Best practices for docking

[Cymru]

Well the weekend is here but I don’t think I'll be out boating this one. :-( That said, I was thinking about my next outing and particularly putting the boat back into the slip afterwards. While I'm not new to boating, I am relatively new to a 30' + boat.

The 2900 I have has a 31’ LOA with just under a 10' beam. and my slip is a 30x12'. Its located at right angles to the main channel so I always seem to get the remnants of someone’s wake pushing me all over the place. Up till now, my MO for docking has been to approach the slip with my port side quite close to the dock and then start to make a starboard turn and power off letting me drift until I'm at right angles to the dock. Once there, I put the boat into reverse and start backing up and that’s where things tend to go a little haywire.

As I back up, the bow always seems to start drifting to port and I end up going into the dock and clipping the outside corners of the dock. When I say clip, it’s a nudge. I've already powered off and if I'm on my own, I'm already on the swim platform to walk myself in or if someone else is there, they do the same thing.

While I'm writing this, I'm thinking to myself that I should make the turn to starboard earlier and come around a bit further and use the drift and power to back in.

What do you guys think? Any advice from the old salts here?

As always, any advice is much appreciated.