You are 15 feet off a pier and docking a vessel using only a bow breast line and stern breast line. Once the slack is out of both lines you begin to haul in on the bow breast line. What is the effect on the vessel?
• Breast lines vs. spring lines and how each controls a vessel’s movement at a pier • The vessel’s pivot point when a single line is hauled in under tension • How a fixed-length line to a fixed point on the pier limits movement at the opposite end of the vessel
• If you pull in on the bow breast line, what is the primary direction of force on the bow relative to the pier? • With the bow breast line tight, what freedom of movement does the stern still have—can it move toward, away from, or only swing around the bow? • Compare this situation to using a spring line: which end moves in first, and which acts more like a pivot?
• Identify exactly where a breast line leads: roughly at a right angle from the vessel to the pier, not along the length of the pier • Mentally draw the boat, the pier, and both breast lines tight, then picture the bow moving in and ask: what must happen to the stern if the lines cannot stretch? • Confirm that you are NOT assuming any spring lines; your answer should rely only on the effects of breast lines.
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