Carrying fenders

For the last few days I have been carrying my fenders on the gunnels as shown below. It is working out well for me, a tight rolling hitch on the stanchion at both ends keeps them in place, they are out of the way and close to where they will be deployed at the next stop.

Saw this setup last fall on a GB42 in the Gulf Islands in BC. Absolutely brilliant idea in our opinons and is what we will do on our boat as soon as we can get around to it. Had them on both sides of the boat, three or four fenders to a side. No need to retie the fenders to stow them and then retie them again to deploy them. Just pull them up and hang them up.

I don't like to display fenders. One might as well leave them hanging alongside the hull.... I'd rather hide them behind the gunwales, having the advantage of wide decks.

Fine if you have nice wide side decks Mark....a real pain if you haven't. So we do what you said, only we whip them up, out and over the rail, so still ready to deploy, out of the way, and no more or less visible than Steve's idea, but have the added advantage of giving some protection in event of a coming together of boats if that occurs for any reason while 'out there'...

We "stow" our fenders on the side deck, too, unless we're going to be out for several days or more in which case we remove them and put them in the stow bags my wife made that attach to the aft rails.

But we don't put them on the side decks to keep them out of sight. Appearance is about the last thing we care about. We put them on the side decks because we're too damn lazy to do anything else with them. Removing them, stowing them, and then putting them back the next day when we get back to port seems a waste of time to us. So they are a bit underfoot on the side decks but our decks are wide enough for them not to be a problem and we step carefully when we're out and about underway. When we get to where we're going--- anchor, mooring buoy, whatever, we just put them over the side again.

But we're looking forward to the day when we can get the hooks like the ones in my photo fabricated and installed. Then we can keep the fenders out from underfoot and STILL be lazy. It'll be a win-win.

I also have the fortunate advantage that the three-to-a-side green fenders are hardly noticeable (except where they cover the yellow waterline-stripe) when forgetting to take them aboard:

markpierce said:

I also have the fortunate advantage that the three-to-a-side green fenders are hardly noticeable

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Being a sailTUG, wouldn't a row of tires be better suited? btw, I thought your sailTUG originally came with tires? :lol:

Marin said:

We "stow" our fenders on the side deck, too, .............
. We put them on the side decks because we're too damn lazy to do anything else with them....... When we get to where we're going--- anchor, mooring buoy, whatever, we just put them over the side again.
.

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Ditto

Yes .. carrying fenders is a good idea.

I stow them on the deck. Here wer'e getting underway w 2 up and 2 down. Just paused to take the departing picture. They are a bit of an annoyance but after years of stepping over them I've never tripped and fell or almost fell that I can remember.

Re the new (I assume it's new) method of hanging them from the hand rail it requires fenders w "eyes" on both ends. I prefer the one eyed fenders w an eye on one end only. With the eye on the bottom (when deployed) the eye fouls rather badly w the fenders set for a low float and many floats in Alaska are low. So I buy the one ended fenders.

theran5317 said:

Being a sailTUG, wouldn't a row of tires be better suited? btw, I thought your sailTUG originally came with tires? :lol:

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Yes, the Coot came with four builder-supplied tires for fenders. But that was taking the tug theme to far, and they were difficult to store.

We bought a couple of ball fenders last winter for use in our temporary moorage. At this dock the wind blew the boat onto the dock, sometimes quite hard. The ball fenders can't compress or fold like a tube fender BUT..... they put all the pressure on a very small footprint against the hull. We noticed that at the end of the winter the two ball fenders had worn the gelocoat where the pressure was concentrated.

So we took them home and I don't think we'll use them anymore. For rafting, getting off a dock in an adverse wind or out of a tight space. and other uses, we have three huge "Big Bertha" cylindrical fenders that distribute the pressure against the hull across a much wider footprint.

For Christmas we were given a set of very nice fender covers for the four 'normal size" cylindrical fenders we use for everyday purposes but after talking to other people who have covers we decided not to use them as they trap and hold airborne dirt and soot and actually pose more risk to the gelcoat than the bare fenders which get washed off when it rains (every day). We have a fair amount of soot in our marina due to the BNSF switch engines that are running 24/7/365 adjacent to the marina.

The people we talked to who have covers on their fenders say they have to be washed about once a month or they start transferring the trapped dirt and soot to the hull. Putting fender covers on our boat is a bit like putting chrome hubcaps on a wheelbarrow anyway, and we're certainly not interested in anything we have to be constantly washing. So we found another use for the cover fabric.

Marin - good point about the ball fenders at the dock. We only use them on the boat for temporary raft-ups, where they work very well. In our slip, we have regular fenders deployed, but they don't travel with us, they stay at the dock. I should have pointed that out.

Washing fenders???

That's for good yachties.

I use. A ball fender on my bow for initial contact when approaching a float. After we straighten out it just hangs touching nothing. I'd like to get another one all the way fwd but wouldn't want it stored on the fore deck. That area must be unencumbered w gear adrift for anchoring ect.

See post #9 re the ball.

Re fenders the Willard is not very user friendly as her sides are curved kinda like a sailboat. We usually pull the stern in close and let the bow hang out. Most trawlers have basically straight slab sides that are easy to fender. Another curved thing about the Willard is it's rockered keel. If you put them on a tide grid 80 to 90 % of the weight of the boat will be on one point on the keel near center. A straight keel is MUCH easier to deal with. I needed to tie 2x8s to two grid beams to distribute the load. And of course that needed to be done in the dark in the middle of the night stomp'in around in the 18" deep kelp and mud. Boating is such funnnnnnnnn.

Mark re post #16 I agree.

Besides three tubular fenders along the central parts of each side of the hull, I have ball fenders near the bow and stern. The ball fenders only touch the dock under certain "extreme" maneuvers as when approaching/leaving the dock at a sharp angle. I've overheard people implying I'm "over-fendered." But I think not.

We only feel "under-fendered" when we get ourselves in a fix..!

I agree. I'm not too proud tomave too many fenders.

I've never had the gelcoat issue Marin referenced with the round ball fenders. Over the last couple of years I've grown to really prefer the ball fenders over the longer fenders.Going through the locks on the TN River the ball fenders do a great job keeping you off the wall, even if the gate valves are not working right and they kick up a current trying to push your boat into the walls. I've had the typical long cylinder fenders get squished flat as a pancake in the locks but the ball fenders are great. We don't need fenders on our docks though. Since we are under a covered roof, the roof frame support posts are at the outside edge of each slip finger with heavy duty plastic rub guards in place so the only thing to ever possibly hit the dock is your rub rail against the plastic guard so fenders are only out when we are locking through or rafting up.

Best photo (thanks to Ray) of the Coot's fenders. Perla was a little slow stowing them. ... I intend to move the stern round fenders to the next stanchion aft.