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OverEasy wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2024 11:13 pm

Interesting question. I am one of those guys that takes his lines with him. I suspect that it hardly makes much difference in the real world other than our own personal preference. I keep four mooring lines attached each to the bow and stern cleats at all times. When I am underway, I coil them and tie them off to the pulpit or stern stanchion. This way, wherever I am and whenever I want to tie up, I have my four main mooring lines ready to go. Same with fenders. While I routinely tie up at my own slip, I do stop at the fuel dock, different restaurants, other marinas, and occasionally nest with other boats. I just feel more comfortable having my gear with me and ready at hand. I suppose I could make the technical argument that cleating off at slightly different spots on the mooring lines makes for less chaffing in one spot, but I admit that is a weak argument at best. Another reason I keep my mooring lines aboard is that I always "double up" my lines. I am in Florida and 45 minutes away from my marina. I like know that if a bad storm comes along, or I am out of town when a hurricane hits, I am already "doubled up". Lastly, its a Navy thing. That's the way we did it on the ships I served on, and it is hard to undo that kind of learning.

Hi Herschel!

While this may be a decade ago it still makes sense to us as well!
We get out and about as often as we can and have repeatedly found it of more convenience to “be prepared”… both with having 4 lines at the ready as well as sufficient fenders for both sides of Over Easy. We visit the fuel pier at different times and tide/current conditions for refueling. Same with various town piers to grab a quick bite to eat or to stroll the waterfront. There are also several decent restaurants that have piers we’ve stopped at for the occasional nicer meal. Once when a sudden thunderstorm squall over took us we hurriedly aimed to tie off at a nearby marina on our port side only the be forced to change over in a moment to the starboard side as the winds changed direction and broadsided us. Being prepared for either side basically made that change over seamless and a non-event (the best kind IMHO ).

The convenience of carrying our lines and fenders with us has far out weighed any issue with stowing them.
We’ve set-up a simple system to retrieve, stow and deploy our fenders from the cockpit (three per side).
Similarly we have two lines looped through the fwd and aft sets of deck cleats.
When when we are away for awhile or heavy weather is anticipated, we have a separate fore/aft spring line that we deploy that also doubles up our standard lines. This runs primarily to the mid-deck cleats we added to our boat as the main tie off. The tails run fwd and aft to the dock cleats then back up to the respective boat deck cleats. The cleat ties are such that even if any line were to fail the other connections will still hold fast.

This spring line serves double duty as we use it when launching and retrieving Over Easy to help guide her on/off the trailer in crossing currents and winds.

But as was said, Each to their own and what works for their situation.

Best Regards,
Over Easy