Spring For'ard

Plan and anticipate for perfect landings

By Dusty Miller

We’re all chomping at the bit to get boating. Weather weenies are telling us spring is not coming soon, but winter has to lose its grip sooner or later. As we wait, there are a couple of things to think about. The first I noticed at the Toronto Boat Show in January.

As you may know, I demonstrated boat handling on The Lake at the show once again this year. Some “students” I bring onto the boat from the audience have boating experience, others not so much, but almost every one makes the same mistakes without fail. It’s kind of a cascade of little errors that can throw off a successful landing.

It starts with them neglecting to anticipate the action or movement of the boat. In other words, they wait for the boat to do something as a result of the momentum or thrust of the propeller. So by the time they react to it, they overreact; using too much power, which simply makes things worse. And in the flooded arena at the boat show we’re only dealing with momentum and thrust, but out in the real world wind and current also contribute to the boat’s movement.

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