By William C. Winslow
New boat owner, new skipper. Do you have the skills to cruise the seas and bring your family safely home?
Safe boating courses such as those offered by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and America’s Boating Clubs (formerly U.S. Power Squadrons) and books are an excellent start for boat handling, but most of the nautical talents you need are acquired through hands-on experience. As they say, practice makes perfect, but what is it you need to run though until you get it right? What follows are the basic drills to gain the skills to wear a captain’s hat:
Maneuvering Most of us sail or cruise out of crowded marinas and harbors, but there are no traffic lanes or signals controlling the flow. As quickly becomes evident, steering a boat is not like steering a car — boats lack brakes and vessels in reverse have minds of their own. Therefore, what you must master is moving confidently and skillfully.
Pick a day and time when boat traffic is light and the wind is calm. Repeatedly work your way into and out of a slip (bring 
along a helper equipped with a boat hook to fend off the dock and any adjacent vessels). Repeat for as long as it takes until you are comfortable.* Thereafter, work up to more challenging movements such as pulling up to the gas dock or pumpout station. Practice turning around, getting to know your turning radius.
*Practice again when conditions aren’t ideal — operating and docking a vessel with a bit of chop and a stiff breeze requires a step up in skills.
If you’re launching from a trailer, practice by positioning your vehicle and rig correctly first, then float the boat off. Reverse the operation at the end of the day.
Sailors should practice reefing, first under controlled conditions at the dock and then out on the water. As an alternative, drop your sails when there’s a bit of a breeze and the footing on the foredeck isn’t steady.
Engine etc. There’s more to starting a boat than merely turning a key or pushing a button. Familiarize yourself with basic operations such as reading gauges, turning on raw water intakes, and operating blowers and pumps. Learn the engine cut off procedure and maximum rpms.
Pinpoint the fuel cap’s location, as more than one unlucky skipper has mistaken the water nozzle for the fuel nozzle. When it comes to gas usage, you don’t want to practice running out, so adhere to the one-third rule — use a third of your tank for actual travel, a second third for reserve, and the last for emergencies.
Navigation Chart plotters, marine radios, and satellite gadgets of the computer age sure make finding your way about on the
water easier, but learn how to use them at the dock first. Do you still need to have paper charts and know how to read them?
Absolutely! They give the big picture, and a paper chart can guide you home when the electronic ones conk out. Check out https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/publications/us-chart-1.html for the basic primer of chart reading.
Communication Speak the lingo of VHF radios in order to convey an emergency via channel 16. Radio basics for boaters: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=mtBoater.
Talking the talk This has nothing to do with sounding like an old salt and everything to do with operating a safe ship. Bow, stern, midships, port, starboard, anchor line, halyard refer to a specific location or working part on even the simplest of boats.
Man Overboard This situation is not the time for on-the-job training — a life may hang in the balance! Practice the procedure learned in your safe boating course until you become familiar with how to react and act.
Life Jackets Run drills with crew and passengers until you all feel confident slipping the jackets on quickly.
Knots Master at least four: stopper, bowline, half hitch, and square. Learn more as you go along.
Rules of the Road Last, but far from least: the captain of a vessel is legally responsible for the wellbeing of every soul onboard and for avoiding accidents at all costs. The rules are designed to keep you safe; learn what’s taught in boating safety class and post a crib sheet at the helm. Sail folks have an additional set of regs to keep out of mischief. Official navigation rules: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/navRules/navrules.pdf.
The author is the Division 5 – Staff Officer Public Affairs, First District Southern Region, for the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, the all-volunteer, non-military arm of the Coast Guard, teaching boating safety education and conducting search and rescue operations. Visit http://cgaux.org/ to join the Auxiliary or for class information.
Top photo and Chart photo courtesy National Safe Boating Council
