1981 365 Ketch - Hull 384 - S/V Odyssey. Happy To Be Here!

[Captain Coyote]

Hello all-

I just bought Odyssey two weeks ago in Jacksonville, FL. Sounds like I need to meet Jordan. Haha.

I'm sure I'll have lots of questions, but the first is...

I've sailed a lot of boats from 25 to 46 feet, but HOLY COW! How in the world do you back this boat to port or even straight?! In all throttle positions and wheel positions, she exclusively walks HARD to starboard. I'm headed back down this weekend. My next guess is that you kinda' gun it in reverse to get some way on her, then shift to neutral to get the rudder to bite. Am I barking up the right tree? I don't have a lot of wiggle room getting in and out of our slip, so after several vain attempts in open water, I finally just backed her into the slip so the prop walk would work for me. But wow. Never been on a boat that walks like this!

That said, we are over the moon to have her. She's beautiful from stem to stern. Need to clean the spars and redo the dodger canvas, but aside from that, she's in great shape.

At any rate, I'm sure I'll be chiming in with questions galore over the next couple months. I'm thankful to have been directed to this forum.

Fair winds all!

Chris

[Jordan]

Oh yeah. Let me know if you are down around these parts, and I'll let you know if I head up north. I have no clue what I'm doing, but it seems to be working out pretty well . Haven't experienced the prop walk yet, but everything started up smoothly yesterday. I need to tighten the belt a bit more, but we'll be learning this weekend (and maybe throughout the week) how she moves under iron wind.

When we did take it out, I was mostly focused on getting back to the slip before something broke, but I was trying to pay attention to any kind of prop walk. Didn't notice too much, but I also have nothing to compare it to.

[Captain Coyote]

Hey Jordan-

Great to e-meet you! You'll only experience prop walk in reverse. Have you backed the boat up yet? Are you on an end slip where you can motor straight out and also pull alongside in forward gear? If so, you're in a great spot for a beginner. Haha.

As soon as you go into reverse, the stern will start walking to starboard. I'm a very experienced sailor and I've never experienced anything like it. I don't know if mine is typical, but it doesn't matter how you set the rudder or the power, she's gonna walk to starboard. One trick I found was that if I pretty much put the wheel hard over to port, I can back out (aft swings to starboard) then put it in forward (bow turns to port), then reverse, then forward, etc. and pretty much turn the boat around in not much more space than a boat length.

The main thing is to do everything slow and don't freak out when the boat starts going somewhere you don't want to. When you're learning the boat, always have someone else on deck with a fender and a boat hook ready to help you out of trouble. If you're backing out of a slip, have someone on deck in the cockpit on the starboard side to fend you off of the dock or piling to starboard. If you can also have someone on the dock, all the better. As she backs, the stern will start immediately making for the starboard corner of the dock. Once you have enough way on her for the rudder to bite, shift to neutral and - hopefully - she'll behave a bit more normally. I'm headed back down tomorrow and will experiment. I'll do some videos and send to you if you want.

Take care!

Chris

[Jordan]

Absolutely I'd be interested. We back into our slip, but the only time we've actually done it, the engine died and we just manhandled the pylons to pull the boat back in place. Until yesterday, engine hadn't started since. Not a great practice spot unfortunately, it's a bit tight (see attached photo). But we'll get out to South Lake and practice. The better half wants more hands on deck to push us off of stuff before we go out on our own to practice, but hopefully by next week she'll be good with it.

[Captain Coyote]

Wow! Tight indeed! I second the motion of a having a couple extra hands available, especially if you're new. Don't wanna get off on the wrong foot with your dock mates. Haha. If in doubt, put her in neutral and use lines and boat hooks to get 'er in there like you did last time. When you're motoring up the lane, if you were going to go bow in (drive forward into the slip) would you turn to port or starboard? If your slip is to starboard, I would definitely try to back in. It will make your life lots easier getting out. If your slip is to port, you can use the prop walk to get out and get your bow pointed toward open water pretty easily. Hope that helps.

[SVJourney]

Greetings and welcome Mr Coyote.
Prop walk is a fact on these boats.  I found that asking for a slip where the walk will work for you instead of against you is key.

The gunning up to speed, then dropping into neutral didn't work much for me although others here use that method.

I used bursts of forward gear with the rudder hard over to keep straight, alternating back and forth.  Ultimately, you will come to grips with what you can do and what you can't.

[Captain Coyote]

Hi SV Journey. Thanks for the heads up!

[Jordan]

Nice to e-meet you as well! We are on the starboard side of that dock you see. Now I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get in under power... Once I get this water pump taken care of.