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As a sailboat enthusiast kedging is most often used as in the case of poor Blackbeard when you get caught up on something and need to move a small bit in a direction that’s against the wind or water. So usually just trying to get unstuck when you’ve run afoul of hidden sand bars or the tide shift leaves you in an awkward spot. You also might do it to help set an extra anchor if you’re worried about drifting on the tides.
Even deep water boats only have a few hundred feet of anchor rode and line and it takes a while and is a hassle to kedge out with your dinghy.
I have never in all my years of boating seen anyone do it as a method of general propulsion outside of just handling lines at the dock. It’s just sometimes your best shot.
When put on a decent hill with a hose up top, then stepfather added another 100 feet of tarpaper after the slip and slide.
You would think tarpaper would not be slidy but when covered with water it was slick as shit and you would hit it going 80mph from the slip and slide and just keep on going even off the end and into the grass puddle.
The actual slide by itself especially on a level surface was pretty much just used to see who could ‘surf’ on it with the feet until someone inevitably cracked their head pretty hard and the fun would stop