 SKILL AT SEA: Is there an art to driving a boat? — Part III — TRIMMING — by Erwin Bursik
OVER the years while being driven to far out fishing grounds — both on ski-boats and sportfishers — there have been many, many occasions that I’ve wondered to myself whether the skipper knew there was such a thing as trimming on his craft. A few times I have voiced this opinion either subtly or directly and have either got a blank look in return from the “throttle man”, or was completely ignored.
Most often such a remark results in an increase in speed as a show of annoyance which, of course, only exacerbates the problem.
However, generally I keep quiet, not wanting to be accused of trying to “teach grandmother how to suck eggs”, and amuse myself by taking note of the apparently “experienced” skipper’s lack of boating proficiency. Only once in all my years of boating have I forcibly taken over the controls of a craft when a boat driver — I refuse to call him a skipper — was trying to kill those of us aboard in horrendously rough seas off Moçambique.
In the two previous parts of this series on the subject of driving a boat, I have tried to explain the evolution of the outboard-powered offshore craft, as well as show how these various styles of craft react to different sea conditions. With this in mind, we now need to look at the various measures a skipper has available to him to maximise both the ride of his craft and the comfort of his crew.
DIFFERENT STROKES
To begin with, every skipper should be aware that the crew experience the ride at sea very differently to the way he does. Firstly, he has the craft’s steering wheel to support him and help him balance. Secondly, during any boat-over-water irregularities that will undoubtedly affect his craft and his crew, he alone has advance warning — even if it is just by milliseconds — and can take corrective action. The crew doesn’t have this option.
The net result is the skipper often experiences far less stress during, say, a long run home in a serious following sea than his crew. They could spend their entire time hanging on for dear life and praying that the skipper would either slow down or find a smoother road on which to fly along.
There is a latent defect in nearly all skippers’ brains when heading back to base, especially if it’s after “lines up” has been called during a competition. My mate and crew member calls it the “big dog-small dog complex”. A small boat’s skipper thinks he can outrun the bigger boats, and the big boat’s skipper can’t bear to see any other boat in front of him, so he pushes his throttles right forward to overtake anything and everything he sees on the ocean.
So there’s a mad rush for home, with every boat trying to make it there first. The poor crew!
Read the full story in the March/April 2009 issue of SKI-BOAT
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