In my opinion, all good captains need to take input from any source available while out on the water. Then they have the tough job of sorting out info and making the best decision. It can be as simple as deciding which dockside hamburger joint to go to or as daunting as a paper chart that shows a different channel entrance than your electronic chart plotter. The decisions are all up to you. (except maybe the hamburger joint). As you progress in your boating career and the boats get bigger and more complex your crew becomes more important. Just the same as any team sport or running a business, you must be able to rely on your crew to do the job that they have been assigned. When your crew understands exactly how you intend to dock the boat and exactly what their job is and they have been trained to do it right, trust me life gets better on board.

A Saturday morning line coiling and cleating class mixed with a short session on how to properly tie the fenders can go a long way toward peace in the family. Make sure you know how to do it yourself, however, before you infect a bunch of innocent folks. I often suggest to some of my more knuckle-dragging boat buddies that they might consider allowing someone else to drive the boat. It’s not like it requires muscle to turn the wheel or use the throttle and shift. Actually the deck hands need the muscle and you might find Mom is a the better boat driver. It is fair to note that training your spouse might not be the easiest task. (Wife swapping in this case can actually be the right thing to do.) I have never hesitated to have my wife (or kids) trained by someone else and lord knows she was all for it as well. The truth is she responds differently to the “suggestions” of instructors other than me and that’s just the way it is. I know this may smell a bit sexist, so for clarity I will admit that it is a complete two-way street, and the bottom line is that no matter which spouse is doing the training and which is receiving, it rarely works out well. Teaching and training under any circumstance is a tough job, but the end result is worth the effort.

At the very least a good captain will make sure others on board are qualified to at least return the boat to its slip in the event the captain becomes incapacitated. When the crew becomes competent at the basics and you are ready to put those new crew skills to use, it is imperative that the plan is communicated to everyone in a reasonable fashion If you have crew members who can read your mind, make sure you keep them at all costs. Most can’t. One of the great pieces of equipment available today is a voice-actuated headset. The headsets are both transmitter and receiver worn by captain and crew.

Communications with each other are in quiet tones beyond the ambient noise of the boating environment. It is almost impossible to scream when wearing these units. After a well-done or botched maneuver, I will often debrief my crew and we can run through what went right and what went wrong. Often you learn best from doing things wrong. Remember the ultimate goal is to have fun and be safe. Happy boating.