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Installation of passerelle/gangway - measurement request

datswite

datswite

Ken Ferrari
Our boat, HuskaBean, is currently on-the-hard in La Linea di Concepcion, Spain (aka, the Gibraltar peninsula) and we're stuck in Chicago. We hoping to FINALLY resume our cruising lifestyle in early May after having been kept away due to COVID. Aside from a 3-week whirlwind trip last November where a friend helped me move the boat out of Portugal to escape the VAT import tax (the boat was only in the water for 9 days that trip), it will be nearly 3 entire years since we left the boat in Europe to visit family in the US. We sailed across the Atlantic and immediately hauled the boat for "a few short months", and the boat has been drying out ever since. Luckily, aside from a fried battery bank and some severely oxidized gelcoat, the boat has survived pretty well. We're thinking that we'll paint the boat in Turkey. Anyway...

Since we're planning to cruise the Mediterranean for a few years, we've decided to install a passerelle/gangway instead of relying upon a wooden plank. Med mooring is the name of the game, and we need to be able to easily get off of the boat when tied to a dock. The trouble has been designing a passerelle/gangway installation that works with our Monitor windvane. The transom isn't that wide on the Morgan 38, and the windvane takes up a lot of real estate. In the chaos of my November trip, I COMPLETELY forgot to take any detailed measurements of the transom for planning purposes. As a result, I've been stuck trying to infer measurements from various photos I have of the boat. Lots of people remove their Monitor when they get to the Med, but we LOVE ours and use it all of the time.

I have a mounting bracket and gangway selected, but I just don't know if they will fit. I can have the gangway width modified, but I'd prefer not to make it narrower. Would someone be will to take some measurements of their transom for me? What I really need is the measurement between the two backstay chainplates. But, I'd also appreciate total transom width and height.

If you also have a Monitor installed, would you include the measurements between the upper mounting tubes and the chainplates (assuming your upper tubes are mounted on the transom instead of the caprail)?

Thanks in advance if you can help!
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Ken - I’m thinking you want the narrowest of those measurements?

if so, it’s between 46 & 47 inches. If you want more details I need more specifics. We have a 384 but I’m pretty sure it’s the same.

Please post some photos of what you end up with. I did some exciting med mooring in Greece, but I was on a catamaran.
 
mpearson said:
Ken - I’m thinking you want the narrowest of those measurements?

if so, it’s between 46 & 47 inches. If you want more details I need more specifics. We have a 384 but I’m pretty sure it’s the same.

Please post some photos of what you end up with. I did some exciting med mooring in Greece, but I was on a catamaran.
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Thank you, Mark! So, it's 46" between the top inboard surfaces of each chainplate, correct? 47" between the bottom inboard surfaces? Not, centers-to-centers?
 
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I've not been to the med, but to many places med mooring is the norm. I was able to moore bow in, with a plank off the bow. Since my boat has no steerage in reverse, this was a whole lot easier.

It's also safer, the one place that insisted I moore stern in, was quite windy with a big tide, and my monitor was damaged. I flat out refuse to now, regardless of what a minimally paid dock hand says.

I'll take some measurements later today.
 
Warren Holybee said:
I've not been to the med, but to many places med mooring is the norm. I was able to moore bow in, with a plank off the bow. Since my boat has no steerage in reverse, this was a whole lot easier.

It's also safer, the one place that insisted I moore stern in, was quite windy with a big tide, and my monitor was damaged. I flat out refuse to now, regardless of what a minimally paid dock hand says.

I'll take some measurements later today.
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My plan for years was to go bow-to. However, while that would work well in the western Med where lazy lines are the norm, once we make it further east we'll need to rely upon our anchor. Unfortunately, we just don't have an EASY to use and reliable stern anchor setup. We have a danforth anchor and about 300' of rode, but we don't have a method to both store and deploy them from the stern. However, from the bow, we've got our 65 lb. Mantus, 250' of chain and an electric windlass with a remote control. And, I've gotten pretty good at going astern in our boat (though, I still get sick to my stomach when watching all of the Med mooring disaster videos on YouTube).

In terms of damaging the windvane, that is definitely a concern. To address the risk, we're installing an 8.5' gangway that should keep us well away from the quay. And, having the windlass will allow us to more easily pull ourselves away from the quay when things get sporty. In addition, we plan to install an alternate gangway mount from the bow, and that will allow us to tie up either way.

We plan to cruise the Med for the foreseeable future - certainly for the next several years. I have recently acquired an EU passport that will allow us to spend as much time as we want exploring the Mediterranean, so we really wanted to have something that was both easy to deploy and reliable. For a short stay, we would have made a plank work. I look forward to your measurements with the Monitor!
 
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Ken -
I remeasured tonight with a headlamp.

On the surface (top of toe rail) I get 46-1/4”.

Under the toe rail & rub rail, I get 48” following the slight curve of the stern.

I’m afraid of falling in the dark waters so I didn’t get the bottom width .

Med Mooring: I finally got pretty good at it after some embarrassing failures. In Greece it was quite funny: it was a community team experience. These people walking along the shore would stop and start shouting instructions. About 65% of the time they were dead wrong. I don’t think they had ever driven a boat. We learned to just smile and wave, and ignore.
 
mpearson said:
Ken -
I remeasured tonight with a headlamp.

On the surface (top of toe rail) I get 46-1/4”.

Under the toe rail & rub rail, I get 48” following the slight curve of the stern.

I’m afraid of falling in the dark waters so I didn’t get the bottom width .

Med Mooring: I finally got pretty good at it after some embarrassing failures. In Greece it was quite funny: it was a community team experience. These people walking along the shore would stop and start shouting instructions. About 65% of the time they were dead wrong. I don’t think they had ever driven a boat. We learned to just smile and wave, and ignore.
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Thank you, Mark. To clarify the measurements: 46.25" is the straight-line measurement between the chainplates immediately ABOVE the teak caprail? And, the 48" is a curved measurement between the chainplates, following the curve of the hull, immediately BELOW the teak/rubrail?
 
Sorry for the delay. I took some measurements this morning. I couldn't get any below the cap rail measurements. I would need to back in an have an assistant.
Top of cap rail, inside edge to inside edge, the chain plates are 45" apart.
From chain plate to the pushpit post, 7" starboard side, 6.5 port.
From chain plate to monitor tubes (some eyeballing to get this) 14.

Hull #256.
 
mpearson said:
Ken -
I remeasured tonight with a headlamp.

On the surface (top of toe rail) I get 46-1/4”.

Under the toe rail & rub rail, I get 48” following the slight curve of the stern.

I’m afraid of falling in the dark waters so I didn’t get the bottom width .

Med Mooring: I finally got pretty good at it after some embarrassing failures. In Greece it was quite funny: it was a community team experience. These people walking along the shore would stop and start shouting instructions. About 65% of the time they were dead wrong. I don’t think they had ever driven a boat. We learned to just smile and wave, and ignore.
Click to expand...
I'm curious how you accomplish a med mooring. From a stop, my boat immediately makes a 45 turn to port before I'm moving fast enough to get any steerage. Once I get steerage, I can only turn to starboard if in neutral. I can mostly hold it straight in gear, with some work. Do you drop anchor at right angles to your intended spot?

I've practiced backing into slips, and can do that pretty well. I have to, if the slip is on the port side of the fairway as I enter, then when I back out the boat out of the slip, it is facing the wrong way. But for the same reason, if I go hard reverse as I approach it the boat will turn to port and back in. Then I can exit in forward.
 
Warren Holybee said:
I'm curious how you accomplish a med mooring. From a stop, my boat immediately makes a 45 turn to port before I'm moving fast enough to get any steerage. Once I get steerage, I can only turn to starboard if in neutral. I can mostly hold it straight in gear, with some work. Do you drop anchor at right angles to your intended spot?

I've practiced backing into slips, and can do that pretty well. I have to, if the slip is on the port side of the fairway as I enter, then when I back out the boat out of the slip, it is facing the wrong way. But for the same reason, if I go hard reverse as I approach it the boat will turn to port and back in. Then I can exit in forward.
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Warren - It sounds like you're fighting prop wash/walk vs. making it work for you. John Harries has written an excellent series on how to maneuver a single-screw sailboat in reverse, and his guide is far more complete than anything I could type here. It really is possible to make your boat go where you want it to go as long as you understand the limitations. If you don't already subscribe to the site, I highly recommend it. It's the best $20 I spend every year.

Here is the series (most is probably behind a paywall): Attainable Adventures Cruising

And, here is an article that discusses "backing down" in particular (this article relies upon a lot of the fundamentals written in the previously linked series): Backing Down
 
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datswite said:
Warren - It sounds like you're fighting prop wash vs. making it work for you. John Harries has written an excellent series on how to maneuver a single-screw sailboat in reverse, and his guide is far more complete than anything I could type here. It really is possible to make your boat go where you want it to go as long as you understand the limitations. If you don't already subscribe to the site, I highly recommend it. It's the best $20 I spend every year.

Here is the series (most is probably behind a paywall): Attainable Adventures Cruising

And, here is an article that discusses "backing down", in particular (this article relies upon a lot of the fundamentals written in the previously linked series): Backing Down
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I'll take a look, but I don't think I'm fighting it. It is propwalk that allows, and makes it very easy, to back into to a slip as I described. And I can use it in other ways to make some tricky maneuvers easy. I've backed into some very tough spots by knowing how it reacts. But it is not possible for my boat to achieve steerage without a sharp turn to port first.

The best I can do is back straight by using a short blast of reverse the neutral . But it won't get me fast enough to have steering in either direction. That's the best way to back out of a slip, as long as there is room that I don't need to begin a turn in reverse. But most marinas I've been in are too small, and I need to begin my turn while still mostly in the slip. In which case only a turn to port is possible.

My boat has been repowered, and I don't know the prop size and pitch. There are no numbers and I've not measured it. Perhaps it's wrong for the boat.
 
Warren Holybee said:
I'll take a look, but I don't think I'm fighting it. It is propwalk that allows, and makes it very easy, to back into to a slip as I described. And I can use it in other ways to make some tricky maneuvers easy. I've backed into some very tough spots by knowing how it reacts. But it is not possible for my boat to achieve steerage without a sharp turn to port first.

The best I can do is back straight by using a short blast of reverse the neutral . But it won't get me fast enough to have steering in either direction. That's the best way to back out of a slip, as long as there is room that I don't need to begin a turn in reverse. But most marinas I've been in are too small, and I need to begin my turn while still mostly in the slip. In which case only a turn to port is possible.

My boat has been repowered, and I don't know the prop size and pitch. There are no numbers and I've not measured it. Perhaps it's wrong for the boat.
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Yeah, I'm not suggesting that your boat is going to magically back like a Volkswagen once you've read the articles. In fact, I'm not even saying that your boat will suddenly start backing to starboard (my boat doesn't go to starboard when reversing, either). What I am saying is that it's possible to use prop-WALK (which you seem to be describing) AND prop-WASH (thrust in conjunction with your rudder) to make your boat go where you want it to go while maneuvering in reverse. Understanding the limitations simply means that some things are either not possible - or they need to be approached in very specific ways to achieve success.

Backing some sailboats in a straight line is as much about going forward as it is going backward. That's not meant to be a riddle; the ideas are spelled out in the articles (which I'm not trying to reproduce).
 
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Warren, I struggle with same issues. Original Perkins and 3 blade 16 dia. 11 pitch prop. We are on a port side slip at Brickyard Cove. There have been times where I just end up backing all the way out of the fairway. But even that's a challenge for me.

I'm accustomed to dinghies and smaller boats before Sonata. They'll go wherever you want.

I have been able to handle her a little better in reverse using Throttle bursts and then neutral to gain steerage.

And I'm another subscriber to Attainable Adventure Cruising, AAC. John Harries is incredibly experienced and enjoyable to read. His site has so much to offer.
 
Warren Holybee said:
I'll take a look, but I don't think I'm fighting it. It is propwalk that allows, and makes it very easy, to back into to a slip as I described. And I can use it in other ways to make some tricky maneuvers easy. I've backed into some very tough spots by knowing how it reacts. But it is not possible for my boat to achieve steerage without a sharp turn to port first.

The best I can do is back straight by using a short blast of reverse the neutral . But it won't get me fast enough to have steering in either direction. That's the best way to back out of a slip, as long as there is room that I don't need to begin a turn in reverse. But most marinas I've been in are too small, and I need to begin my turn while still mostly in the slip. In which case only a turn to port is possible.

My boat has been repowered, and I don't know the prop size and pitch. There are no numbers and I've not measured it. Perhaps it's wrong for the boat.
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The other problem is the bow blows off if backing downwind. Not a problem when backing up wind.
 
Mitchell S Allen said:
Warren, I struggle with same issues. Original Perkins and 3 blade 16 dia. 11 pitch prop. We are on a port side slip at Brickyard Cove. There have been times where I just end up backing all the way out of the fairway. But even that's a challenge for me.

I'm accustomed to dinghies and smaller boats before Sonata. They'll go wherever you want.

I have been able to handle her a little better in reverse using Throttle bursts and then neutral to gain steerage.

And I'm another subscriber to Attainable Adventure Cruising, AAC. John Harries is incredibly experienced and enjoyable to read. His site has so much to offer.
Click to expand...
Try backing into the slip as I describe. Have someone on the dock the first time, but it's really easy. Approach like you are going frontwise into the slip directly across from you. So you will be on the left side of the fairway, and begin a turn to starboard to the slip across from you. About 1/3 through the turn, hard reverse. Prop walk will turn the boat the rest of the way, then neutral and you coast straight in.
 
Sounds too easy Warren! Thank you. I have considered this process but not tried it yet. Lack of confidence I think.
Certainly getting out of our slip forward would ease a lot of tension and trepidation on my part.
I appreciate your input.
Mitchell
 
Mitchell S Allen said:
Sounds too easy Warren! Thank you. I have considered this process but not tried it yet. Lack of confidence I think.
Certainly getting out of our slip forward would ease a lot of tension and trepidation on my part.
I appreciate your input.
Mitchell
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Warren's technique works great! It worked particularly well with my previous boat; it had WICKED prop walk. From a standstill, when shifted into reverse she would spin almost a full 90 degrees before backing at all. Think of it like a skid into the slip!
 
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