Five tips to help skippers make a boat trip more enjoyable

Four out of every five Aussies live within an hour of the coastline, so if we’re stuck in Australia with no overseas travel it makes sense that we’re drawn to the sea.

Boat ownership can be one of the most rewarding family experiences, but while the images that sell you the boats show smiling, happy people having the time of their life, the reality is it’s probably better to temper your expectations a bit.

Yep, it’s not all about sipping champagne on the poop deck as you watch yet another brilliant sunset on the horizon.

But there are a few ways you can reduce the stress to make a day out on the water enjoyable, even if you have to work hard at it.

Here are a few tips to help make a day on the water more enjoyable for everyone on board.

Boat engines are fickle things. And more often than not, it’s a refusal to start that can get boaters into trouble.

It’s therefore a smart move to ensure your boat engine is working before you make any other move, especially if you're likely to drift into trouble.

I’ve helped someone troubleshoot their outboard engine on their brand-new boat that was failing to start. It was just as well, as the skipper asked me to push them off and I suggested he start the engine first. 

Turns out the skipper had left the engine cut-off lanyard attached to his lifejacket when he jumped out of the boat and hadn’t reattached it.

Likewise, make a habit of starting the engine before you pull up the anchor. This not only helps the engine warm before you take off but if you get into trouble, such as current pushing you towards rocks, it will help you get out of trouble a lot faster.

If you’re a keen angler, you’ll often leave the outboard engine in gear with the engine switched off so the prop doesn’t spin and interfere with the fishfinder. The engine won’t restart in gear, so always check to see if it is in neutral if you’re experiencing starting problems.

Sometimes you may have forgotten to put the engine into neutral before switching it off, meaning it won’t restart until it is returned to neutral.

Generally speaking, boaters are nice people. We all share a passion for getting out on the water and making the most of the opportunity.

If at any time you feel as though you’re a bit out of your depth, it pays to ask anyone around you for help.

Sometimes this can be something very simple. For instance, I’ve been stuck before when I haven’t opened the breather on the fuel tank and vacuum-locked the fuel supply to the outboard engine. It took someone else jumping onboard and methodically going through my start-up process to isolate the problem. It was as simple as that.

I’ve also had to swallow my pride and ask for a tow back into the jetty after my outboard engine’s water intake sucked up a bit of seaweed that blocked it, and the engine cooked itself.

Always accept help if it is offered. Someone will have been in the same position as you and will know the best way to resolve whatever problem you’re having.

It will make you a better boater in the long run.

It’s inevitable that you’re going to bump your boat. In most instances, it’ll be something as benign as giving the jetty a bit of an unexpected love tap as you pull up to it, or finding the bottom with the outboard engine.

How much you bang the boat around is entirely up to you.

A good rule of thumb is to approach any fixed object at the same speed you’d feel comfortable if you were just about to run into it head-on.

Sometimes it will be down to circumstances beyond your control. Wind and tide can make docking manouvres a nightmare even for experienced skippers. Give everyone onboard a job before you pull alongside so if things get a bit ropey, people know what they can do to help.

Hitting the bottom happens more often than you think, and is easy to do if there are shifting sandbars where you boat regularly.

If the outboard engine is grounding you’ll hear a sudden drop in its pitch as it washes off revs, and a quick look to the back of the boat will show sand or weed in your wake that the prop churns up.

A good practice is to set your sounder’s depth alarm conservatively so that even at speed there’s a chance you can button off the throttle in time. A boat with outboard engines will have about 0.6 metres of draft with the engines down, so setting the depth alarm to 2.0 metres will give plenty of warning.

In inland waters and estuaries where depth can vary, or if you’re fishing the shallows, set the alarm to about 1.0 metres and move around a lot slower.

Unless you’re always lucky and go boating in clear, still conditions with no other boats around, you’re going to get wet.

Spray is the most common way of getting wet when you don’t expect it. Spray can vary from a fine mist that coats everything in a fine salty mist, or big splashes of water as crosswinds and forward momentum turn the experience into something akin to driving through a car wash with the windows down.

If your boat is a “wet” boat, warn people in advance so they can dress appropriately.

If it’s not you personally getting wet, it’s your stuff you don’t want to get wet tat's at risk. Pack a box of zip-lock sandwich bags that mobile phones can go into to protect them from water and boating’s other prime enemy of electronics – sand.

Hats are the most common things to go overboard as someone pops their head up into the wind as the boat skips across the water (and yep, I've done it). An easy solution here is to always turn a baseball cap backwards so the brow doesn’t become a wind vane.

Be careful of expensive sunglasses, too, particularly at speed. Sweat and suncream can make the attachment between your head and the sunnies very loose, and all it takes is for you to turn your head sideways to the wind to lose them overboard.

Use sunglasses lanyards, or even buy cheap tinted safety glasses from hardware stores so if a pair does go overboard it’s a $6 investment that’s lost, not $600.

Watch out for where you place smartphones inside a boat, too. If it’s an older boat, windscreens can leak and wet anything on the dashboard behind them. Electronic devices won’t like that at all.

It’s a good idea to always dress as though you’re going to have to go into the water even if you don’t plan on it. If you see a nice beach and want to pull up, there’s not much fun in pulling off shoes and socks, and rolling up pants just so you can get ashore.

The same goes for the end of the day. If someone has to wade into the water to help pull out the boat, it may as well be you.

This can be as simple as a pair of gumboots that you can change into at the boat ramp to wade in ankle-deep to winch a boat on a trailer.

Boat ownership is an onerous, thankless experience at times. That makes jumping aboard someone else’s boat for a change one of the greatest pleasures in boat ownership for some skippers.

That’s largely because you don’t need to be the one who has to worry about all the work you need to do before and after a trip out on the water.

Planning a trip takes time, starting with looking up the weather forecast days beforehand.

Then there are all the checks; is the battery charged, do you need to top up or even replace the fuel, is all the safety gear on board and in good working condition, do you need bait, and what sort, what about ice … the list goes on.

Then there is the end-of-trip work. Everything needs to be washed down to clear it of saltwater spray. Thermos flasks of coffee need to come out, fish storage boxes will need a scrub so they don’t smell the next time they’re opened, and so on.

Even the trailer needs to be thoroughly washed down, being careful to wash from the front of the trailer to the back so that no sand can accumulate and hold water that will start rusting out the metal.

This all can add hours to a trip.

Feedback is the best form of ensuring everyone on board has a good time and is keen to come back for more.

In my experience, it’s usually all about speed – too much of it rather than too little.

The person behind the wheel usually has five points of contact on the boat; feet on the floor, hands on the steering wheel and an arse cosseted in the most comfortable seat on the boat.

In contrast, passengers may only have their feet and backsides, and maybe a bit of the coaming to grab onto with one hand, and some of the least comfy seats in the house.

While you’re solidly planted behind the wheel, everyone else on the boat could be struggling to hang on.

The same goes for spray. While you’re comfortable tucked in behind the windscreen, passengers in the cockpit will feel as though they’re caught in a hurricane.

Communicate with them so that when you take off, no one feels like they’re at risk of falling overboard. Slow down when they say they’re not comfortable with rough conditions or spray, and if someone complains of seasickness, be prepared to call it a day.

If you’ve ever been seasick, you’ll know it’s a sensation that’s pretty close to feeling like death warmed up. There’s no point in trying to push through it for the sake of wanting a good day.

After all, it’s about everyone having fun, not just you.