Quick tie ups

[Rick Carpenter]

Hello,

New pontoon owner here. We have a 2021 18' Sun Tracker that lives in a small marina with raised slips on Lake Livingston in beautiful East Texas. The marina also has a fishing pier with areas to dock, but no cleats. For boarding less agile passengers or quick restroom breaks, I dock her to our pier with two 4' bungee lines attached to a couple of 5/8" 3-strand spliced rings that I toss over the short pilings fore & aft. Good practice?

Whenever we go for longer times ashore at a dock with cleats, we'll use the regular bow/stern/spring lines.

[FogHorn]

Sounds like a great solution!

Cleats are cheap...you might see if the marina owner would mind if you installed a few for them.

[Moser]

It seems like a good way to use the posts. The marina calling the fishing dock a fishing dock may be a reason to not put cleats on it, possibly creating a trip hazard in a place where they are encouraging foot traffic. Most docks where you can keep a boat do not allow fishing from the dock.

I am a big fan of bungee lines for short term docking, you can toss one over a cleat, run to the other end and grab a regular line, pull some tension on the bungee, and tie the boat off, the bungee line will keep it tight to the dock. I bought 8 of the 4 footers at Gander Mountain when they cleared out the boating stuff at 80% off.

[Captain Tony]

Hey Rick:

Sounds like you have a good working solution.
I like your comments about the regular bow, stern & spring lines as those would give you the most security.

Moser is probably correct on the "fishing dock" requirements and also there is the liability to consider if you make
modifications to unowned property. Maybe not but best to be sure.

I hope you got the digital copies I sent you when I approved your user ID.

Enjoy !!

[Rick Carpenter]

We used them again today boarding some friends we took out riding/fishing. They seem to work well "sprung out" fore and aft, and because there are no wakes they are potentially more secure than cleat hitched bungee lines.

Thanks for your help with registering and for sending the digital versions, Captain Tony.