What's a Z Drive got to do with it?

There is a new ferryboat captain among us. Over the past week and a half, I surmise that his hard landings have loosened the teeth of just about everyone who rides the ferry on a regular basis.

I first noticed something different last week when we inched across the river and then slowed down even more as we approached the dock. To say we came in slowly was an understatement. Paint dried as we crossed the last 30 feet of river to the dock. Grass grew. I sprouted three new gray hairs and read Ulysses cover to cover. That afternoon I spotted my buddy Mr. A and asked him why the slow ferry movement had taken Algiers by storm.

Mr. A confirmed that there was, in fact, a ferryboat captain-in-training and that it would take a while for him to get used to piloting the boat because it had a Z drive, which most pilots aren’t used to.

What’s a Z drive, you ask? Well. According to Wikipedia and Mr. A, Z drive propulsion is the s*#t. It allows a boat to move every which way, which is important for ferryboats (so we don’t get run over by an oil tanker or can dodge Paul the Pelican, for instance).
From Wikipedia:

“A Z-drive is a type of marine propulsion unit. Specifically, it is an azimuth thruster. The pod can rotate 360 degrees allowing for rapid changes in thrust direction and thus vessel direction. This eliminates the need for a conventional rudder.

The Z-drive is so named because of the appearance (in cross section) of the mechanical driveshaft or transmission configuration used to connect the mechanically-supplied driving energy to the Z-Drive azimuth thruster device. This form of power transmission is called a Z-drive because the rotary motion has to make two right angle turns, thus resembling the letter "Z".”

So apparently there are a lot of different levers to manipulate in a Z drive ferry and it takes a lot of time to learn to finesse them and work them all at one time. I bet a 10 year old video game aficionado could learn pretty fast, though.

Anywhoo, this morning Captain Novice was so slow that he didn’t manage to dock the ferry until 5 minutes after we were supposed to leave. And he came in at a really weird angle (in addition to failing Z drive class, I think he failed geometry, too). First he hit one side of the boat against the dock so hard that it almost made a light pole fall over, and caused 2 people to lose their footing. Then he inched the other side ever so slowly to the dock. After 5 minutes of excruciating maneuvers, you’d think he’d only caress the dock. But no, he SLAMMED into it a second time. By this point everyone waiting to board was either cracking up or rolling their eyes and I actually started to feel sorry for the guy.

Yes, it’s kind of hilarious, but it also made me think about how scary it is to be completely new to something. You just have to have faith and muddle along until you get the hang of it. Whether it’s yoga, cooking, working on an assembly line, or driving a ferry, cultivating your sense of humor along with new skills is important. And so I could learn to be a little more patient with Captain Novice. But I’m sending him a bill if I chip a tooth.