Borrow thy neighbors cleat

[davidpm]

This is our second year in the same slip.
The slip if a typical finger pier on a floating dock.
We have three cleats on each side of the floating pier.

We have a new neighbor who ties his stern line to our cleat instead of his cleat. It is a better angle for him but one or both of us has to remove the other guys line to get to the other one.

What is your take?
Complain to the harbor master?
Just deal?
Tell him he has transgressed a sacred rule?

[xort]

Can you do the same?
I do that with bow lines. I take my neighbors cleat and he takes mine. Makes a better angle of pull.

[sailingdog]

Well, it depends... is this the cleat nearest the main pier or at the end of the finger pier... if it is the one nearest the main pier, then the line is a tripping hazard... and you should tell him that... and ask him to refrain from doing that. If it is at the end of the finger pier, that's not a really usable excuse.

Ask him if he can leave that dockline on the cleat using the eye splice on the cleat. That way he wouldn't have to remove it or touch your line, and you're line would fit over it fairly easily.

[sailaway21]

Learn how to dip your mooring line eye through his, or vice versa. That way either one of you can cast off without disturbing the other's lines.

I'll try to describe it to you; if you saw it you'd see how in an instant.

Imagine his mooring line eye on the cleat. It has an opening in the eye. Take your line's eye and pass it down through the inside of his eye, towards the deck of the pier. Then you just bring it up and back over his eye and onto the cleat. Now either of you can take a strain on the lines and still be able to cast off. Your eye might bind a bit coming free but nothing that a tug with the winch wouldn't free easily. And neither of you will have to so much as touch each other's lines. When you see ship's tied up in a line along a wharf this is how it's done, where their head lines and stern lines share a bollard or cleat.

[sailingdog]

Sway—

You're assuming he leaves the excess line on the boat and doesn't use a cleat hitch on the cleat and doesn't feed the eyesplice through the base of the cleat. If he does either one of those things, dipping the eye doesn't work very well.

Originally Posted by sailaway21

Learn how to dip your mooring line eye through his, or vice versa. That way either one of you can cast off without disturbing the other's lines.

I'll try to describe it to you; if you saw it you'd see how in an instant.

Imagine his mooring line eye on the cleat. It has an opening in the eye. Take your line's eye and pass it down through the inside of his eye, towards the deck of the pier. Then you just bring it up and back over his eye and onto the cleat. Now either of you can take a strain on the lines and still be able to cast off. Your eye might bind a bit coming free but nothing that a tug with the winch wouldn't free easily. And neither of you will have to so much as touch each other's lines. When you see ship's tied up in a line along a wharf this is how it's done, where their head lines and stern lines share a bollard or cleat.

[bubb2]

I had the same problem with a new boater at my marina a few years ago. I had a talk with him about this problem and told him that I was a "new boater" also and didn't know knots and allot of things. I told him if I have to remove your line l to untie mine, I can't be held responsible if I re-cleat your line and it does not hold! He started right away to tie off on his side of the finger.

[sailingdog]

Bubb—

That's evil...letting their paranoia work on them....

[Valiente]

Pee on it. Message sent.

[Bilgewater]

I'm not so sure this is a big deal and can be dealt with a little discussion. Where I am, I have a rafting partner and I have to release my 4 lines and sometimes 6 if it's winter, swing both boats 180 degrees tied together using the current and wind to my favour. Then put out fenders on his boat and secure his boat with 4 or 6 lines. Then release my boat and go. Then when he goes out he needs to do the same thing.

I realize what I go through isn't typical and we all know how to do it and agree to it but if all I had to do is untie and re-tie one line on someones boat I would be one happy camper.

So I would pick your third option; Just deal

[JohnRPollard]

Originally Posted by davidpm

This is our second year in the same slip.
The slip if a typical finger pier on a floating dock.
We have three cleats on each side of the floating pier.

We have a new neighbor who ties his stern line to our cleat instead of his cleat. It is a better angle for him but one or both of us has to remove the other guys line to get to the other one.

What is your take?
Complain to the harbor master?
Just deal?
Tell him he has transgressed a sacred rule?

I would unbolt the cleat he's not using and mount it over on my side of the dock.