A couple in a fly-bridge cruiser opted to head up the canal. The crew was the skipper on the bridge, his skinny wife and a cocker spaniel. We heard that the winds at one of the locks took over the steering making his brand new boat less pristine.
2 person crews are not ideal on a large vessel, but I get it in a travelling husband-wife scenario. It does demonstrate where handling skills and training can be absolutely essential however. Much like motorcycling where people learn on the bare minimum to operate their machines, the same thing unfortunately happens a lot with boating -
a lot of people buy way more boat than they have the skills to handle, and then make zero effort to actually learn those skills.
It baffles me why people don't want to spend the time or money. But a lot of people buy a $250,000 boat, spend the $75 to get their licence, and off they go!
A large pleasure boat can be operated with just a single skilled person on the lines (or at least someone who can quickly follow direction even if they don't actually understand the theory behind the maneuvers the cap is making) and a
skilled person on the helm. And communication. The skills portion is often the weak link because people didn't get any training to learn maneuvering skills. Tight quarters handling can be miserable in windy conditions, sure, but a lot of people don't understand how to utilize something as simple as spring lines and techniques in their docking and undocking, or don't communicate them properly to the person doing the lines.
Wind threatening to blow you off the wall/pier/slip where you want to be? Maneuver in fast enough (within reason) to maintain steering and directional authority in the wind. Come astern quickly to bleed speed while getting the bow or stern near enough for someone to QUICKLY get a single line secured and spring the boat on that line. QUICKLY being key. And secure. Slow momentum as much as possible while that's happening to avoid yanking a cleat out or snapping a line lol, pull in the bow or stern using propulsion, then get the person on the lines to slip the line as necessary to get position where you ned to be while continuing to use the spring to maintain the wall, and once you're at where you need to be longitudinally, tie off bow or stern while still using propulsion to maintain the wall/slip/whatever, and then secure the other end of the vessel. Propulsion will hold it there while the person doing the lines gets to the other end of the boat. Then neutral. Boat secured. Done.
Anyhow, I know I'm preching to the choir here with some of y'all lol.
This is what exactly I did yesterday coming back into the slip. Honestly, I was surprised the boat owner gave me carte-blanche to dock his >$100,000 boat, stern first, in a slip with the wind coming broadside from the *wrong side*, and a rather expensive looking sailboat directly abeam, but I guess he was satisfied with the handling skills I demonstrated on the open water and coming back into the harbour at the PCYC. If the roles were reversed, admittedly, I don't think I'd have had the same faith in some stranger docking my +6 figure boat however.
Anyhow, instead of skills learned by educating oneself, what you often see out there is an unskilled cap just banging the throttles and shifters in a panic, no plan discussed or communicated ahead of time based on prevailing winds, and a person doing the lines who doesn't know what to do, how quickly to do it, or really what they're doing at all aside from trying to push off things they're about to hit with their pole. Then next thing you know you're banging into walls or slips at speed, or worse yet, other peoples boats, since you can't push off a 20,000-50,000+ pound boat with one person and an aluminum pole. Or you get the "abandon the helm" operator who doesn't know what to do so runs off with a pole as well to try to fend off what they're about to hit.
Rental houseboats are particularly fun to watch. Or utterly terrifying if you're anywhere near them
on your own boat when they're coming into tight quarters.
air draft .