Yeah you can turn em on a dime seems like but you still need another person to help tie off etc. here when someone sees a boat coming in there’s usually a couple of ‘neighbors’ waiting to help. Whether you know them or not. It’s just what everyone does.
Not long ago a smaller sailboat on another dock was pulling in really fast and when he hit reverse it couldn’t slow him down enough. He wound up on top of the dock.
I’ve seen all kinds of accidents with boats. Just like cars, crap happens. We took out the davits on a Coast Guard cutter when leaving a guest slip next to it in Newport Beach. Was backing out of the slip and got caught by a current that swung our bow around into the cuter. Our anchor caught their davits and ripped them out. Lol
IIRC, go no more than 5 knots in the yacht basin to minimize wakes. But an idiot speed demon in the channel can still churn up boats in slips, even deep keel sailboats.
I’m strictly ashore now, but when I was younger I used to dream of A/C systems for boats that didn’t cost a fortune like Marinaire.
LOL, one of their ads went, “The captain stood on the burning deck. It was too d@mned hot in the cabin!”
I remember when power boats looked like boats and not imperial starships. I google “Owens yacht images” & take a walk down memory lane. Oh, well.