Boating Expert Answers Boat Questions

I'm Coach Tara Foster, Safe Power Boat handling instructor

and safety and Rescue Boat handling instructor.

I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet.

This is boat support.

[upbeat music]

All right, first up, Stubobarker asks,

Why do ships use port and starboard

instead of left and right?

When you're on a boat, if you're talking

to someone who's right in front of you,

their left is gonna be opposite of your left,

which means that if they need you

to grab something really quickly,

if there's an emergency or a problem,

you need to have a common language for directions.

So when we're talking about a boat,

we wanna refer to the left side

as port in reference to the bow and stern,

and then the right side would be starboard.

So that way, even if someone's facing the back of the boat

and someone else is facing the front of the boat,

they're both able to refer to the same side

at the same time.

Tenshon LLC asks, How do I tie a cleat hitch?

A cleat hitch is one of the most common knots that we need

to be able to tie when we're out boating.

And a cleat that you're most commonly gonna see

is this one, it's a horn cleat.

So when we go to tie a cleat hitch, so we wanna tie an O

and then an eight, and then as you go to complete the eight,

what we're gonna do is essentially twist it under,

this is called a half hitch,

so we're gonna lock this half hitch on and pull tight,

and that is your cleat hitch.

Good way to make sure you've tied it correctly is it should

be two rivers under a bridge.

The Scuba News asks, Where does the term mayday come from?

So mayday is actually in reference to a French word

and I'm probably gonna mispronounce it slightly here.

[speaking foreign language] which means help me.

SevereTailor8962 asks,

How do you master docking and undocking?

I can actually show you that now.

One of the big things to keep in mind is slow is going

to be your best friend

when you're approaching a dock.

You always wanna make sure you're at minimum control speed,

which means you're just adjusting between idle forward,

neutral and idle reverse as needed

to essentially slowly maneuver your boat into the dock.

Slow is pro.

As I get in a little closer here, I wanna make sure

that my fenders are ready for my approach to the dock.

Mall controlled thrust movements are gonna be key

as I bring my boat in safely to the dock.

I just wanna make sure I come in at a nice easy pace.

I'm able to get myself successfully tied off.

Now what I'm looking to do here is essentially tie off

the line that's gonna be doing the most amount

of work first.

The breeze pushing against the bow on my boat is essentially

gonna create more work on that line

because it's pushing force against it.

I wanna tie that one off first

because I need it to hold me in.

I'll tie off my stern second.

Once I'm firmly secured to the dock,

I can go back and turn my engine off.

Always make sure that your engine doesn't go off

until you're firmly secured.

It does take a little bit of practice to get docking right,

so make sure you're in an area

where you won't damage yourself or others

and pick a nice calm day to get your practice in secret.

Santa asks, Worst boat name imaginable.

I don't know if there's one that specifically comes to mind,

but any boat name that you would be hesitant

to call a mayday for is probably one

that I would second guess.

And if you have a better one, tell me in the comments.

Jack-o-tall-tales asks, How would you deal

with a man overboard situation?

First things first, call it out really loudly.

Make sure you point man overboard.

And the reason why you'd wanna do that is

because you need to make sure

that any other boat in the area are aware

that there's now someone in the water that they need

to avoid and not hit.

The next big step is to make sure

that you are throttling down so

that way you're not going at high speeds.

So that way you regain control of the boat

and can safely turn around to reapproach the person.

Take essentially a big O turnaround

and approach coming bow into the breeze.

The reason why you wanna approach bow to breeze is

that they're blown towards you

and you're not blown on top of them.

And then the last big piece

of it is please do not reverse back towards them.

That is putting them close to your prop and puts them

and you in a very dangerous situation,

always make sure you're approaching in forward

and as you get closer to them, you're going to want

to bring the engine back into a neutral so

that way the prop is not spinning.

The last thing we wanna do is have a spinning prop

near a human in the water.

Drew2Read asks, Nautical knots, what do I need to know?

There are a ton of really useful knots,

but some of the most common

and most useful ones would be something like a bolin.

The way we teach it, we tell it with a story.

So we've got a tree

and we've got a hole at the bottom of the tree

and the other end of your line is a rabbit.

The rabbit's gonna come up the hole around the base

of the tree and dive back into the hole.

And basically what it should look like at the end is a

little life jacket around a stick pull tight,

and that is how you create a really lovely strong loop.

So this can be put over a piling

or hung around something if you need to hang something up.

Another really useful knot is a stop or knot.

So a stop or knot stops a line

from sliding through something.

Another little story to remember it

by is you make a snowman, you put a scarf around

and you pop his carrot nose in

and then you have a figure eight and

what that'll do is it'll stop the line from sliding through.

These knots are really useful

because they're easy to do what we call break.

So they come undone very quickly.

They have little loops that help them come undone

and it doesn't put a ton of stress on the inside

of the line, which is the core of the line.

When you tie something like a simple overhand knot,

what that does is it puts a lot of stress on the line

and any knot will actually decrease the strength

of your line as a whole.

So what ends up happening then is you increase

the risk of breakage.

The other thing we wanna avoid

with an overhand knot is under a lot of stress

or a big load,

what'll end up happening is this becomes so tight,

it almost becomes impossible to undo

'cause it doesn't have a good break point.

So I'd avoid those overhand knots

and try something else instead.

Reddit user asks,

Why is speed measured in knots when not a boat or a plane?

And why is distance measured in nautical miles?

The way they used to measure speed was they would literally

tie knots in a line and send it overboard

and they'd see how fast they'd move

in comparison to those knots.

When the knots became a really standard set distance,

that was kind of the standard for measuring speed of a boat.

Nautical miles are based off that distance of knots,

so one knot is 1.15 miles per hour.

TheFrankMeister4815 asks, Is there anything I can do

to increase maneuverability?

One of the best tools to increase your maneuverability

and your understanding of how to best maneuver your boat is

to master something called the pivot turn,

and I can show you that now.

So the pivot turn utilizes small amount of forward

and reverse thrust

to essentially pivot your boat on a point.

One of the biggest things to keep in mind is

that you want the breeze to help you.

So right now I'm utilizing the breeze coming this way

to help push my bow down and

because all the thrust in this boat's coming from the stern,

what I'm doing is trying to get my stern then

where the heavier thrust is turned up into the breeze,

constantly checking my 360, making sure

that I'm not getting near anything that could damage my boat

or anybody around me.

I'm only going into gear once my engine is fully turned over

and that'll let me turn a full 180

or if I need to a full 360.

What ends up happening is you're able

to spin decreasing your turning radius

to zero when you've got good control over it.

Loaft1 asks, Should I go faster or slower

In choppy waters?

You never wanna go super fast

unless you want a very bumpy ride.

That risks injuring yourself and anyone else on board.

But going too slow can also put you at the mercy

of the waves around you.

When you're going down a wave,

especially if it's a bigger wave, you wanna make sure

that you're not going too fast.

'cause your bow, the front of your belt,

will slam into the next wave and you'll submarine.

If you go too slow, you run the risk

of the wave just carrying you.

So you need to make sure that you're reacting to the waves

with the type of boat that you have.

UnnecessaryJibe asks,

What do you do when your anchor is completely stuck?

It can be really frustrating when you're out boating,

you anchor for a while

and then you go to pull your anchor up and it's stuck.

One of the first things you wanna make sure you do is you've

moved your boat to be directly on top of your anchor point.

Basically what you wanna do is help lift that back end

of your anchor so it becomes directly up,

which will help get it unstuck.

The next thing I would do is maybe start to swivel around.

Be careful as you do that though

and make sure there's nothing in your way as you swivel

around it 'cause that can help free it.

You wanna make sure that you're not gonna run anything over.

Make sure you're still keeping a good lookout

for other boats around you.

CoastalNear asks, What is with the hate for pontoons?

I think the hate for pontoons comes from the fact

that they're essentially like taking your dock out into the

middle of the lake for the day.

They tend to be very common amongst folks

who aren't really going out for moving around very much,

but they're really stable, which makes them a great platform

for folks who might have mobility issues or for young kids

and they tend to have some really great siding to help keep,

especially younger kids from leaning overboard

and going overboard.

They tend to be disliked just

because they're not super maneuverable,

they don't go very fast.

Usually people are out there enjoying a really good time,

which can be nuisance to anyone in the area sometimes.

BeakBuck asks, How do boats float?

Boats pretty much float on

what is a displacement theory using essentially formulations

on density and taking up enough area to account for

how much mass is there.

So it's a equation on mass and volume.

They displace water,

so if you've ever taken like a Tupperware

and put it in your bathtub, it's gonna float

because it's spreading that area out across the water

and sharing the weight across that.

Both do the same thing.

Everything from the big ships

to the little ones, they displacement to float.

Zex-258 asks, Anchor length for lakes.

First time anchor buyer.

You wanna make sure you have the right type of anchor

for the location you're gonna be boating.

So this is a mushroom anchor, which is great for kind

of muddy or silty bottoms.

It's gonna hold based largely on it's weight.

I usually wouldn't recommend a mushroom anchor for a boat,

but it's great if you need to set something aside.

So if you brought a raft with you

or anything like that, this can be a super helpful tool.

A slightly more common one that we see,

especially for small boats, would be your Danforth anchor.

It's not gonna be something

that's gonna hold down our big old ship over here,

but it absolutely will help with any

of your small like recreational power boats.

And what it does is it digs into sand silt,

but you wanna make sure first things first,

you're getting the right anchor for the bottom.

You're gonna be anchoring on, you want enough chain

to help kind of drag the anchor back.

The amount of line you want is typically five to one

for the depth of the lake you're gonna be boating in.

Let's say you're boating in a lake that has 20 feet of deck.

You need 100 feet of anchor line in order

to safely anchor for the day.

CauliflowerNice 180,

What are the top reasons people lose their vehicles?

Most often it's because they forget their parking brake.

When you're at the boat ramp, it's really important

to not panic, even if you're not totally sure you know

what you're doing,

make sure that you're taking those moments to breathe.

Utilizing your parking brake,

not going too far down the ramp

because you don't want your wheels on any slippery algae

and making sure that you have a trailer

that's appropriately fitted to your car so

that your car can actually pull it forward.

Sarutoshi asks, Why don't ships have brakes?

Because there's not enough friction

between the boat and the water.

Your car has brakes

because when you try to stop the wheel, it has all

that friction from the pavement and the roadway underneath.

We don't have that same sort of grip.

What we have instead is a lot of inertia, which is,

if you remember going back

to high school physics here, right?

A thing in motion wants to stay in motion.

So your boat will actually try

to continue moving in whatever direction you were moving in.

In order to essentially stop it,

you have to go in the opposite direction.

So if you were going forward, you might have to use reverse

to bring your boat to a stop.

Jungle Jawa asks,

How important is trim on a small outboard?

So trim is really important on a small outboard.

So trim refers to

how your motor is positioned on the back of your boat.

If for example, this is your boat

and you have an engine out the back,

what you wanna be thinking about is, is it trimmed up?

Which is usually how we store engines at the end

of the day or trimmed down.

Now when you're trying to go, you wanna make sure

that the propeller is all the way in the water,

but we wanna make sure that the hood

of the engine is actually parallel to the water.

If you over trim the boat in one direction,

you'll drive the bow down

and if you under trim in this direction,

you're actually gonna drive the bow up.

Both of those can make really unsafe conditions

for the boat, either leading to submarining and swamping

or leaving to your bow too high up,

which reduces your visibility forward

and can run the risk of hitting things

or swamping out the stern.

Next question is from a Reddit user,

How common is capsizing?

If you're taking into account what's happening that day

with the weather and with the water, you should be able

to avoid a capsize,

especially if you're the right size boat

for the right size scenario.

That being said,

if you do find yourself in a capsized situation,

it's really important to stay with

or near your boat as long as it's safe to do so.

A lot of people get the instinctual fear of, oh gosh,

the boat's gone over, I need to get away from it.

Unfortunately, what that means is if someone's coming up

to assist and rescue you, they're now going to have

to search for a little head floating nearby when their focus

is probably on the big boat that has overturned

to help reduce the risk of collisions or getting run over.

You should stay close to be able to wave down help.

Rattional asks, What's the most dangerous

or extreme ocean?

So that would be the southern ocean,

100% that's that's gonna be the one

with the most extreme conditions, the most dangerous waves.

Voters are gonna wanna enter that with a lot of caution.

NP819 asks,

What are the most important unwritten rules for voting?

The most important ones are always having a good lookout

that is technically written,

but I always need to reemphasize that one.

When you're out on the water, it can be really easy to kind

of fall into that false sense of security

of look at all this space.

There's no yellow

and white lines like when you're driving boats and people

and animals and all these other wonderful things

that float down the water sometimes can impact your day

and turn a great day

of boating into a really dangerous day of boating.

And a good lookout is searching in all 360 degrees

from the top of the boats, not only where you're going,

but what's coming behind you and what's coming

at you from the sides.

A Quora user asks, Does a boat sit higher in salt water?

Yes, salt water will definitely keep your boat

floating a little higher.

Salt water is heavier so it'll create a lower displacement.

So especially if you're in a smaller boat,

you'll definitely feel that difference.

The wasps ask, how many different types of boats are there?

Probably too many. So every manufacturer loves to come up

with the newest, latest and greatest.

There's some gorgeous classic boats out there,

but I would say the biggest thing

to keep in mind is whether you're looking

for a mono hull which has just one hull, a catamaran,

which would have two hulls or a trimer in which has three.

Make sure you keep in mind that different types

of boats have different uses

and purposes and different stability.

You wanna make sure you find the right one for

where you are boating and what you're boating for.

Socallmelovely asks, How fast do boats go?

Some boats can go upwards

of 100 miles per hour or even faster.

Most frequently the ones you're gonna be interacting

with are probably gonna go about the speed

of your car on a highway and smaller boats will go slower.

It really depends on the size of the boat.

The current water speed record is 318 miles per hour.

Fratherin asks, Hey boaters,

what is your cutoff for wind speed

when considering whether or not to launch a boat

for the day? One of the first things I check

for is a small craft advisory anywhere from 21 to 33 knots.

And what that means is that the wind is definitely kicking

up enough that if you're not a very experienced voter,

you should be wary about heading out that day.

The other thing to look for is if there is a gust advisory

or warning, that could definitely urge some big caution,

especially depending on the size

and type of boat you're going out in.

Algtrader asks, Outboard versus inboard.

Outboard engines are engines

that you can see they're attached

to the stern, the back of the boat.

They're a little easier to do maintenance on in my opinion,

because you can walk right to the back of the boat,

take the hood off and check your engine.

An inboard engine is going to be inside the boat.

You need to make sure you're watching out for

and being careful of any fume buildup.

So you have blowers then on your boat

to blow out any cavities in the boat.

You're actually probably gonna go down into the cockpit

or into the hold to check on that engine

and do any maintenance.

Flrwinn asks, What are the tips

for dealing with seasickness?

They do have all those cool fun gadgets like the glasses

with the water in them

and like motion sickness bracelets and things like that.

All of those can be definitely great aids,

but the first step I would recommend for anyone

who knows they suffer from motion sickness would be

making sure you're hydrated,

making sure that you've had a good meal.

I know that can seem a little counterintuitive,

but really truly, if you've eaten a good meal

and you are really well hydrated

and you have a good eye for the horizon line,

you're much less likely to get seasick.

DrGamble6 asks, Is red right returning

not a thing anymore?

It's still a thing.

And when you're returning to port, what we're looking

for are red and green channel markers

and the red ones, those are gonna be triangular shaped

or nun shaped.

The green channel markers will be squares or hands.

They actually look like big floating cylinders

out in the water.

When you're heading back into your safe harbor,

the red ones should be on your right onto the next.

Trubaci asks, How do you go about understanding

what different hull shape and motor sizes

can do in different waters?

You wouldn't wanna take something like a skiff,

which has a flat bottom out into really heavy waters

'cause the flat bottom's going to slide across the water a

lot easier than something like this,

which has a much deeper cut from this center keel.

The keel is the bottom of your boat, the area that kind

of digs into the water the most.

So different hull shapes have different looks to them.

So this would be a shallow V.

A deep V would dig much further down

and be a much more severe V shape

across the center of the boat.

Something like a whaler would have something like

a cathedral hull, like a cathedral shape upside down

for different type of grip in different types of conditions.

You definitely wanna make sure that you're paying attention

to what type of waters you're gonna most often experience

to determine what type of boat

is gonna be safest in that area.

Pnicby asks, When slip neighbors have trouble docking,

should you ignore stand ready, or actively offer help?

If someone's in need, we should offer aid.

But that being said, if you don't know if they need help,

I wouldn't actively jump into a situation

that you might put yourself at risk of getting hurt.

I wouldn't necessarily ignore it,

but I would stand ready in case they call out

and say, Hey, can you give us a hand here?

Let'sBeOnTheBoat says,

Has anyone traveled the great loop and how was it?

Yes, people still travel The Great Loop.

The Great Loop is essentially giant loop that goes over

and around the eastern waterways.

So through the Intercoastal system

down the eastern seaboard,

and then up and around the edge of the Gulf of Mexico

and then up through the Mississippi River

into the Great Lakes channels and the locks there.

So if you make this big old loop,

it'll take some time depending

on the type of boat you're in.

It's definitely a great way

to get a good view on the United States

from a different perspective.

Leafybug asks, Is haul over the most dangerous waterway

in the US?

So Haulover is based in Florida, it's an inlet,

which means it's an entry point from open waters

into inland waters.

It's not the most dangerous,

but it's definitely one of the ones

that's most frequently filmed.

There are several really dangerous inlets all

around the United States.

One of the ones that I frequently see mentioned as one

of the more dangerous ones would be the Columbia River Bar

along the border of Washington and Oregon,

known as the boat graveyard of the Pacific.

The dangerous piece about inlets is that's

where there's a pinch point.

So all the water rushing in

or out as the tides change gets essentially funneled through

that one point, which can create shifting sandbars when

a lot of water has to push through one tiny area,

it can create some really dangerous currents

and then also some really severe waves

and back wash coming off the sides of the inlet.

When that happens, you run the risk

of getting into some pretty scary and sketchy situations.

It's the moose Man asks, how does a boat motor work

and how does a small propeller move

such a large object?

Propellers work because they move so quickly,

it's pulling enough water through that,

it's creating enough thrust to move big, heavy objects.

The size of the propeller should be the right fit

for the right size boat,

and there's usually some manufacturer recommendations

for different boats on

what you should be looking at in terms of horsepower

and in terms of propeller size.

Boat motors, most of the time nowadays

at least they're four stroke,

they intake, they compress, they combust,

and then they have an exhaust.

So that's how they function.

Therivershark asks,

For those who occasionally host guests on their boat,

what's an annoying recurring thing your guests do

to annoy the crud outta you?

So one of the most annoying things to have

to do when you're on a boat is to constantly have

to ask guests to get outta the way when you're going

through a demanding maneuver,

whether that's docking getting out of a dock space

or going through a really tight area

where there's a lot of boat traffic.

One of the first things I always like to do is

before I take a guest out on the boat,

I explain to them where I need them to sit,

especially when we're in those demanding areas where I have

to be a little more maneuverable myself around the boat,

or I need to be a little more on alert

and pay attention to especially constrained areas.

Undercover500 asks, What's an unusual

but handy item that every boat should have?

My answer might surprise you,

but I really love a good roll of e-tape.

So electrical tape is really handy because it's waterproof.

Duct tape is great and useful.

It has its purposes,

but it does tend to leave a lot of residue.

Electrical tape will leave a little less residue

and will do the job just as well.

Also really great if you need

to attach some things in the boat 'cause it'll stick

and it'll stay pretty waterproof.

A ready user asks how long

until the swing feeling goes away.

So the swing feeling that they're referring

to is when you get off the boat

and you still feel like you're on the boat.

What it is, is it's reverse motion sickness.

Essentially, it's land sickness.

So equilibrium, which is you know how your body adjusts

and feels to where you're situated in the world,

still thinks it's on the boat

and it hasn't quite settled back down yet.

How long until it goes away? That varies on the person.

All right, that's it. That's all the questions.

I hope you learned something and we'll see you on the water.