Tying up 42' boat at short dock

[Scotty Kiwi]

I'd put down a mooring as a starboard hold out and run a bow spring, stern spring and breast line from the mooring. The lines should be suitably heavy chain finishing with floating rope, each with a small buoy and chafe protection. The mooring can be a used truck tyre. Put the truck tyre on a large old sheet of ply on your boat, secure the three chains to it, fill it with concrete, let it dry, move the boat four feet from the wharf, and chuck the whole assembly over the side from amidships. There's your hold out. Concrete weighs 2.6 times what water weighs, so you can work out the weight from the size of the truck tyre by borrowing you kid's geometry schoolbooks. 22 litres (10 gallons) of dry concrete = 65 kg. (The weight of the Admiral). The concrete tyre will sink into the mud, adding to its holding power. I can't say what weight will be right though.

And have a port side bow and stern line running to hard points on the sea wall, or rock anchors, or similar.

Use the wharf for port side bow and stern springs only.

Even if you buy new chain and rope, the whole thing should cost under $ 150 (guess), and be able to be done (at the slow rate that I work at) in a day.

You don't risk damaging your landlord's wharf. The only thing is other fools running over your floating lines whilst you are away. The chain mitigates this risk, and some you have bungy keeping them closer to the wharf.

On docking, use the boat hook or a crab fisherman's throw hook to pick the whole arrangement up.

That's what I'd do, I reckon.

[Scotty Kiwi]

Oh I done that on a 68ft 22 tonne with a very small wharf.

[SV Bacchus]

We have good friends who have a 45 Leopard and a 45 Power Cat behind their home in Port Charlotte. It is a short ride to the harbor and when you enter the harbor you will be on the north side and west of any bridges, it is clear to the Gulf. Since he has cats I can testify to the depth of the water from his house to the Gulf. When riding out with him I noticed many houses with empty docks and several empty lots with docks, which we also empty.

Maybe check that area?

[mogulskibum]

Most of those canals in those neighborhoods in Punta Gorda are ridiculously calm; they're very protected from wind and there's not enough water movement ever (there's just not enough fetch) to worry about leverage and tying up a long boat to a short dock.

What I would worry about is depth. Both at the dock, and getting in and out. Don't rely on a chart, and don't think "the sailboat across the canal draws the same amount I do, so I'll be ok."

I know of more than one boat in that area whose owners have to go to great lengths to get in/out, like, say, take their boat out at 2 am on Wednesday night and dock it somewhere else if they want to go sailing on Saturday, and I can think of one boat kept at one of these docks that can only get in or out at a spring tide a few days a month.

You've got to ask locals who are taking deep enough keeled boats out that they are aware of the depth and tides what you're really facing.

The good news is that they've been actively dredging a lot of the creeks and canals the last year or so, so it's a problem that has been getting better.

[Ken Z]

Keep your spring lines tight, might want to use 4 spring lines on one side, breast cleat to dock, stern to dock, bow to dock, breast forward to dock, maybe fender boards ith bumpers.

[Sandero]

I think that this dock would be fine... you probably want to install some cleats ashore for bow and stern lines... which are "permanent" and you drop on the dock when you leave... and pick them up when you return.

You'll want to be comfortable with coming along side using a line from your boat's mid ship cleat to a cleat in the center of the dock....which will stop your forward motion... allow you to retrieve the bow and stern lines waiting on the dock and make them fast to bow and stern cleats.

Of course you'll want now and stern spring lines which can be "permanent" attached to the dock and tied off on the boat or loose lines set up when you leave the boat.

set up cushions for the pilings for your boat and your set.

[valhalla360]

Assuming you can get some solid tie off points on the seawall and you fender up well, looks perfectly reasonable.

If a storm is blowing thru put a couple anchors out to hold the boat off the dock.