Here Comes Isaac

[chris07732]

I use 2"x8" board, 6' long, 10" fenders, 3' between fenders, suspended by 1/2" rope, attached to cleats. My boat is 40', CC, full keel, weighs 20,000lbs. I have squished a fender, but even riding on the fender board is better for the boat .

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by zeehag

i find fender boards are a great way of losing fenders and causing more damage in a storm.
raftups, yes. storms--no.

spidey webs of lines works ...so far...

You are completely right. Fender boards will not stand up to something like Debby, much less Isaac or a bigger storm. If you have to stay in a marina, pull it out as far as you can and spider web it. Do everything you can to keep it off of hard places and hope the storm surge doesn't go higher than the pilings, or your boat could end up like an olive on a toothpick no matter how well you tied her up.

I just live with the fact that my floating home is insured for a very good reason.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by bobconnie

Don't let these dummys bother ya guy !! They have no Idea the half ass marina docks and pilings ya guys have to work with !! and any time your on the wrong side of the storm in that area you are in trouble !! we were in the direct path this time (as almost always !) but we have tide gates to help us ! If you folks have never seen or docked in New Orleans ya dont know about Lake Poncatrain !! and the Bad surge ya folks get there !! Yea sure it's easy to say just jump aboard and tie it right ! LOL big joke !! just try it in 70 mile an hour winds and waves 4 to 8 ft high right in the Marina !! next time come on down to the Bayou and tie up behind my place and let thes heros fix everything up right !! while we have a cocktail in my genny air conditioned house and let the wind blow !! they will never understand what its like where ya were !! Just sayin till ya been there don't say what ya will do !! just my 2 cents !!!

Things can rapidly get to the point that it wouldn't be safe to climb onto the boat. Normally I have my lines set so I can adjust them from the boat, but I reverse it when a storm threatens. During Debby I was watching boats near the mouth of the marina pitching 50ª to port and starboard. No way anyone could have gotten on them (boy am I glad I wasn't living on them, although those slips are for smaller boats).

[SabreKai]

From my little part of the pond, I think Tate did just fine. The love affair a person has with his boat will take him/her into situations they may never has thought they'd go to in their pre-boat lives, but it isn't a suicide pact. And that certainly holds for a boat that is not yours. I've danced on the dock in a good blow trying to get a genny rolled up again or retied some lines but I'd never put my life at risk for someone else's boat. Them, yes but not the boat. Tate, hows your ankle making out?

As for the number of unprepared boats, I have to wonder how many of them are owned by people who are in financial difficulty, and would be happy to ring up the insurance company and tell them: Opps, it sank.

From all the threads we've had here about abandoned boats in rivers and suck, mysterious sinkings, thefts etc, I have to think that some people may not yet be in those desperate straits but would be content to have a storm remove that burden.

[callmecrazy]

I remember Irene last year, and the boats in my marina. Many of them were never attended to, no sails or canvas taken down, no docklines re-secured or reinforced, etc... But after the storm, about 80% of those people came down to the docks to check on their boats....

I don't know if they wanted their boats to sink or not. But I suspect that wasn't their intention. They are mostly just uninformed boat owners... Maybe down in FL people should be a little more informed than around here, but then there's always the boat owners that are 1000's of miles away not able to do anything about it. They have insurance because of that, not because they actually want the boat to sink.

And to note: I've seen Lake Pontchartrain get riled up, it's not pretty. The boats in the marinas buck more than a mechanical bull at happy hour. Good luck to them!