Driving battered piles in open water

I attempted to drive battered piles reflectorless in open water with a pile driving crew. Messy! Has anyone been there?
I'm using Carlson SurvCe in my data collector on a Sokia 3Set total station. I built horizontal alignments for center line of pile through the proposed foundation on autocad and a vertical alignment to hold the batter on a skewed angle. The alignment starts at the foundation locking in horizontal and vertical, moves upstation to the tip and then negative station in a projection skyward to catch  the pile while it is being placed and driven. The cans are 3' in diameter 150' length. Sight lines are extremely limited. I am shooting from a neighboring piers. I used stk to an alignment with a 1.5 offset.( Forget the elipses, I just need to get these things within .25'.) The 1.5 offset to the alignment that gives me a distance L/R of line doesn't always work from one conrol point to the next as sometimes I'm sitting along the pile run and sometimetimes I'm in front or behind it.
Ack! There has got to a better way! My gut tells me I'm over thinking this, and not interpretating the information I'm given correctly. I need to get shots off and quick responses to the crew. I was attempting to let the alignments do the calcs for me. Pile driving is intense survey. I was using my cuts or fills to move the piles up or down my alignment.
I had a bust on the second pile and got my ass handed to me. I'm going back into autocad to check my alingment, though it looked tight before I shut my laptop down and slumped out of the office. I think more it was where I was standing in relation to the pile that threw me. These 6/12 days are wringing me hard. Anyone?

I will assume your centerline battered alignment is correct.

1.   All set-up control points must be accurate and relate to project datum - horizontal and vertical.
2.   I assume when they first stab the pile it is hanging in the vertical position - they then give it several blows.  At this point it must be on centerline L/R plus some distance up-station based on (2a) below.
   (a.)  At this point you must know the elevation difference from the axis of the foundation design point.down to the tip of the pile.  Do a quick computation to
    depth X batter ratio and make sure the pile is up station that amount. 
3. When the operator hooks the leads - closes the rabbit and sets the batter angle - take a shot on the C/L of the pile at your eye level - this will give you a come or go and left or right of your design C/L.

The come and go and the left and right won't mean much if your set-up position is at a skew angle to the centerline alignment so when you do the computations
make sure you assume it to be north-south or east west then your come and goes and your left and rights are the movement for the batter angle and the movement to get pile back on CL.

Give me a call if I can be of further help, sometimes hard to explain this in several lines of text.

RA  702-353-3653