How to bumper a boat at a piling

When you tie up at a dock, there are times your boat will be next to a piling or ruff uneven surfaces.  I have tried to get creative to protect my boat, but using a fender board and two bumpers is the easiest and it keeps the boat safe.

A scrap board with a rope tie hole at both ends and two bumpers is easy.  See illustration.  Storage of the board is no big problem and it is a quick and easy way to protect your boat.

Two free Boat bumpers

Two free Boat bumpers

I went down to our boat dock this morning and was wishing that there was just a little more breeze to make it a nice sailing day when I saw a boat bumper floating in the canal across from our boat. I like finding free stuff like that. From the size of it, the bumper was not a cheap one, and in fact we had two just like it. I got the kayak off the dock and paddled over to it a pulled claimed my prize. When I got back to the dock I found it was not just like the ones we had, it was one of the ones we had. The line that had held it on the boat had just rubbed through and the bumper had just taken a swim.

I checked the lines on all our bumpers and replaced the lines on two of them. I still think I was lucky to have found a free bumper even if it was my own. I was still dollars ahead not having to buy a replacement for it.

The other free bumper was one we had found when we were sailing in Key West. We found this big bumper drifting in open water. It was very big, about 2 ½ ‘in diameter and 4’ long.  We hooked a line to it and towed it back to the Marina we were at. It took 3 of us to get it on to the dock. The bumper was damaged on one side and one of the big rings that a line would have been tied to was broken.  With the good side up, it made a nice dock fixture. This big brown bumper got nicknamed “The Turd” by the others on the dock. The name fit, and it was functional and we put it to use when a storm came up. The rest of the time it was dock art. It was too large for us to take with us when we left Key West so we do not know what became of “The Turd”. The best that could be said about it was it was free.

Inexpensive boat protection...a fender board.

Keeping your boat from bouncing off a dock piling while moored can be a problem. I have seen some very creative ways of tying boat bumpers to boats and pilings to solve the problem. An easy fix is to use a simple fender board. Two boat bumpers and a board is all that is needed.

Women are more creative when it comes to tying boat bumpers to boats and docks and coming up with things to use as bumpers. Some that I have seen were elaborate and they worked to prevent boat damage.  One of the most impressive bumpers was one made from a large mesh bag filled with capped plastic bottles. There were soda bottles, water bottles, juice bottles, and any plastic bottle she could find. She called it her recycled green boat bumper.  It did work well, but the crackling crunching sound was unreal. It worked so well that the rest of us near her boat gave her bumpers so she would retire her crackling one. She was not so dumb.

To make a bumper set-up that protects the boat from a piling, all you need is two standard boat bumpers and a board.  The bumpers are attached to the boat so they would be on either side of the piling. A board that is longer than the distance between the two bumpers is hung over them so the ends of the board rest against the bumpers and the middle rests the piling. The boat can move a little forward or backward and up and down and the board rubs the piling and the board is kept off the boat by the spaced bumpers.  It is cheap and it works and it is quick to set up.

First find a board to use as a fender.  Drill two holes in the board, one at each end of the board. Tie a line through each of the holes. These lines will be used to tie the fender board to the boat. Next tie two regular boat bumpers to the boat, so they would be on either side of where the piling would rest on the boat. Now tie the fender board to the boat so it is between the piling and the boat bumpers. The boat bumpers keep the fender board away from the boat, and the piling rubs the fender board. This is a cheap and easy way to protect the boat.