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Backing a 27

sixtharmy

Junior Member
Hi,
I'm the new owner of a well kept 73 E27 with a good running 94 Nissan 9.9 outboard installed in the stern cutout. So far I'm really happy with the boat with one exception. I have to enter my slip ass-end first and I can not get this boat to back worth a damn. When the motor is in reverse it pulls poorly and the stern always moves to port. Usually it pulls so poorly and slowly that the rudder is essentially non functional, and the cutout leaves too little room around the motor to rotate it to correct for the pull to port (tiller's in the way). In forward it works fine with no noticeable pull to either side. I've been manhandling the boat into the slip pushing with a boat hook and pulling on lines, but that's getting old fast. Am I missing some trick here? Any suggestions or ideas would be highly appreciated. Thanks
 

alcodiesel

Bill McLean
Isn't that funny! My 27 with an inboard has lots of prop walk and pulls to the port. There are ways to get around that. I found you tubes showing how to use prop walk to one's advantage. But only talked about inboards. Judging from your prop walk, the same ideas might apply.

The video that was most helpful was from the Maryland School of Sailing or something similar. Ultimately, different rules applied for every quarter of the wind and we simply tied lines connecting the pilings and pulled ourselves in.

Next and maybe lastly I moved to a pull in slip. OMG easier. Backing into fairway is much easier, especially as I want the stern to go to port anyway.

Good luck and happy sailing.
 

toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
The rudder won't have any effect until you build up some speed. The old saw has it that you reverse in short bursts of high RPM, but not continuous, unless you want the stern to swing over to port anyway.

The biggest problem is if you do things too slowly, the wind may blow the bow around the wrong way. I generally have to shift back into forward a couple of times, to push the bow back where it belongs, then reverse again. On those days, it's almost like bad parallel parking. Back and forth, gradually moving sideways.

If there's too much cross wind, you might need to mess around with spring lines and the like.

Hmm... If the outboard is behind the rudder, is some of that backwards?
 

bigd14

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
I had the same setup on our previous E27. It's pretty much impossible to turn to starboard in reverse due to prop walk and the fact you cannot turn the motor that direction. We did not have trouble backing straight, just counter the prop walk with the rudder once you are moving. BUT, the reverse prop wash on the rudder would rip the tiller out of your hands or try to launch you over the side if you were not careful. The only solution I could ever think of had to do with putting the motor on a bracket but that brings up a host of other issues. In the end, we just found a slip we could work with and used springlines when needed. We sometimes would rotate the boat in the fairway using lines if the wind was not too strong. One day when the wind was coming from the wrong direction and we could not get the bow around, we ended up backing all the way out of the fairway. Definitely a challenge. If you need to back in to your slip see if you can find a way to turn the boat around in the fairway and approach the slip so it's on your port side then you can use the prop walk and ability to turn to port to your advantage and kind of turn into the slip. Hopefully you have enough room for that. Good luck. Oh, and check your liability limits on your insurance policy.:egrin:
 
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sixtharmy

Junior Member
Well at least it's not just me

Thanks for the replies guys. It's good to know that it's not just my clumsiness. I don't want to leave this marina, because it's the cheapest I've ever found on the Chesapeake. Maybe over time I'll get better at manhandling the boat into the slip. For now, at least I'm entertaining other people at the dock. I had an involved post outlining what I go through to moor this boat, but for some reason the forum logged me out, then when I logged back in it wanted me to refresh the page which apparently deleted the post. It's probably for the best. I doubt anyone would really want to know the complex evolutions I go through.
 

bigd14

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
I also helps to have crew scattered around the boat with poles and fenders to safely bounce off surrounding objects. We only had one somewhat bad incident early on where the bow was blown to port as we accelerated forward before the rudder would bite. Since the prop wash never contacts the rudder, there is a nerve-wracking 6 or 7 seconds during acceleration where the boat moves straight ahead before gathering enough speed to allow the rudder to work. I had not turned to port in reverse far enough and and the bow got blown to port as we accelerated and we hit the stern of the boat next to us, slightly bending the stern rail (it's OK though, it was a Hunter :devil:).

The skipper suffered a severely bruised ego, while the E27 escaped with a 1/4" chip in the paint. Tough boats!
 

sixtharmy

Junior Member
Yeah, leaving the dock isn't all that much fun either. It involves moving just fast enough to have steerage, but no faster. First time I pulled out into the fairway I hadn't yet figured out what "just fast enough" is. I was moving a little too fast while making the turn to port and grazed a bollard. Fortunately, only my ego was bruised. By the second time I left the dock I'd figured out the the proper speed. I'm hoping that getting moored will also get easier with practice. In truth, one reason I bought my Ericson was because of it's thick hull. I've been sailing on OPB's (other peoples boats) for several years now, but this is the first boat of my own. One other consideration was that the 27 with slab/jiffy reefing, a roller furling 150 jib, and lines led to the cockpit is small enough to single-hand. I've seen a lot of boats that just sit at the dock, because their owners can't find anyone to crew. I've been handling jib on a J105 for the last 3 racing seasons and I doubt that there's been more than a dozen times that we've raced with a full crew.

Damn. Is there some type of timer running on this forum? It told me I was logged out when I tried to post my reply. Fortunately, this time I copied the text before logging back in, so I only needed to paste it into another reply window.
 
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