Good lord how does a Captain who's qualified to drive that thing even get it into that situation in the first place?
I went round and round (with myself mostly) about this part of the buying decision. Had a lot of people tell me that, once you get used to it, docking isn't that hard. My first boat was really hard to dock, especially without a bow thruster, which went out after about the second use. And once I really stepped back and looked at it, that portion of every time we went out was by far, our least enjoyable part and it wasn't even close. Wife was a mess, fights happened, lots of words were said, wrecks were narrowly avoided (mostly), blood pressure was high. It really just took the fun out of it for both of us. So, we decided a joystick was a must have. I tried on several boats that didn't have one to bring myself to just get one without it, but I just couldn't. Hell, I'm having having heart palpitations just watching that boat hit that dock.