Placement of Chocks on side of boat

The mooring lines from the cleats on my trawler rub on the cap rail creating wear and tear on the varnish.

Has anyone mounted Chocks along the sides of the boats to keep the rope off the rail. The one downside I see would be abrasion to the rope for dock cleats that are not in line to the boat cleat and that stress on the boat cleat could cause it to pull out over time.

Randy

If everything is bedded in properly with backing plates, I doubt they would pull out unless the hull is thin or damaged in someway. Lines shouldn't be damaged by chocks unless they are rough or have nicks and burrs on them.

We have some large chocks on top of our toe rails. While they are not ideally placed they are of great value. I would not want to deal without them. I wish I could have told the builder where they should have been placed...

Chocks can wear on a line and it is a good idea for chafe protection on your permanent mooring lines that are always in the same position. For the midship cleats, the spring or breast lines tied to them can be in a wide variety of angles, for this reason I prefer wear protectors that protect the wood/paint/gelcoat but don't limit the path of the dock line. Some thing like this or stainless strips work well as long as the cleat isn't too close to a stanchion.

Some chocks do have a fairly sharp corners on them. I guess the designer either did not know what the purpose of a chock is or decided to go with form over function. My chocks are big and have nicely rounded edges. I have not seen any significant wear on my permanent dock lines and they are going on their second year now. I have some velcro on chaffing gear that I generally use on transient docks, but I don’t use it at home.

Do a search for rub strake from your favorite supplier. Come in various lengths and easy to attach. Work well, I have several on out boat.

Russell Clifton said:

Do a search for rub strake from your favorite supplier. Come in various lengths and easy to attach. Work well, I have several on out boat.

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I have the same issue on the two "mid-ship" cleats on either side of my boat. While I haven't done it yet, rub strakes are the ideal solution.

My mooring lines all pass through bronze hawse ports, but I have rub strakes at each location where I position fender whips. Also where fuel and water hoses are brought to cockpit. Cheap, effective and professional looking.

So:

I like the chocks on my boat, however President placed the poorly. On the spring cleat the chock is placed forward of the cleat so if you want a spring line going aft the line makes almost a 180 turn. But the chocks are rounded nicely on the edges so I have not seen any chafed spots on my lines. The cleats on the sundeck have chocks on the side and the transom. You must use the chocks or you will get chaffing on the lines and the fiberglass side boards quickly. There was some evidence on the side boards of chaffing due to the line not being run through the chocks by the PO. I uploaded photos of the 4 chocks on the port side of my boat. They all uploaded upside down. I edited them and saved them upside down on my iPad. Then I uploaded the upside down photos so they would come out right side up, however they still uploaded upside down. I don’t know how to fix the photos so they are right side up. Sorry...

If you ever plan on running the Loop , oversized cleats 12 inch? about midships will save a huge amount of effort when riding a sliding rig in big locks..

Our EB47 has fairleads through the wood cap and those are pretty good at managing the lines. They're secured through the deck, and to the adjacent cap rail.

My varnish guy absolutely hates anyone putting lines or fenders on the hand railings, as several of them are anchored to the cap rail (some have a stanchion to the deck itself). The screws will work loose if there's too much back/forth motion on them.

I've used chafe guard sleeves in the past and they worked reasonably well at avoiding excess wear on the lines.

A side note, dishwashing soap is great at lubricating a noisy line if you're anchored somewhere overnight and there's a lot of wind causing the boat to heave back and forth against the lines (and forget to use the chafe guards).

Keep in mind that if your line is turning 180 degrees from the cleat, around the chock and then to the dock, you are placing almost twice as much load on the chock as the cleat would be loaded if the line ran directly to the dock.

Its not the load I ever worry about...look at the working loads compared to the actual pull...its the chafe with that much of a turn and chocks without a large radius.

I believe in chocks used in conjunction with rub strakes. chafing gear is good also but in 8 years i never went through a set of dock lines.

For folks that use chocks or fair leads for anchor lines , remember in a Hurricane, chain does not stretch and abrade itself away like nylon.

FF said:

For folks that use chocks or fair leads for anchor lines , remember in a Hurricane, chain does not stretch and abrade itself away like nylon.

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But but but nylon stretches and absorbs the surge and waves better.

ben2go said:

But but but nylon stretches and absorbs the surge and waves better.

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only until it quickly chafes through and snaps....

On all of my boats I mount a 6-10” cleat vertically a few inches in from the transom corner. I split the distance between the rub rail and the top of the swim step. This gives a minimal distance between the boat cleat and dock cleat or bull rail. When I step aboard. Most of the time the line between the cleats is fairly flat so when the boat moves down with the added weight, it pulls the boat closer.