Do you run with fenders deployed?

Febders are normally stowed aboard...."except for" when we are running in a canal system. Then they stay deployed.

If it's good enough for the tug boats:



It should be good enough for everything, right??

I love the guys who leave their fenders down. I pick up 2-3 every season. Thank you!

Never intentionally.

Russell Clifton said:

I love the guys who leave their fenders down. I pick up 2-3 every season. Thank you!

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So you are the one with my fender?

There is nothing wrong with running dirty. AT least some of you are honest?

Most of the SO and older people have a very hard time pulling them, 15 to 20 lbs, in. Just what I need is a injury/heart attack on the boat. Hasve to start carrying one of the zapper things I do not like them laying on the deck as they become a hazard and then I have to look at them, better/easier to let them hang is long as they are not hanging/banging in the water.

May be we are just hanging around the commercial dock/boats to much?

In my boating venue, it is considered gauche to run with your fenders out. We refer to a boat with fenders out underway as havin' "yacht club racing stripes", a sure sign of a sliphugger.

Not unless the Admiral forgets to bring them in......

ancora said:

In my boating venue, it is considered gauche to run with your fenders out. We refer to a boat with fenders out underway as havin' "yacht club racing stripes", a sure sign of a sliphugger.

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gauche! Now that really hurt. When on Lake Union and on our dock we are the token white trash as most of the boat were meg a bucks, and we are a professed/confirmed dock queen condo. However, the Eagle is an ugly old classic trawler, so we tell them, that the way they did it back then. Heck most boats are not old enough to remember and/or if they are, they can not remember!

OK so I forget once in a while.

Youse guys must not boat around locks.

We always drag them in and out for local docking but while on the Erie, Oswego, Richelieu and Chambly we leave them down - on both sides. Especially in the Canadian system where we never lock alone.

How else are you gonna wash them?
By Hand. Ugh.

SD

alormaria, we frequently go through the locks, but wait until just before we enter the lock to put the fenders out, and retrieve them as we're idling out of the lock.

Gauche, we're not!

I have been known to run with fenders down. Not by choice, but because I'm getting better at forgetting things. I would be really distressed, but I can also forget to be bothered by it.

Phil Fill said:

...... Most of the SO and older people have a very hard time pulling them, 15 to 20 lbs, in. Just what I need is a injury/heart attack on the boat. ...........

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I find I can swing mine onto the deck without lifting them.

You gotta pull them in.
Otherwise they rub and cut the lines and you lose them.

SD

ancora said:

In my boating venue, it is considered gauche to run with your fenders out. We refer to a boat with fenders out underway as havin' "yacht club racing stripes", a sure sign of a sliphugger.

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We call them Arizona Cruisers.

My boat came equipped with four tires as fenders. Thought that was taking the tug scheme too far. Besides, they were heavy and awkward to handle and store.

I pull mine up, but have been known to run down the sound with them still on the sides. Especially if we're just moving down the Sound. At 8 knots they pose no real danger of flying off as they would've on my previous boats.

GFC said:

Gauche, we're not!

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I'm from Texas. Never used that word in a sentence.

Gosh Dang it!... I might be Gauche after all!

ColonyCove said:

I have been known to run with fenders down. Not by choice, but because I'm getting better at forgetting things. I would be really distressed, but I can also forget to be bothered by it.

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I resemble this remark. Luckily our home slip has fenders mounted around the slip so normally I don't have to deal with fenders on the boat. And we leave our dock lines at the slip (have a set for travelling). Less to forget.

I'm embarrassed to say yes, I often have fenders deployed when running. Most of my runs are short and to one swimming hole or another. Here in the canals of Key Biscayne, one never knows if the guy coming at you with his new 70 foot toy has ever piloted a boat before. Wealth outweighs common sense and experience to a large degree here. We have been hit at the dock and in the canals. It's a heck of a thing to say it, but I wear 'em for protection.

Out on the Bay or on runs over a half hour or so, I pull 'em in.

Nothing says "Boatnik" faster than an underway vsl with fenders flapping in the breeze!

Now don't you all feel better telling it t is.

Sometimes.

It's a short jaunt between our moorage and the Chittenden Locks. If single handed, I just leave them out between the dock and the locks. There's enough going on without dealing with the fenders, and they will definitely be needed in the locks. The wife will sometimes take them in and then put them right back out again for the locks- it just depends on how busy she is.

If we aren't going through the locks on a given day, or as soon as we clear the locks if we are, the fenders are stowed on easily reached racks either side of the flybridge cowling. Leaving them on deck creates a trip hazard, both from the floats and from the whips- at least in my opinion.

As a guy who prefers to run from the lower helm a lot (maybe due to our frequently liquid weather) I have not been a huge fan of situating fender racks along the rails either side of the foredeck. Unless running from the flybridge or a very proud pilothouse, those "bumpers" can do a great job of blocking visibility.

Chuck Gould wrote,

"Unless running from the flybridge or a very proud pilothouse, those "bumpers" can do a great job of blocking visibility."

I agree 110%.

I'm not so fussy about fenders on my deck but I'm real fussy about my view.

manyboats said:

I'm not so fussy about fenders on my deck but I'm real fussy about my view.

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... even to the extent of having no bow pulpit, let alone STRONG handrails.


I'm opposite.

I drive people nuts because they are always complaining about rain drops or a little condensation, water spots, etc..etc...on the windshield..

Of course they are usually the same who complain about a little static on the radio too...

After all those years flying helos...my tolerance for "liking" some thing and safely seeing enough is pretty far apart...

I was once told that running with your fenders out is like walking around with your fly down.

On the sailboat, fenders go into the cockpit locker once we leave the dock or raft-up. On the tug, they get flipped on deck. That said, we keep a couple fenders permanently tied to the dock in our slip, so we usually only have one or two tied to the boat in the marina, the rest come out for raft-ups.

NO!!, they blow away.

Mark wrote;

"even to the extent of having no bow pulpit, let alone STRONG handrails."

Those life lines seem plenty strong to me. Don't recall any Willard owners converting to heavy tubes either. I think they are very common on sailboats. And the security issue would seem to be greater in that application.

I see Perla is w/o shoes. I do hope your investments haven't gone south.