Fender boards

bilbobaggins

bilbobaggins

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Grey Havens Marina - Elves pontoon
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Many heading off on their summer's cruise will be looking to carry some heavy-duty fendering to protect gleaming topsides from those rough harbour walls and alongside berths.

Friends have carried planks-with-lines as fender boards ( one even had steps cut out to help in MOB recovery ), while others have taken on some old car tyres. There are always issues of weight, dirt and storage.

I saw an innovative solution, which seems worth sharing. An elegant Rival in Padstow had a couple of lengths of industrial gas/water piping, about 4" diameter, strung horizontally on lines threaded through. These were very effective in holding the boat off the wall and its piles. The material is tough, flexible, and easily cleaned - and available free, on courteous request, from many civil eng sources. It is available in yellow, and blue, for the colour-conscious. Stowed, other lengthy stuff such as dan buoys and spare battens went inside.

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Re: Fender boards - other ideas as well ....

A boat that visits our local marina has a similar idea but uses rope inside soft clear plastic piping and is made fast fore and aft .... hangs in a lazy curve along the hull...... literally permanently. He has it because of the baltic trend for boats to lie alongside each other bow to pontoon etc.
Another boat we see has two soft "bell-ropes" twisted together loosely and hung the same, but without the pipe cover.

A point that many often forget - and is one reason for a fender often having a lanyard eye at each end - is to rig fenders fore aft .... not vertical ..... when laying against a wall. Allows the fender to roll etc. I advise a mix of vertical and horizontal in this case ...
 
Re: Fender boards - other ideas as well ....

One interesting form of fender is to make makrame out of old heavy rope.
A simple example is a long rope folded in the middle to make an attachment loop. Join the 2 ends with a reef knot followed by another reef knot followed by another reef knot each close to the preceeding knot until you have a pendant of knotted rope with 2 loose ends which can be whipped together. A wider mat type fender can be made by using 2,3 or more loops of rope. The reef knot is made first with the end of its own rope loop then with the loop adjacent, then the next then back to originbal pair.
It can make an emergency fender which can be returned to rope aain. olewill.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Many heading off on their summer's cruise will be looking to carry some heavy-duty fendering to protect gleaming topsides from those rough harbour walls and alongside berths.

Friends have carried planks-with-lines as fender boards ( one even had steps cut out to help in MOB recovery ), while others have taken on some old car tyres. There are always issues of weight, dirt and storage.

I saw an innovative solution, which seems worth sharing. An elegant Rival in Padstow had a couple of lengths of industrial gas/water piping, about 4" diameter, strung horizontally on lines threaded through. These were very effective in holding the boat off the wall and its piles. The material is tough, flexible, and easily cleaned - and available free, on courteous request, from many civil eng sources. It is available in yellow, and blue, for the colour-conscious. Stowed, other lengthy stuff such as dan buoys and spare battens went inside.

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Saw the same boat. Seemed pretty effective against the wall, but less so when it came to storing on board. A plank goes flat against the guard rails.
 
Choices, choices! The more ideas you have tucked away, the more solutions you have when one is called for.

That's what PBO is all about, IMHO.

Like the Tesco's green plastic vegetable tray ( 1.2m x 0.7m x 0.1m ) lashed on the foredeck behind the bitts, holding the anchor's chain cable ready for instant launch, in shoal waters. Saves jams in the hawsepipe, swearing and stress, and damage to the deck from 'ranging' the chain. Cheap and cheerful. Does the job.

Now in its third season......

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: Fender boards - other ideas as well ....

[ QUOTE ]
One interesting form of fender is to make makrame out of old heavy rope.
A simple example is a long rope folded in the middle to make an attachment loop. Join the 2 ends with a reef knot followed by another reef knot followed by another reef knot each close to the preceeding knot until you have a pendant of knotted rope with 2 loose ends which can be whipped together. A wider mat type fender can be made by using 2,3 or more loops of rope. The reef knot is made first with the end of its own rope loop then with the loop adjacent, then the next then back to originbal pair.
It can make an emergency fender which can be returned to rope aain. olewill.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know the type that you're talking about but hadn't seen one of these, which seemingly came from the German Navy.

Fender_sized.jpg
 
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