Prop Walk

[Broads01]

In a few days I'll be off to Scotland with my daughter for our first ever trip on the Caledonian Canal. Caley Cruisers ask you to watch an instructional video beforehand which includes advice on boat manoeuvres. Their advice on stern mooring highlighted the tendency for the boat to go towards the right in reverse and I recall from a previous thread this is called "prop walk". They advised, when reversing to only use short bursts in reverse gear in between allowing the boat to drift back in neutral (and therefore more likely to go straight). I must admit, this differs from how I've always reversed because I've tended to think too little reverse throttle equals too much tendency for drift due to wind and tide. I'm guessing the degree of prop walk is impacted by propellor and hull design so is it a case of test it out in practice and learn from that?

 

[gancanny]

27 minutes ago, Broads01 said:

the degree of prop walk is impacted by propellor and hull design

i tend to agree,  there is a vast difference trying to reverse a bathtub compared to say an aquafibre 38 or 42

[BroadAmbition]

Absolutely correct.  As with any craft first time hands on its a case suck it and see

Griff

[Cheesey69]

Prop walk on my westerly sail boat was horrendous at first but if you powered through it you could steer it normally backward but that's a sea going hull with plenty of sea room and a big fin to grip the water.

Now to my bath tub, don't really notice prop walk but it does benefit from short bursts of power going astern. For me, its all about going slow using sharp bursts to swing the bow around. I just leave the rudder in its last position as i made the turn

To get to my mooring its all about stern on mooring.

To combat any windage, I begin the reverse close on the moored boats with the stern almost within touching distance.

One of the first things I did was to go astern as I was secularly tied up and watched which side the flow of water emerged from the hull to get the idea what side was going to pushed away. 

[YnysMon]

Stern on mooring was something that I was a bit nervous about during our first few hires, not that I've had a complete muck-up yet (bound to happen sometime!). I'm a lot more confident now that I've got used to how Moonlight Shadow handles. The only thing is, I've not yet stern moored directly on a river (such as at Surlingham Ferry Inn).

Any tips, apart from the obvious one of taking into account the direction of tide?

[Cheesey69]

1 hour ago, YnysMon said:

Stern on mooring was something that I was a bit nervous about during our first few hires, not that I've had a complete muck-up yet (bound to happen sometime!). I'm a lot more confident now that I've got used to how Moonlight Shadow handles. The only thing is, I've not yet stern moored directly on a river (such as at Surlingham Ferry Inn).

Any tips, apart from the obvious one of taking into account the direction of tide?

Take into account whatever is strongest, wind or tide. worse case is wind over tide, they will just battle it out while you do the best you can.

The trick is for me, so don't judge me, is speed. I haven't got a bow thruster so I can't hold the nose steady and in any case, I found that you don't drift equally, the stern tends to dig in making me swing.

But the longer you stay in the stream, the more you move out of position and then get flustered!

so as above, turn in close and get at lest 6 foot of boat in.

Hopefully ( and I've never found anyone who objects, at least to my face) the crew who has a side cleat rope (got one of them, well handy) as well as the stern one, steps aboard my new neighbours boat and with a lot of yelling and gentle reverse, pulls me in.

Otherwise, if there is plenty of space, this time the bathtub shape really comes in handy. I can jam the stern against the quay heading because is flat on the back and this will hold it there.

I'm sorry its not in depth but as others will say, it's more of a feely thing, And a boat dependent thing. I mean I can lean out and look right along the length of my boat which really helps lining up but hopeless on the other side!

And I've had nightmares at Ranworth, Womack, acle, Stalham, Brundle, Ferry Inn, Reedham...............

 

[annv]

Hi If you drop the mud weight as you reverse this will stop you drifting if windy or tide is strong. John

[Broads01]

2 hours ago, YnysMon said:

I've not yet stern moored directly on a river

I've moored at the Surlingham Ferry House a few times and I've been fine but I got in a pickle last month at Bridgecraft. I underestimated the effect of the tide and we ended up several boat widths along from where they wanted us but no harm done. To correct, with both stern ropes held, I was advised to give the bow thruster some bursts to help move us along the quay and with quite a few bursts it worked fine.

[oldgregg]

If you've never hired from Caley before, the main thing that will strike you is how much power the boats have.

It depends what you've hired, but they have big torquey engines with up to 150hp and a big prop. You'll be glad of that when crossing Loch Ness, which can take 4 hours and get really rough.

The boats can turn at really low revs, much more so than a 50hp Broads boat. You'll always think Broads boats are underpowered after having been on one of Caley's.

Anyway my point is that they do handle a bit differently to Broads cruisers simply because of the amount of power (and the control that goes with it) they've got.