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Comment by paddy_m | Hacker News Reader

To anyone reading this who isn't an experienced boater:

If you are invited onto someone else's boat, sit down and shut up during docking, don't talk to friends, let the captain concentrate. Don't help, if the captain wants you to do something, they will let you know. If you think you know better than the captain, and this advice is unknown to you, you don't know better. Being a good guest during docking shows experience and helps get an invite back.

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Take things slow so you aren’t the show.

I have a 44ft sailboat. Docking is not easy. People do not realize how difficult it can be

Given how hard I find docking my 16-foot bowrider if there’s more than a light breeze, I can only imagine.

Try docking a sailboat on a river. Then slow isn’t an option, since the current will sweep you away in a heartbeat. The key here is planning ahead, including a plan for what to do when you don’t get it right. And you won’t, on the first couple of attempts. I’ve seen it in action, totally hair raising to watch.

This is one of those situations where I know I will not be good enough often enough, I will totally warp in. River currents are hard.

This is great advice. For myself, docking in windy situations can be nerve racking. The old adage is to only dock as fast as your willing to hit the pier, and for me this means slow as hell.

I always let guests know exactly what I want them to do, and to your point, it's mainly to sit tight and let me focus.

Wind, current, tides, your own boat at risk as well as other people's boats alongside... docking can certainly get the heart pumping.

(Liveaboard cruiser here)

This advice also translates for general aviation during takeoff, landing and taxiing.

Screwing around during docking is a great way to get to swim to shore at an unspecified later date.

Similar to stay quiet if the car is about to merge into traffic. But with a boat the stakes are 100,000 times greater due to the huge momentum and that it would be gliding and not slowing down like a wheeled vehicle on land.

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