Bow eye
I suppose that you could use the bow eye, Gene. It's the strongest part of the boat but would you trust a snap hook on it? My friend Dave who lives near the club used to moor his boat that way and he claims that his hook broke off the bow eye one day and his boat landed on the shore. Also, it would be a pain in the butt to have to lay on the bow to connect and disconnect it. Myself, I prefer one pendant line attached to my bow cleat with a cleat hitch. It's a whole lot easier. Some guys like an eye splice on the pendant line, and that's OK too, but I'd go a step further and tie a small diameter line right over it to keep it from jumping out of the cleat. I like to be able to slide fish trap bouys on my pendant line. Some guys tie bleach jugs to their pendant lines to keep them afloat, but I prefer the Styrofoam floats, myself. I don't like pick-up sticks tied to a pendant line. I prefer to pick up my line with my 12' telescopic boat pole. I've been practicing picking up my mooring under sail for years now, and do you know what? I can do that better under sail than under power with my outboard. I fail misseralbly sometimes trying to do it under power. I don't do it under power enough to get good at it again, but I'm OK with that. I checked down the river for that Venture sloop with the bow sprit yesterday, and it was gone. The guy must have taken it out to the bay that day. I love my bow roller. I think that it's the way to go. Just take your time and figure out how you want to install it. Then make your necessary corrections later for mooring. My friend Walter made up a special pendant line out of three strand nylon rope with a heavy duty snap hook on one end, and an eye splice on the other end, but he always moored to the cleat with his regular pendant line. He would always attach or disconnect this aternate line from his pram by running the eye splice through the mooring shackle and over it's self to connect to the ball. He bought this special S.S. snap hook from Suncor. He also bought a stainless steel swivel for his pendant line. Joe
