Motoring in Reverse

[gypsymusic]

Take your time while you practice, but remember, it's the rudder's movement through the water that allows it to steer. DONT GO TOO SLOW or you wont have enough control.

[Capnblu]

Momentum, current, and wind conditions. All of these factors affect your ability to maneuver in reverse on your small boat. Learn to handle her in reverse, steer with the tiller, lock your outboard, if you can, to go straight. Instead of going sailing for a day, go backing for a day. Take someone with who can help, and constructively criticize your learning curve. If you do this for 5-6 hours, your confidence in your own ability will be greater than most others. good luck

[Bellita]

I taught a friend to gain confidence on backing up his boat in different conditions by taking a gallon plastic milk jug and putting a string and weight on it to help keep it from blowing about the water and tossing it overboard in the middle of a safe area. That became the target. we then proceeded to back up to it, with the goal of stopping right before touching, from downwind, upwind and cross wind on both sides. I then had him practice doing circles, then hard squares around it, so he'd be affected by all wind conditions at the same time. after playing this game for 4 weekends, he got really good. he can now get his boat in/out of anything he needs to as he understands how his boat reacts and is reacted by the elements. Paint now stays on the boat and not on the piers! try this - it may help you too. just remember to pick up the jug each evening! :-) good luck!

[captbillc]

you can also put out a couple of fenders to practice coming along side them in an area where you have plenty of room. this kind of practice is called rubber docking. it helps to get a feel of how a new boat handles.

[samhamt]

i also have a san juan 24 (and the motor died the first time i backed out also)but when motoring in reverse the rudder tends to go to one side and make it hard to manuver. also the san juan 24 dosent have a good turning radius when in reverse so what i do is keep the tiller in between my legs to keep it straight and i steer with the motor in reverse.

[toqer]

I used to do the same thing, but only because the reverse on my first outboard was broken :/

Once I got an outboard with a reverse, I did the same thing a few times as far as plowing into other boats (luckily all my neighboring slips are for deadbeat boats, so nobody cared that I smacked into them)

OK SO, back to the subject....

Like samhamt said, keep your hand on the tiller because it will want to swing. Push the tiller towards what you want to get away from. IE if you're backing towards another boat, push the tiller towards it. Yah, I know, totally counter intuitive right?

Also burst your throttle. Your boat weighs a lot, so once it's moving in a direction you want you don't need to keep the throttle hammered to keep it moving.

I see other folks saying take it out somewhere safe and practice. All good advice too.

[legarots]

I sail frequently on a Pearson 26. Whenever I back out using the outboard, I always have the tiller held straight, and I steer with the outboard only. Going forward, I center the outboard and then steer with the tiller.

During the process, I make sure that the throttle is high enough, so the outboard doesn't quit.