Looking for Experienced Sailing Partner-NJ

[Survivor]

Cate... I have a Lancer 25 with my 8hp Honda in a rear cut out well. What I have done, while not beautiful, has been to make an "L" with pvc and attached the lower part of the "L" to the shift handle with hose clamps. As I said, not pretty but I can extend the shift handle as high as I need. Leave the OB in idle or a little over and shift when you need to. Hope this helps.

Harris

[rikhall]

Cate

You have gotten some super advice.

Something that might help is to find a "soft" mooring ball somewhere - with no line on it to foul the engine, with lots and lots of room around it and on a day with little or no wind, and with no one around watching and practice coming up to it.

Pick a point on your boat (the bow) and try to bring that point to within 1 foot of the ball without touching it. Then pick another point on the boat (port, stern corner) and do the same thing. Over and over again. Coming to if forward, backward and any other way that seems possible. Go at it forward like you were going down a slalom course. Go at it backward the same way.

Pretty soon you will be able to approach that sucker from any direction and put the boat exactly where you want it.

Then - on a day with no wind, and with no one around watching take the boat out of the slip and bring it back in. If you can have a "hands off" friend on board - super. Put every fender out that you have. And go as slow as you can and still have steerage.

You sound like you have lots of experience on the boat and just need this specific kind of experience.

Best of luck.