How to lock through the Ballard locks.

[@ericbjorling5193]

Thank you so much for sharing! This is on our new boat owner orientation "Bucket List". We ran down from the Everett Marina yesterday and spent the afternoon outside of Shilshole/Golden Gardens hoping to catch a glimpse of the Blue Angels (only caught glimpses of the high-altitude maneuvers above Lake WA). Where did you all spend the night in there?
2023 RT27OB "Bright Side"

[@mvemerson]

Congrats on you boat! Glad the video was of value to you. We made reservations at the Carillon Point marina. They use permanent slips that are vacant to place visitors. They also had availability on their first come, first serve guest moorage while we were there. Great place. A bit frantic due to their rental options. The facilities are top notch though.

[@alexandrefbastos]

Nice approach in the chamber. Did you use bow and stern trust to control how close you were from the walls when you were getting in the locks? And same question for leaving the chamber, did you use bow and stern trust to move the boat to the center? The fact rudder doesn't help at such low speeds scare me. I currently have a bowrider and keep it at freshwater side. We go through the locks every weekend during the boat season, but its way smaller and easier to pass through the locks.

[@mvemerson]

Entering eastbound, there was very little thruster use going in. A couple blips (1/10 sec) on the bow thruster. Entering westbound, I used the bow thruster (in the video) to bring the bow in as the lock attendant had basically left the bow line on the deck, but of course had not tied it. Leaving eastbound, you may have noticed that the bow was pulled in. A bad idea. That brought the stern out and I had to use the bow thruster to get straight. Leaving westbound a very shallow angle on the rudder helped us to move slowly away from the wall. I am not shy to use the thrusters, but not much of a need here.

[@alexandrefbastos]

@@mvemerson Thanks for replying back! Watching the video again I noticed the bow thrust helping to keep the bow in. Very nice and easy. I would not be shy at all to use thrusters! thats why I want a R29/C30, exactly to get the help from the thrusters for these situations 😃! Thanks for again for sharing the video. Very helpful.