What to do When Your Slip is a Crazy Fit

November 2017, rev. 7-30-2024

Motion Control

My PDQ fit the slip like a glove. There wasn't a lot of room to play with, so she required good line adjustment and full springs on both sides. But that done, she barely wiggled, even with reasonable slack in the lines.

These are Mini-Shockles. I switched to Regular Shockles (below), since these were undersized in 40-knot gusts. It is also vital that they are long enough to handle to full tidal range.

 

My F-24 is a different story. Because of the beam (18 feet) we are in an end slip and hang out beyond the confines of the pilings. At the same time, the boat is too short for the slip, providing poor leverage to the stern lines on the dolphins. To make mater just a little worse, the cleat positioning does not allow the stern lines to cris-cross. As a results, she really dances in certain wind directions. Like most marinas, certain directions are well protected, others, less so.

My options:

• Spring lines, starboard. On starboard they wouldn't help much, but maybe.The forward line would be a severe tripping hazard when boarding, probably so much so as to make it unacceptable. There are no cleats, but there is a mid-ships ring I can tie to.
• Springlines, port. The bow spring would be across the deck, resulting in chafe to the line and rigging. The stern spring could potentially be rigged from  a ring near the stern.
• Anchor line. The outlying piling on the port side is tragically rotted and leaning, suitable only as a guide line anchor. However, we could lay a large Danforth anchor some distance out ad bring that line over. The direction of the pull would be quite favorable. I'll probably never get the anchor back, but I can probably find a big one at the second hand store. I have some chain and 1-inch nylon that would make a stout rode. At long scope and with months or years to settle in, it should get strong.

I have also been testing Shockles, from Davis Industries. I had always seen them as over priced bungee cords, suitable only for pontoon boats on lakes. I was wrong.

I added one to the starboard bow line, just to take the slack out. Because we do not have floating dock we must leave 1-1.5  feet of slack for tide, even when the lines are quite long.The boat was bouncing, because of the rebound of stretchy nylon dock lines between gusts. When I used the Shockle to apply a little back tension, removing the slack, the rebounding stopped!

I think using Shockles to absorb impact is just treating the symptom, and they won't last that long. But used to control rebound and manage slack they are treating the cause and seem to do very well.

But I'm still going to add some springs and the anchor line. Although we can get strong winds from the East, I am protected by shore and trees, and there is nothing to hit to port!

This is what I finally did, and has been working for six years. Only 4 tie points and a lot more stability.

• Double starboard stern line. this is easier, and the angles are nearly the same.  
• Starboard forward spring ready for hurricane season, but not used regularly.
• Port aft spring to rear of float. No forward spring. Will have to figure out chafe.
• Anchor line.