, not checking on the crew, not tidying anything up. Just the second line, then everything else.
In my limited experience, the priority in those moments is always the next thing that keeps the boat where it is. Everything decorative comes later.
Fixing the rest as a crew
Once both lines were across, we fixed everything else together. All four of us, on the boat, in the wind, finishing what we had started. And when I tied the last knot and looked up, I could see it on everyone's faces at the same time.
We had made it through.
We stayed on the boat for a while after that. Not because we needed to, but because none of us wanted to leave quite yet. The storm was still visible in the distance, the marina was still moving around us, and we had just done something genuinely difficult and come out the right side of it.
That was the end of the trip that started this newsletter. Five issues, one morning, more than I expected to learn from a single day on the water.
From next week, we move into new territory. Real questions, real costs, real decisions that beginners face before they ever get on a boat. The stuff that nobody explains clearly and everyone wishes someone had told them earlier.
If you have a question you want answered, reply to this email. I read everything.
See you next week.
— Ale
Docking in wind has a sequence that worked for me in that situation, and is a reasonable starting point for any beginner:
Find your reference point and keep your eyes on it. Use the wind, do not fight it. Have the fenders out before you need them. Assign one clear job to your crew. When the wind is blowing you off or along the dock, secure the upwind line first. Engine down once the line is on. Second line before anything else. Fix the rest together.
Every boat and every dock is different, so conditions will always change the specifics. But the principles behind that sequence, staying calm, reducing variables, working with nature rather than against it, apply every time.
Now that the storm story is done, this is the book I wish I had read more carefully before that morning. A compact, practical reference covering exactly the situations we have been through: docking in wind, handling in strong conditions, crew management, and emergency procedures. Written for recreational skippers, not professionals. Fits in a chart table and covers almost everything a beginner will face in the first few seasons. Available on Amazon EU.
Honestly, I did not feel calm. I felt the opposite. But I had read enough to know that how the skipper behaves in those moments sets the tone for everyone else on board. So I acted calm, gave clear instructions, and kept my voice steady. The feeling caught up with the performance eventually.
That is probably the most useful thing I can tell any beginner: you do not need to feel calm. You need to act calm. The rest follows.
