Fender Knots?

Only a wazok uses little palstic clippy things on their fenders.... totally naff. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Present Company excepted... who may use such items for entirely seamen like reasons.....ergo Swmbo cant tie a knot, skipper has no fingers, etc.
 
I guess that what I use is a form of 'slipped hitch' and I do not see what is wrong with the way that I do it.

I can understand that a slipped hitch around a lifeline is bound to go astray; that is why my method might be different.

I throw the hitch around the top of the stanchion, where the guard wire passes through, like a 'T'. The line from the fender goes over the top, down on the inside, round both the fender line and the stanchion, when a slipped bight is taken, thus completing the hitch. The whole thing is then drawn tight around the head of the stanchion when satisfied that the height is correct.

The hitch cannot roll free; any pull from the fender line only serves tp put more pressure on the trapped slipping bight.

I do not use a laid line. I use a very soft multi-plait that is, in effect, a flat tube, and I leave the slipped bight quite long (5 or 6 inches). This line is limp enough to allow it to adapt itself to the surface of all the parts - fender line, stanchion and other parts of the hitch itself - such that there is more than sufficient friction to discourage any accidental slippage.

So far I have never lost a fender through this hitch coming undone. I have picked up several that were drifting, presumably because their attachment was evidently not up to scratch. ALL of them had stiff, round, line that cannot really be drawn up tight around something as thin as the guard wire - which would then render it useless for the purpose.
 
Why ignore the bottom guardrail? My normal practice is a turn round the lower gaurdrail and a clove hitch on the top guardrail. Spreads the load a bit. When leaving the boat for the week I put a half hitch on top of the clove hitch.
Only lost two so far: one to a "competent crew" doing what she'd been taught and one to me getting too close to a pile and wiping it off its rope. (Both fenders subequently recovered!)
 
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Much better thatn pictures of industrial archaeology.

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You're so right! So here's a picture of 3 fender attachments with clove hitches (note the stopper knots).
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If I may make so bold as to offer a little gem from Ken's Bumper Book of Nautical Hints and Wheezes? The angle of the fender lines in the picture betrays the error of allowing the lower ends of the fenders to touch the water. Setting them the merest inch or twain above the water will keep them hanging down straight and avoid all the rubbing of your topsides with consequernt marking and grubiness.
 
Vic's right to distinguish between immediate need and the long term. The shout "take a turn" means just that: do the job, never mind what it looks like - that comes later.

So your slippery hitch AND your clove hitch are only temporary expedients, for both will come undone in time, particularly a clove hitch: just go to sea with those fenders still dangling, or tow the dinghy hitched to the pushpit that way - just watch them work loose.
Secured with an extra half-hitch maybe, or replaced with a RTATHH (wot?), that's fine.

As for those little hooks and gizmos, how you all manage to park your AWB's in precisely the right place next to an identical hull every time beats me (in in a Sunsail florilla maybe?). Just park the darn thing without damage THEN start all over: will spreaders clash, are centrelines parallel, are fenders in the right places and at the right heights? That's when the single bows, clove hitches and granny knots disappear to be replaced by summat more secure, when warps are rove to control from on board; some peeps give a thought to shorelines about now...

Strangely, it usually looks better too.
 
Re: Fender heights?

"the ERROR of allowing the lower ends of the fenders to touch the water."

There speaks someone who has yet to berth alongside a drying pontoon . . .
 
[quote The angle of the fender lines in the picture betrays the error of allowing the lower ends of the fenders to touch the water. Setting them the merest inch or twain above the water will keep them hanging down straight and avoid all the rubbing of your topsides with consequernt marking and grubiness.

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Au contraire mon vieux fruit, the angle betrays the fatness of the fenders (after all I have just come through that bloody ditch) though quite why they are still outboard, I know not - I'll slap the crew next time I see him for his slovenliness.
 
Re: Fender heights?

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"the ERROR of allowing the lower ends of the fenders to touch the water."

There speaks someone who has yet to berth alongside a drying pontoon . . .

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I don't think we have met, have we?
 
I learned something which I believe is called a "Highwayman's Hitch" when I was a horsey person. The horse can pull as hard as it likes and the knot will hold, but pull the loose end and it comes apart very easily. It also has the advantage of not being wrapped around the rail or whatever you are attaching to.

I reckon no fender has the strength of a horse and have used it successfully, if controversially, on boats.

Just don't ask me to describe how to tie the damned thing!
 
The highwayman's hitch is very quick for releasing (and looks impressive when you tie it) but you have to completely redo it to adjust the hight
 
As someone who adjusts or retrieves awol fenders on an almost daily basis, my observations are:

1) Slip hitches slip
2) Clove hitches: in thin line they are a pita to adjust, in thick line they tend to slip and the fender drops below pontoon level
3) If on guard rails they are easy to adjust fore and aft
4) On the toe rail or stanchion base they tend to stick out at an angle, on most boats with low freeboard
5) I personally use a round turn, a slipped half hitch, then another half hitch. Clove hitches are BANNED - they cannot be quickly adjusted or moved when coming in to a berth - and I insist that the first half hitch is slipped for rapid adjustment
6) Whatever attachment is used, without some kind of stopper knot the fender line is likely to move down or off
 
awol said:
If you read Post #1 you will see this is apposite to the OXXOOX thread and of a similar vintage back when forumites were gentlemen. Quite a few of them have swallowed the anchor since.
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Plus ca change & all that. In the spirit of not letting a good argument die, I have to admit that I am of the round turn and a slip hitch persuasion, convertable to two hhs when safely moored. I wouldn't dream of asserting that clove hitches are wrong, only that I find them harder to adjust quickly.
 
I use a slipped clove hitch with the tail dropped through the bight for security; easy to adjust for height and quick to release. Once safely moored I may change to a round turn and two half hitches - depends.
 
roger said:
Having lost a fender to a clever knot learned by SWMBO on a shore based course, I prefer to use a round turn and two half hitches. It' simple to learn and secure.
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I completely agree about a round turn and 2 half-hitches. It doesn't fail, and it can be easily undone after it has been pulled tight.
 
Also, when I was in the Med with no pesky finger berths to worry about I simply tied on all fenders and never untied them for 2 or 3 years. At the bottom of each fender I ran a line to the cockpit which hoisted them all to above the lower stanchion wire and just hooked onto the pushput. Putting out all the fender on coming into an anchorage or harbour was just unhook port, unhook starboard and done.

Alas now much more hassly so I use slip hitches so I can adjust height quickly depending on the last minute knowledge of which side is finger and which side is another boat.
 
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