5 top tips to make you a better boater

At times it can be very stressful, and not just for the skipper. 

For anyone relatively new to the activity, there are a few ways that you can make the experience much more pleasurable, both for everyone on board and all those other people around you.

Some cost nothing, while others may require a bit of investment of both time and money.

Here’s the pick of the boatsales.com.au ways that you can instantly up your boating game without too much effort.

Few boaters new to the activity realise that on coastal waters, each “day” is around 12.5 hours long.

That is because in roughly each 24-hour, 50-minute period there will be two low tides and two high tides.

The reason for this is that it’s the time it takes the Moon, which provides the gravity needed to cause the tides, to complete a circuit of the Earth. One tide is when the moon is directly overhead, and the other when the moon is directly behind.

But there is also a difference in how high the tide rises and falls. This is due largely to the centrifugal forces generated as the Earth itself spins, acting on the water as it moves in sync with the Moon around the planet.

Depending on where you are in the world, the difference between low and high tide can be as little as centimetres in some tidal estuaries up to many metres near the equator.

The rise and fall of the tide can greatly affect where you can go boating. The clearest example is at the boat ramp, where launching at high tide is fine, but at low tide, a series of exposed sandbars prevents you from getting anywhere near it.

Along with the tides, the weather will also be a big factor in when your day kicks off. At times, you’ll be waiting for the breeze to back off before hitting the water.

The wind is a very important factor when it comes to the tide. Wind blowing in the opposite direction of the tide can generate very uncomfortable and at times treacherous conditions that can easily swamp or even capsize a boat.

This is all the more important if you’re going from enclosed waters out to the open sea via a coastal bar.

What does this mean for boaters hitting coastlines? Well, your boating day could start before sunrise, or lunchtime, or even early in the evening depending on a number of factors. You’re going to get the most out of a day if you time it to the best conditions, not the most convenient times.

That said, people who frequent enclosed inland waterways and rivers can often find somewhere to hide from the weather, meaning they will have a little more flexibility when they hit the water.

Boat ramps are busy places. Guaranteed, at almost any point on a fine day there will be a boat either going into or coming out of the water.

The one thing you want to do is block someone from launching or retrieving their boat.

Always tie up your boat as far back as you can on the jetty so that other boaters have plenty of space to move when they have their trailer in the water.

This is very important when you’re launching or retrieving your own boat, as the walk to the car could be a long one if it happens to be a busy day.

Just about every new trailer these days is a drive-on, meaning you don’t need to pull the boat onto the trailer with the winch.

This not only makes the process of getting a boat on and off a trailer much faster, but it also means a boat will need a bit of room on the shoreside of the boat ramp so it can get in line with the trailer – more so if there is a crosswind or current.

The traffic rules for driving a boat are nothing like driving a car. While you can pass another car going in the opposite direction at 100km/h with only about a metre to spare, on a boat it’s mandatory to stay at least 50 metres away from another vessel if you’re doing any more than a fast walking pace.

The reason for this is that boats don’t travel in defined lanes, and can easily cross paths with one another, increasing the risk of a collision.

Even though there are rules that say who has to give way, the aim is to avoid a crash at all costs, so even when you think the other boat is in the wrong you will still need to take evasive action.

Some of the rules are topsy-turvey. For instance, boats heading in opposing directions need to pass each other to the right, which is the opposite of driving on the road. You also need to reverse your thinking depending on whether you’re heading into a harbour or out of it, as the red and green channel markers that show where the safe water is will swap sides.

You will also need to know which marks show danger, and which show safe water. Who knew a red and white-striped buoy shows you’ve arrived at safe water, while two vertically stacked balls mean you could be in peril?

One of the toughest challenges on the water is working out exactly where you are. 

From a boat, the shoreline is difficult to read unless there are distinctive physical features. That makes identifying where you’re at can be tricky, especially when it’s time to head home.

Inland lakes are equally tricky, with tree cover down to the waterline blurring just about all features.

Helping to disorient boaters are wind and tide, which can spin a boat at anchor around so that you’re facing a completely different direction to when you first anchored up.

The way around all this is to use a good chartplotter. 

A boat’s chartplotter is similar to a car’s GPS system, although instead of showing your position relative to roads it will show your position relative to the depths of the water around you.

Cheaper chartplotters may only show the depth of water under the boat where you’ve been, and only when you’re travelling slow enough for the transducer that sits in the water to feed information to the chartplotter to work.

That sort of chartplotter is fine if you’re re-visiting the same bits of water all the time.

But if you’re constantly heading to new and, for you, unexplored places, you may want to up the game a bit.

More expensive chartplotters will already have all the depth information for all your local waters at hand, so you can confidently navigate in places you’ve never been before.

This is handy when you see something like a nice sandy shoreline that would make a great spot to spend the day, but don’t know if it is safe to motor in and beach the boat.

It’s also remarkably handy when dealing with tides, as the chartplotter will show the depths usually experienced at low tide, meaning you can confidently go where the chartplotter says you can.

An exception is a place where there are constantly moving sandbars, such as an estuary. The better chartplotters, though, will allow you to connect the device to the internet for updates that tap into the information collected from other boaters’ chartplotters.

These plotters constantly scan the bottom, and every time their owner connects the device to the internet the information is uploaded and shared with other chartplotter owners when they update their devices.

Giving everyone onboard a memorable experience is probably the most important factor when it comes to receiving a resounding “yes” when you ask them aboard for the next trip.

People who are well fed and watered, protected from the sun and confident in the skipper’s ability to ply the waters will have a much more enjoyable experience than someone who has missed out on any of these comforts.

If anything, provide more than you think you will need. Bring an icebox and make the effort to fill it with ice so that drinks and food stay cool.

Think, too, about food that you can eat while the boat is moving, and how you’re going to prepare things with little or no flat space – other than maybe a thoroughly cleaned bait board – to do it.

Likewise, with drinks, it’s probably going to be better to have lots of small bottles rather than a few large ones. As for fizzy drinks, well, a boat is always moving, so you can imagine how many of those will foam up as soon as they’re opened.

If fishing is part of the trip, bring something so that people onboard can clean their hands before eating, such as disposable wipes. Also, be careful to not mix the food you’re going to eat, and the bait that the fish you catch will eat.

Ensure you have spare hats – it’s likely someone will lose one – and lots of sunscreen on standby.

If anyone onboard has expensive sunglasses or prescription lenses, offer them a strap. This way, if they turn their head backwards while the boat is travelling fast, the wind won’t instantly whip the glasses off their head.

It’s these little things that can make any trip memorable.

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