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Workshop on Close Quarters Berthing

Published 09:04 on 19 Apr 2025

John Walker and Jonathan Clare gave a very helpful joint presentation on Close Quarter Berthing to a well-attended talk in Haslar Marina conference room

John said this was a difficult talk to give, as so many of the members present had many years of experience between them and therefore it was difficult to pitch the talk at the right level.

John Walker started with a very useful comment about getting to know your own boat as all boats react differently even in the same circumstances. He went on to discuss the speed and direction of wind and tide, the type of keel, and the position of the prop and rudders and how these all interact when trying to berth a boat. There was also a general discussion regarding the difference between sailing yachts and motorboats most specifically regarding the hull shape, the number of engines and the use of bow and stern thrusters in manoeuvering.

He made the comment that we must think ahead and communicate with our crew when undertaking any manoeuver.

John referred to the well-known saying that plenty of prior preparation prevents piss poor performance.

After 4 generations of family sailing experience John also told us of the pitfalls and accidents that he had experienced himself. He talked about the very strong tides in the Hamble. It was mentioned that the berthing masters recommend berthing at slack water.

Jonathan Clare then took over with detailed explanations and visual presentations showing open and closed berthing. He discussed how to make a closed berth approach into an open berth approach. He made the point that although the pivot point of a boat is essentially through the centre of the mast that when the boat moves forward the pivot point moves forward and when going astern the pivot point moves backwards. Jonathan recommended that we should always have an escape plan in our mind as things will inevitably go wrong at some point.

This was a very helpful resume, and many useful suggestions were made by the experienced members of the club. These included:

Keeping records of the marina layouts and of the berth numbers to make planning an entry into the berth easier.
Sailing past the berth before attempting to go in since it is not unknown for the marina to allocate a berth which is in fact already occupied.

Very many thanks to John and Jonathan for all their hard work in preparing this talk.

Michael Sword-Daniels

The slides used for this workshop can be downloaded below.