For those of you with sailboats with a bowsprit and bobstay/dolphin striker, what's the optimum length you've found for your mooring pennants and for your snubbers for all-chain rode? Is there a rule of thumb for pennant length based on the location of your bow chocks (hawse holes in our case)?
My Formosa 51 has a 6' bowsprit, and has a bobstay stood off a dolphin striker. The striker was popped off last fall during a Nor'easter from a combination of wave action and the boat twisting the mooring pennants tightly while spinning around the mooring with the flood/ebb currents in the harbor.
The bow "chocks" (hawse holes) are located about 30" or so back from the point where a line extended along the axis of the striker would penetrate through the anchor pit as indicated in the image below:
[IMG]http://http://www1.snapfish.com/viewsharedphoto/p=707301180539409786/l=248861195/g=12204408/cobrandOid=1000131/otsc=SYE/otsi=****[/IMG][IMG]http://www1.snapfish.com/viewsharedphoto/p=707301180539409786/l=248861195/g=12204408/cobrandOid=1000131/otsc=SYE/otsi=****[/IMG]
Is there a science to figuring out the optimum length, or just eyeball it? We're getting ready to launch after an extensive refit over the winter, so I need to spec the pennant length. Would 18' each be enough? 2.5 times the distance from the end of the bowsprit to the hawse holes? Any "formula" recommended?