About a year ago I posted that I was serving my dock lines to reduce chafe. Where they contact the pilings and the dock cleats and the mooring bits on deck. I am please to be able to say the the hard serving completely protected the 3 strand laid nylon. There are some places where the service needs replacing but the lines are undamaged. Also I hang a pair of fanders over the stern and the rope that holds those is served where it chafes the turn of the transom. In year past the lines needed to be changed every year but this time they are in perfectly good shape for another season.
. Being the lazy sort that I am, I've found that just slipping old hose over my braided docklines keeps the chafe devil at bay -- for a while. I would not use hose on my docklines if I kept my boat in the water over the winter. I was lucky to have sailed as 'guest crew' aboard the tall ship "Pride of Baltimore" a few years ago. It was quite something to actually take the helm of such a boat. But I was really impressed by the youngish professional crew of the boat who, among other traditional tasks, continued the tradition of worming, parcelling, and serving many of the lines aboard that boat.