Smart Marina Berthing - Leaving a Pen

This page covers leaving a marina berth.

For advice on parking here's berthing tips for monohulls and marina berthing for multihulls.

Like all aspects of marina berthing, leaving your pen can be tricky.

Tight spaces, wind, boats and/or piles alongside, and narrow channels can all make your life difficult.

We suggest you take your time to assess the situation.

Start your engine and leave it in neutral to warm up while you take a look around.

Check there's nothing which can get caught as you leave the berth.

Check for fenders which could tangle.

Be sure you've unplugged the shore power.

Assess the wind. Is there a cross wind to contend with?

We advise you don't fight the wind...

So if a strong wind is going to blow you to starboard as you leave the pen, don't try to turn to port.

Go with the wind and then reverse out of the marina if you need to.

Next look at the mooring lines and see which are taking the load.

You can remove any really slack lines.

Have a chat with your crew. Discuss your exit strategy with them and make sure they know how they can help you.

If there's no great cross wind leaving your marina berth can simply be a matter of releasing low tension lines first then high tension ones and motoring forwards.

If it's not windy there's no rush - just move slowly forwards out of the pen.

It's worth remembering that yachts pivot around their keel, so when you turn to port your stern swings out to starboard.

As you can see from the photo above if Steve had turned earlier his yacht's stern would have hit the post.

Have your crew ready to fend you off if necessary as you go.

It can be really useful for a crew member to walk down the boat fending off the pole as you move forwards.

If the wind is blowing you on to a pontoon you can use your spring lines to kick your bow out.

Here's one example.

Rig a stern spring line, place a fender at the stern then take off the other lines.

Then motor backwards with the rudder central.

As you can see in this photo this puts the stern spring under tension.

This forces the bow to kick out away from the pontoon.

Then all you need to do to get away is put in the engine in neutral, release the line and quickly motor forwards.

Too easy!

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