Mooring Whips - Good or Bad

[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by Blue Thunder

I have the 2 piece oversized whips for my 24 ft FW. I have the lines connected to my dock as shown in RattesnakeGuy's illustration. I also added a spring line for extra measure to make sure that there is no forward and backwards movement and the whips stay straight as required. It doesn't take much chop to get the boat bobbing and weaving enough that I chicken out and move it to safety. Kind of defeats the purpose of the investment.

Blue Thunder

Bob and weave it might but does it crash into the dock ? We use whips but only for our PWC as there's not enough slip width to use them for the boat. The PWC bobs up 'n' down but stays away from the dock. In your case you might want to place a couple of fenders on the dock as well. Whips + fenders have to be better than fenders alone, as NB has already noted.

BTW : Did you adjust the lines to put the whips under the proper amount of pretension ?