Why pull in you ask........
My boat would stick out past the fingers. Kinda hard to enter boat.
Keeps the cockpit and most of the nose under roof, outta weather. We keep the nose covered with a bow cover durning the week.
All our chit is on the dock, fridge, micro, table & chairs. We live on the dock on weekends.
Be way to awkward if boat was nose first.

BTW, the highest point on my lift is at least a foot under the the skegs when lift is down, so backing in is not an issue.

At night you can use the bow nav lights instead of a blinding anchor light..If you have a 38 beak boat and it's in beak first and bounces of the dock you could have a 35 beakless boat(JUST KIDDING!!)..and the worst thing to hear at the dock or anywhere else.."IS IT IN YET?'

I have a 20' finger. Backing in allows me to spring line the back of the boat (where all the weight is) the rear of the boat never touches the finger. If I had the twins hanging 10' off the finger, the moment arm on the finger would be excessive and possibly break the finger or lines in stiff wind. Also, I cannot get off the boat pulling in forward. I did the same with my single engine boats.

BT

At the Kemah Boardwalk there used to be finger piers out in the channel. The tide really rips through there and my dad begged me not to back in. I backed it anyways and did a 360 with a 27 foot single engine boat in between two peirs 30 foot apart. The boat barely fit and never hit anything, but believe me I was embarassed with all the spectators. The boat makes a lot of racquet with a 540 and stellings. Those that wern't watching sure herd me for miles throttling against current not to hit anything. We never touched the docks and no one in the boat even reached out. I was pretty proud after the whole fiasco not to damage anything. And people around were even clapping.

Cause big pimpin aint easy baby!! [IMG]

If a slip doesn't have a lift, most people will back into it. This makes it much easier to get in and out of the boat. The boat will also handle the waves better if it is facing out. Backing in allows you to secure the aft cleats to the dock which makes the boat more secure in the water. This really helps on those short "courtesy" slips.

However, most people that keep their boat on a lift will pull in. Once the boat is on the lift and the lift is raised, you don't have to worry about waves or securing the boat to the dock.

If you can't back it in, time to leave it at the dock.

Easier to board, protects the drives, etc. If you've had too many pops where you're worried about backing in, it's probably the least of your probvlems.

Yeah, what they said.

http://home.comcast.net/~mltsoftware...m/docksim.html

OK I give up on that simulator