Why no lower Helm on Sportfishers?

hahaha! good call NYCAP. i was just trying to explain my side before we got to off topic. great youtube post aswell, good viewing. the deckie loved every second of that i think.

Bamboo, looking at the youtube post i guess your going fast enough to use the wheel when fishing. a few years ago i was on a 61' SF and the skip was doing a reverse docking. the only thing he used was the 2 sticks, no wheel and no bow thruster (the boat didnt have the bow thruster). there was 20kt side wind blowing (but we were in a harbour, so there was the odd bullet coming through). he wasnt a cowboy, he just clicked in gear which ever motor he required. it ended up being the best docking i ever saw - to date.

at the end of the day what ever u feel comfortable with is just fine. why change something that isnt broken i say.

far

I won't bother getting into whether cowboy should be taken as an insult because I could insult a person by calling them "sir" or compliment them by calling them an SOB. It all depends on inflexion and taking things from their source as well as context. That's language. You will notice that the mate in that video has a demeanor that fits his job but might not go so well on a fancy cruising yacht. Most of the sport fishing crews I've known work hard, play hard, fight hard and don't scare easy...or is that a cowboy I'm describing.
On very few twin screw boats will you find rudder angle having much if any effect in reverse. You steer in reverse with the gears & throttles.
In that video you'll also notice that the last thing that captain wants to do is to let that fish get ahead of his transom so he can chase him in forward. When it's running out he's blasting in reverse to chase him. When it charges the transom he jams forward to keep him behind the boat. Of course the method will change if you're running outboards or a center console, and I think that's where some confusion may have arisen from.

Bingo. Triple Cummins VT903 425's.

Far, before there were 1000 HP lightweight diesels, battlewagons ran trips for big power.

I spend a fair amount of time around my brother's commercial kitchen... the worst thing to be called in that environment is "my friend." You couldn't scrape anything lower than "my friend" off the sole of your shoe! Names that start with F---, on the other hand, are terms of endearment. As you say, it's all inflection and context.

I prefer the pod setup on a SF if the controls are at the right height where I can have my back against the steering wheel and hands on the controls while pretty much standing. If I have to crouch like I did on the 57' Bertram I was running for a while, they are a pain.

I never use the rudders when backing up. I just use the engines. When fishing I always keep the fish directly behind the transom. Whether it's backing down or moving foward in order to do so.

On some vessels I have turned the rudders hard over and split the engines oppositely to walk the boat sideways on occassion. This usually only works on yachts with a relatively flat bottom. I use to do this on a 103' Broward MY I ran that had two extensions on her and rudders and props relatively midships. The boat would walk completely sideways (parallel) with the rudders hard over and one engine in foward and one in reverse......

I believe that has more to do with the spin of the wheels than the flat bottom. On many commercial boats they'll reverse the motors having the wheels spin out instead of in (or visa-versa) which will give you more power, but lower top end speed. This also enables you to "walk". It's been a while since I've run the crew boats (where this is common) so I welcome any correction.

No, this had normal propellor rotation. If the bottom is relatively flat, say you want to walk to STBD. You would turn the steering wheel hard to port (as if to make a port turn). Put the port engine in foward and the stbd in reverse...... the rudders will wash the fwd thrust to port, pushing the vessel stbd. and the stbd engine in reverse will keep the boat from going foward and also pull the bow to stbd. If the boat has a V to it, the thrust won't overcome the resistance.

Used the maneuver all the time with the crew boats, but never gave much thought to the dynamics. Was told it was the prop spin, accepted it and just did it, but never found a private boat to do it which seemed to fit. DK yet if I learned something new here, but I've got something to check into so I do learn. You've peaked my curiosity. Will let you know if I find anything different. Thanks cap.

Literally a cakewalk with our old Huckins. Could walk her sideways up to about a 15kt wind. Every season the yard would ask if we were ready to put a bow thruster in... the boat still doesn't have one. Doesn't need it.

HI

Triple Cummins, impressive. i think that craze is starting back up again with the IPS's, but why wouldnt u just have two engines max? the running cost would be less... and less to fix, etc...?
i think the term cowboy gets a bit hyped up. if the skipper needs to use a bit more throttle then normal due to a situation he/she is in, weather its chasing marlin or berthing that to me is ok. but as soon as the skipper is putting the boat or crew in harms way, well i think he/she should be labled something else.... anyways
Bamboo, at the end of the day im the guy who would like to design the boat and my experience with gamefishing at the moment is very small. so im on here getting good feed back on how a skipper would like to operate his boat.... and i tell u what, theres no one way to do it. everyone is different in the way they drive the boat, back it down on a marlin, and berthing.
also whats the deal with 'walking a boat sideways'? what deadrise does a sf need to have to stop it from working?

far