It is a bit counterintuitive to start with but once the boat is alongside you are no longer steering her in the conventional sense but deflecting the prop wash with the rudder. If you turn the wheel away from the pontoon (say port side alongside, turn the helm hard to stbd) then the forward drive of the engine will put moving water across your rudder which will bring the back of the boat onto the pontoon. Magic.

@Philip Donegan You are completely right. In this situation; forward-gear and stern-line attached to the pontoon. Turning to the pontoon will bring the bow in. The stern is already secured by the stern line. If you turn the wheel to or away the pontoon depends also on wind and tide conditions and which result do you expect. f.e. - help the bowman to secure the bow - turn wheel to pontoon. - help crewmembers to step on the pontoon at the stern -> turn wheel away from pontoon. That simple! Thinking about it, maybe Learn2sail was referring to the situation while you are using only a midship-aft-spring. Then it is important to turn the wheel away the pontoon, to hold the stern on the pontoon. I'm also totally agree with that!

@@ushi120 Due to the position of the rear dock cleat (offset to starboard), I think any forward thrust will bring the boat to the dock, just as it would with an aft spring line. Think of lever arm created by the dockline and the prop. Since either cleat would be offset to starboard, the lever arm created by the dockline and any (forward component of) prop thrust would move the boat starboard. Turning the wheel makes the propwash act as a stern truster (since forward motion is stopped by the dock line) and biases either the bow or stern to the dock (pontoon), but any forward thrust should move the boat to starboard. So straight ahead thrust or helm slightly away from the pontoon should move the entire boat parallel to and towards the pontoon. Except for high freeboard on larger boats, I think a spring line could work better in this case. But stepping off aft on a bigger boat after braking with prop thrust is good technique. Do brief all the crew to not try to fend the boat with their limbs, and have fenders there, etc. Thanks much for the videos @Learn 2Sail!