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www.marinelink.com MN 33 mulas to show you how all these hydrodynamics work. That’s an important piece of knowledge to have, there’s no doubt about it. But if I had just told you that as you were trying to come alongside that ship, it wouldn’t have helped you much. The next piece is to tell you little tricks that I have learned and others have learned about how to incorporate that knowledge into a practical application. So when I told you, pick a spot on the ship and look to the side and use that as your visual reference for whether you’re creeping up on the ship or back down on the ship; Now you’ve got this little reference point so you can automati- cally react to it. That’s the kind of thing that the two books I’ve written try to communicate.” VIRTUAL SUCCESS In the simulator I used the feather- ing technique Jeff taught me to maneuver the tug as a big red Canadian Steamship tanker appeared in my starboard windows. I tried to pace the tanker as Jeff instructed, picking the first S in “Steamship” as my point of reference. I started mov- ing up too fast, so I feathered the thrusters back. Now we were too far behind. I tried to inch forward, more slowly this time, but passed my mark again. At this point I was too close to the tanker, so I angled away from the ship and started the dance all over. “You’re doing well,” Jeff told me. “Of course the pilot is up on the tanker deck getting impatient,” he added, probably wanting to get home to family and out of the cold. That’s what the Association gets for hiring a magazine editor to pick up their pilot, I thought. In another few minutes I finally made gentle contact with the tanker hull and Jeff called it a success, since no one actually said anything about a time limit on the exercise.
