LM 32 driving backwards in box.

[bojenjoe]

Dear LM - Owners,

I bought my LM 32 in May 2018 in Great Britain, Gosport on the Solent.

I am from Bavaria, Germany and we make the transfer to Germany, Baltic Sea,

also in May.

On this journey I have problems with  the exact steering in the marinas, especially

backwards with low speed. If I steer to the left backwards, a the reaction came very late.

Too late, then I was short befor another boat on the stay bridge. I had to stop the boat

and the whole speed was out of my boat and it was, of course, getting more bad, with the

steering, you know? Is the wheel effect of the LM 32 so big?

I drove the last years a charter sailing boat, BAVARIA 35 with short keel. Short, in direction

of the length from the boat, not the in depth.

I was able to drive easily with this boat backwards like a car.

No problem to drive backwards exact in a box.

Want everybody share his experience, with driving his LM 32, with me?

I am grateful for any hint.

Sorry for my bad English.

With best regards, from Bavaria - Germany

Josef

[tonyp]

Hello Josef,
You are not alone with this problem. I'm not competent to advise you but you may find the posts on Prop Walk useful, particularly Chrismunson's.  He gives sound advice.
Good luck

Tonyp

[Brian & Glenda]

Hello again Josef,

Steering a full keel boat in reverse can have almost random results, but thankfully LM32s aren't full keel boats.

I understand that LM32s were made in two different versions. One has a longer shallower draft keel than the other. I don't know which variation yours is, but I believe that we have the shorter deeper keel on our 1983 LM32. It is probable that the shorter deeper keel vessel handles slightly better in reverse than the longer shallower keel, but I'll give you some ideas about what works for us.

Knowing your propeller's direction of rotation is critical to successful handling any boat in reverse. This is as Tonyp mentioned, because of Prop Walk. However, I understand that boats with sail drives have less prop walk than boats with an angled propeller shaft, partly because of the shaft angle, but also because the bottom of the prop catches more undisturbed water than the top of the prop, due to the proximity of the hull to the top of the prop.

You don't mention which engine you have in your boat. I understand LM32s were sold with both BUKH and Volvo engines. We have a BUKH DV36 SME in our LM32, which has a left hand prop, meaning it rotates counter clockwise when in forward, and clockwise in reverse. Thus if we give our boat a burst of thrust in reverse, the stern of the boat moves off to starboard.

When we first bought it, I was amazed at how little prop walk our boat has; and we were quickly able to learn how to turn the boat in its own length, simply by turning the wheel hard to port, and giving small short burst of power first in one direction, then the other. Leave the wheel hard to port throughout the spin, and use short but lively bursts of power ... just enough to get the water flowing over the rudder, and the boat will spin in a counter clockwise direction. You can do 'on the spot' circles this way for hours if you want to! There is so little prop walk on our boat, that it works almost as well in the opposite direction of spin, but with the wheel hard to starboard. We practiced these spins a lot out in the open waters off the marina, before entering for the first time, and we still do practice same on occasion. There are many logs floating in our waters, so we use one of them as a marker for our spins, and also practiced docking against them, before trying the real thing in the tight space of the marina.

It also goes with out saying, that you also need to keep a close eye on, and give careful consideration to the effect of the prevailing wind and tide at the time you are entering the marina. They'll complicate thing quite a bit if either are strong at the time you want to dock! Spring lines can work wonders in such conditions.

(I believe that our boat is the shorter deeper keel, because our keel is shorter than the recess in the hull which accommodates the bolt on keel. We found this out because at the time we purchased our boat, our surveyor thought he had found delamination in the fiberglass hull, perhaps because of an impact on the keel with the bottom, when his sounding hammer rang hollow for about 25 cm at the fore and aft ends of the keel. The boatyard explored this by removing some of the fiberglass, and found that the recess for the keel was longer than the keel itself, and that both ends of the keel recess (where the recess was not filled with keel) were filled with blocks of rigid foam that were then glassed over... hence the hollow sound. This, and my later finding of the sales brochure for these boats on this site, is how I came to find out about the two different keels on LM32s. There was no evidence of impact damage, or fiberglass delamination. Lesson learned: Always hire a marine surveyor who is familiar with your specific boat design, but unfortunately I don't think there are any surveyors familiar with LM's to be found here on the west coast of Canada!)

Hope that all helps! Have fun out there!
Cheers,
Brian.

[bojenjoe]

Hello Tonyp,
thank you for your answer, I think you are right, I must keep more careful to the prop walk of my LM like Brain also wrote it.

Hello Brain,
thank you very much again for giving me another advice to me.
It's very impressing, we have the same engine BUKH DV36 SME and the same way of thinking, because I also find the plates before and after the keel.
I think also, whether it is a problem with the keel, but my yacht brocker said the same like you. There is a short and a longer keel. The short keel
has plates before and after the keel to fill the holes in the hull. Our LM has a short an deep keel.
O.K. my lesson will be, to have more attention on the prop walk and to train it.
In Germany are no logs floating in the sea ;-) Isn't it not dangerous while sailing?
Floating logs and Canada is a typical picture here in Germany.
I will report you of my experience from my next trip in the Baltic Sea on august.
Do you sail with your LM at the Canada coast?

Thank you very much again.
Cheers
Josef from Germany :-))

[Brian & Glenda]

Yes, while we don't go sailing as often as I'd like to go, we certainly do sail here on the west coast of Canada, and yes the floating logs can be very dangerous. One must remain ever vigilant to ensure you do not sail or motor over one. They could do much damage.

Logging is a still major part of our economy here in British Columbia, although a much smaller part than it used to be. The logs are often towed in large booms by tug boats, or are transported on self loading and self dumping log barges up and down the coast to sawmills, pulp and paper mills, or more controversially for export as raw unprocessed logs. Some logs inevitably break free and float away and land on our beaches, until the next high tides sets them free again. The most dangerous floating logs are called 'deadheads' where the log floats vertically, instead of horizontally, and only the very tip is visible. These videos are not mine, but one is of a small log boom being moved though Dodd Narrows, the narrow gap between Vancouver Island an Mudge Island, which is less than an hours sailing from where we live. We transit this gap almost every time we go sailing for overnight trips. It can only be passed through at slack tide. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSqnhLHGto . Here is one of a self loading/dumping log barge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD_GdePI4WM

Best wishes in your docking maneuvers,
Happy to help,
Brian.