Picture the situation where a swimmer (or boat) is roughly 50' away from you and 90° to your location. You can easily pull the object towards you. OK, now the boat has traveled an arc downstream to a 30° angle to the shore and you are fighting to get it over an eddy line. It is far more difficult to land that person or boat. Vectoring is a way to increase the pulling angle back towards 90°. One method is to have a second person on shore walk down the line while holding to bend the rope in the middle. As they get further down the line, the angle increases substantially. You can increase the angle yourself by walking backwards, further up on land if there is room. One problem with doing this yourself is potentially losing that great bracing/belaying position. The following short video demonstrates a snag plate and a vector pull: Vector Pull.