Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Hi - I'm new here and trying to setup my pontoon at my dock with mooring poles. I'm having some issues and was wondering if anyone here has solved them.

The mooring poles do a good job of keeping the boat off the dock (and we are in fast/rough water due to surf boats going by). But we do have two issues.

1. The ropes on the poles rub against the pontoon cover which wore through the cover and is starting to degrade the lines
2. The water is so rough that it already snapped one of the poles.

So I was thinking of trying to put some mounts up on the rails and potentially adding a third mooring pole to distribute the load, but before doing that I thought someone else must have this problem and I'd be interested to get some feedback. I'm also a bit concerned that the aluminum poles may not be able to withstand the force being placed on them.

In any case feedback and thoughts/ideas are welcome (I did try to search and could find some older posts but all the pics and videos were gone)

So are these whips or the mooring arms that lay flat? If they're whips do you have fixed bases (like a flag pole mount) or the rocker arm bases? The fixed bases are only for low wake and non-tidal areas (i.e. not much level change).

As for the rope rubbing, the only think I could think of would be to run your lines through a short piece of PVC or similar tubing and chamfer the tube edges.

How about foam pipe insulation for the ropes?

These are fixed mounts. These are the poles: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I ... th=1&psc=1

Is there a different kind of mooring whips that are better for rough water?

FlyYellow wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:33 am

These are fixed mounts. These are the poles: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I ... th=1&psc=1

Is there a different kind of mooring whips that are better for rough water?

Yeah, they make a rocker arm base that is for rough water....
https://www.westmarine.com/buy/taylor-m ... 57_007_002

Dock Edge's ultimate model uses a rocker base.
https://dockedge.com/product/ultimate-mooring-whips/

I looked into whips for mine but wasn't sure my dock was sturdy enough.

Pool noodles can make a great buffer and they are dirt cheap. Run the ropes through them where they make any contact. You will replace them fairly often, but they are a whole lot cheaper then a cover lol.

FlyYellow wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 01, 2022 9:40 am

.....due to surf boats going by).

We are on a 10 mile long, 1 mile wide lake and the surf boats have gotten out of hand to the point where several property owners are finally raising hell about it. I had a large cleat lag bolted into the 2x16 runner on our deck and a surf boat came by and ripped the cleat out of the wood. My neighbor had the cleat on his jet ski ripped out of the fiberglass.

I am all for people enjoying the water, but these surf boats are damaging shorelines and piers.

Rant

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