Breakdown of По-моему, капитан сам будет водить катер.
быть
to be
водить
to drive
сам
oneself (сам, сама, само, сами)
по-моему
in my opinion
Questions & Answers about По-моему, капитан сам будет водить катер.
The noun катер is singular here, but what is its plural form?
Even though it is singular in this sentence, катер (motorboat) is an important word for this lesson! It belongs to the special group of masculine nouns that take a stressed -а in the nominative plural, making it катера instead of the regular -ы ending.
Why does the sentence use водить instead of вести for driving?
Because the captain will be performing the general role of driving the boat. While вести is a unidirectional verb used for a single trip in a specific direction, the multidirectional verb водить is used when talking about driving as a general skill, habit, or role.
Why do we use сам here instead of the reflexive pronoun себя?
сам is an emphatic pronoun used to stress that the subject is doing the action personally (the captain himself). You would use себя if the subject were the object of the action, such as if the captain were looking at himself in a mirror.
Why is По-моему spelled with a hyphen and followed by a comma?
When the prefix по- is added to a possessive pronoun like мой to mean in my opinion, a hyphen is always required. The comma is there because Russian punctuation rules strictly require introductory words expressing a personal opinion to be separated by commas.