Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I'm a newbie, and I'm trying to develop skill in piloting my boat in close quarters, docking, etc. That means being able to make precise adjustments at slow speeds. So, in practicing, I'm constantly shifting from forward to reverse and back. (I always give it a second in neutral.) Does that constant shifting hurt the boat? I have a Bennington 20 SLL with a Yamaha 115 Vmax.

It hurts it a lot less than crashing into a dock would hurt it.
But seriously, no. I think your delay in neutral is a smart thing to do. And remember the old adage “Never approach something any faster than you are willing to hit it!”

Thanks. I have the boat completely encased in bubble wrap until I develop some skills.

DocPit wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 18, 2020 9:30 am

I'm a newbie, and I'm trying to develop skill in piloting my boat in close quarters, docking, etc. That means being able to make precise adjustments at slow speeds. So, in practicing, I'm constantly shifting from forward to reverse and back. (I always give it a second in neutral.) Does that constant shifting hurt the boat? I have a Bennington 20 SLL with a Yamaha 115 Vmax.

No, I don't think you're hurting anything. As someone else said, better than running into something.. I will say this, when I first got my boat ( Bennington 20 SFI ) i used to have a lot of issues loading back onto the trialer.. and then one day my son, who is 37 was with us and he noticed that even though I always approached the trailer at a very slow speed, he noticed that I would repeatedly take it out of gear and put it in neutral. He told me not to put it in neutral because when you do that you really don't have any steering capability since the prop stops spinning. He told me that I should only take it out of gear to go to neutral or reverse to keep from bumping something. I don't know if he's right, but I can tell you that since he told me that, I haven't had any issue loading the boat... I just leave it in gear as slow as she'll go.. Also, don't know if you're interested but I've read that if you put a prop guard on your prop, it will give you better "slow speed handling ". I don't have a prop guard on my boat, but I have read that in the past.

It’s possible that the prop guard you are referring to gives your prop something of a Cort Nozzle feature. Look it up if need be.