Boating Basics 2 by Clive Edwards

On-Board, before you leave the base -
Most hire-cruiser operators will take you carefully through the operation of your hire cruiser and all its equipment before you leave port, and it’s important to make sure you have understood everything and are familiar with the operation of things like the engine, fuel, drinking water, gas, shower and toilets, heating, lighting, the cooker and the ‘fridge before you set off.  In addition the following points are worth bearing in mind.

Try to stow all your personal belongings away tidily – there’s nothing worse than trying to operate a boat with things strewn all over the place, and it can be positively dangerous even to try!

Mooring Ropes: You’ll be using these a lot, so a few words of advice before you leave the base are worthwhile. Firstly make sure you have mooring ropes securely attached to the boat at both the bow (the front end of the boat) and stern (the back end) Make sure that they are neatly coiled up and that they can’t fall off and trail in the water where they can foul the propeller – it can literally take hours to free a rope that’s wrapped round your propeller, it can cause damage to the engine, you’ll get very wet indeed untangling it, and not only that it’s hugely embarrassing too!

Knots: Although not essential, there’s no doubt it’s useful if you know how to tie the most common knots used in boating, and also if you know the correct way to attach a rope to a cleat (a cleat is piece of equipment found on deck at either end of the boat specifically designed for attaching ropes to).

Let’s start with the Clove Hitch. This is a simple knot, quick and easy to tie, and very useful when mooring to a post for a short time, but it’s not a particularly secure knot and should only be used while someone is in attendance to make sure that it doesn’t start to slip.

Perhaps the most useful knot of all is the Round Turn & Two Half-Hitches which can be safely used in lots of situations where your boat is to be left unattended as it’s not prone to slipping Pic 2.

There may be occasions when you need to join two ropes together to make one longer rope; when doing this you should use a knot called a Sheet Bend. 

Finally it’s quite important to know the correct way to attach your ropes to the cleats on-board your boat! The following picture illustrates the correct way to do this.