Good morning M-sailors May I give you a course in Mooring 101? To moor a vessel properly you have to meet four conditions: - The bow has to remain in a spot where you want it to be - The stern has to do the same - The boat has to be prevented from moving forward or backwards at the moor location. To accomplish this you need four mooring lines: - A bow line - A stern line - A forward spring line - An aft spring line The first line to go ashore should be the forward spring line. This line is is cleated at your anchor cleat and then is fastened to the dock. When it is cleated, it stops the boat from moving forward. The second line will be the aft spring line. It goes from a stern cleat on our boat to a cleat on the dock at the bow or further forward - where ever... Now your boat can't move forward or backwards. The next line are the bow and stern lines. As their name implies, the bow line goes from the bow of your boat to a cleat on the dock. The stern line does the same. With these four mooring lines in place, you boat can't move forward or aft; and the bow and stern of the vessel are fixed as well. Next problem: Prevent abrasion of your hull on concrete surfaces, or barnacle covered pilings. This is where fenders enter the game. If you are at a place, with no tide, and negligible waves, and you are mooring against a fairly smooth surface, one fender hung at the middle of the boat should suffice. If, however, you are docking in an area with high speed outboard boats towing water skiers, or big stink-potters who totally disregard the "NO WAKE" rule, you need more, and better protection from their waves. The answer to this problem is to use a "Fender Board". A fender board can be any old piece of a 2 X 4 , say 4 feet long. At the ends of the 2" surface drill a hole for a line. Thread a piece of 1/4" - or what have you - line through each hole and put a stopper knot on the bottom end. Voila, you now own a fender board. At this point you will need two fenders on the side of the hull. The fender board is hung on the outboard side of the fenders. Now your boat can bounce in the waves, but all the rubbing against the dock is done by the fender board. Over time it can get chewed up by - in my case - barnacles and tides. Building a new fender board, now that you know how to make one - probably takes you 15 minutes. It is as important as fenders are on a boat. Happy sailing Connie ex M15 #400 LEPPO ;