Shouldn't ever happen and I have to shake my head when the news reports that two "seasoned" captains were at the helm. Seasoned might mean two old farts napping at the helm. Even if it were on autopilot, how does it put the ferry into the middle of the jetty, it wasn't like they missed the entrance by a boat length.
Back when I started striper fishing out of Scituate harbor, I was in my 17 foot basstracker Vhaul and had an old Interphase monochrome fish finder with nautical mile log I relied on for navigation. My weekend one day to fish meant I'm going if the seas allowed and many days the biggest challenge was getting clear of the harbor in pea soup fog. Once clear I'd have a milk run of ledges to hit between there and Cohasset and it was all on nautical miles, compass heading and shut down the outboard when getting close to listen for the waves hitting the ledges. Once close I'd idle in until I could see the surf on the ledge and then the trolling motor went down and the fishing began. The return trip was the same and I never hit the harbor jetties
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