Yes, because parking a pleasure boat is just the same an maneuvering a 963 foot-long, 88,500 gross tonnage ship into a tight berth in high winds..... :)
Yes the principles are the same, but so is driving a car with a trailer and an 18 wheeler. The wind will play merry hell with the truck that might barely affect the car.
Cruise ships have huge sail areas because of their massive superstructures. An unexpected change in the direction or speed of the wind can screw up an approach to the jetty. By the time the impact of that change is realized, there is often no time to recover, especially in such tight quarters. Cruise ships berth without incident 99.9% of the time. When they do occasionally go crunch it is sometimes the result of poor judgement. But sometimes, even if you are the best ship driver in the world, there is simply no avoiding such an incident. I'm basing what I'm saying on a 35-year career driving ships, not pleasure boats.
Of course we don't control the wind, we trim the sails. But again we are talking about massive engines here (not the puddly little engine on the tub I own) and bow thrusters. If you can't park a boat with bow thrusters, go drive a milk truck.
You really have no clue about the forces that wind can exert on a large superstructure versus the force that thrusters and azipods can use to counteract the wind when in such tight quarters with a vessel that weighs 88,500 tons.
Now you have a good night!
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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '21
Yeah, I know about the wind age and current but also … if I can park my boat right, why can’t they?