With your 2 finger slip you may be able to secure the boat such that the dock fenders do not rub against the sailboat at all.......that is the way my sailboat and powerboat are secured.
Recommendations for holding the bottom line on a series of boat fenders out of the water.
- Thread starter Wade Gizzy
- Start date
THANKS for the "Boating With Dawsons link. I am a novice sailor, yet have 18 years of experience power boating on the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron in the 30,000 ISland Region, near Parry Sound, ON. I am not broadly familiar with various terminology. Welp, the Dawsons gave me the term: "drawstring" attached to the bottom of the fenders makes it quite easy to pull them up. As you said it was developed in the '30s for slow cruisers. As I stated earlier, I am 67 years old and not interested in running around on the deck. I do not plan on sailing the heel to the point that the fenders would become involved!
They also call the Georgian Bay "30,000 Island" area the "1 million shoal" area. I have a 24' Yamaha 240SX bowrider if I want to go fast. The Mac 26X I bought had a 9.9 on it because it was in a 5 sq miles freshwater "pond" in Ohio (it was pristine). The Georgian Bay is larger than the Chesapeake Bay (and infinitely less crowded, yet with a much shorter sailing season), and I may easily end up 30 miles from my cottage, with little time to get back. So I'm putting a new 40hp Merc. I don't need to "get up on plane".
They also call the Georgian Bay "30,000 Island" area the "1 million shoal" area. I have a 24' Yamaha 240SX bowrider if I want to go fast. The Mac 26X I bought had a 9.9 on it because it was in a 5 sq miles freshwater "pond" in Ohio (it was pristine). The Georgian Bay is larger than the Chesapeake Bay (and infinitely less crowded, yet with a much shorter sailing season), and I may easily end up 30 miles from my cottage, with little time to get back. So I'm putting a new 40hp Merc. I don't need to "get up on plane".
If you have a permanent 'home port', it is much easier to fix it up with fenders and lines, and leave them all behind when you day sail. Keeping fenders on-board and moving them around for leaving and arriving is a pain, particularly for single-handing. You could fix up your dock with all the padding in the world, plus a V-shaped docking line to catch you when you come in, and dock without touching a dock line. For heavy wave situations, may I suggest you look at Mooring Whips (like fishing rods, examples here - Mooring Whips | West Marine) which keep a small boat away from the dock, but allow you to adjust a line to move the boat back into the dock for boarding. I've seen these in action on canals, and if the boat is not very heavy they effectively keep the boat from smashing the dock even with wakes.
I keep getting better and better advice! Thanks so much! However, I am unfamiliar with the "V-shaped docking line to catch you" you mentioned. I googled it and looked on youtube. no clarification from those sources. Is there a different term?
I don't know a better name. For when you have a slip where you have two stern pilings or docks (like a parking spot) you can run a single line around the front of your boat, and secure the middle to the front pier in the center to form a V-shaped "nest". When you dock, you can slowly coast into this and it will keep you clear of either side and will stop you before you crash into the front. It takes some measuring and adjusting, but then mark your line at the season-end and it re-ties quickly in spring. Walk around to a local marina where people dock for the season and you'll see. People make them fancy by tying a fender across the front to keep them a little wider and make sure they cannot sink under the boat, etc. It makes single-handing docking a breeze. Here's a picture of mine.
So if we don't want to keep that all in our heads... can I just mash fender-bumpers into benders?
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We call them "tick-tacks". And when we see a power-boater flying by with the fenders bouncing off the water we say that they are "flying their tick-tacks".