Boat to Houseboat docking

Hey guys & gals, Going houseboating this year and lookin for some advice as to what is the best way to tie your boat to the houseboat overnight? On the back? The mooring line going to shore? What is your experience that has worked best with MINIMAL to no damage? Thanks

Brent,
From my experience:
No to the back b/c there is normally a slide from top deck. Wouldn't want hurt crew. Also, generator exhaust normally bellows out from the waterline at the back.
We just tie off to the sides with the huge fenders on the houseboat. However, we always put the houseboat way back in a cove where waves and wake are minimalized.
I would suspect you'd want to tie away from the houseboat if you are going to be in an area susceptible to waves and wake.

(Message edited by phat_in_cincy on January 03, 2006)

Get a hull-hugger - A fender mat that you leave tied up to the houseboat at all times with bungee cords. Point the nose of the ski boat toward the rear of the house boat. (for incoming waves) Keep a couple of fenders tied on the ski boat the whole time. Finally, have your dock line attached to the houseboat and adjusted just right to fit your ski boat's cleats or railings. With this set up, you can tie-up or un-tie the boat in seconds the whole week out on the lake

I always use a anchor buddy and tie the boat off between the shore and houseboat.

Drive a sand spike into the shore and attach a rope from the spike to the stern then the anchor buddy will go from the houseboat to the skiboat.

Your boat will stay out in-between the houseboat and shore. Just pull the boat towards shore when your ready to board it.

Or you can do it the same way with a anchor.

Here's pics of how we do it. Probably very dependant on how you will anchor your houseboat and how sheltered the entire setup wil be. As you can see, we are way back in a cove and the houseboat is tied to both shores.

Shees...triple overtime of the Orange Bowl...

I have used different methods depending on the conditions and depth. If your houseboat requires lines from the very back to the shore they will be in the way when tying off your boat on the side. If you are protected and the shoreline is not to steep/deep I would throw out an anchor buddy for the bow and tie the back off to the back of the houseboat. You can just pull it back to the houseboat to board. But beware of windy conditions if the houseboat gets loose at night.I decide based on the shore line and the weather.

I like to tie off the stern to the HB, and drop my anchor/anchor buddy off the bow, pointing away from shore. Keeps boards, tower, and racks from knocking the side of the houseboat, and no worries about hull dings.



It's hard to see the stern line in this picture, but it's there. The anchor buddy makes it easy to pull back for boarding.

I do the same as Mark B. Keeping the boat away from everything else reduces the chances of a mishap, plus you can have several boat buddied up and tied off the houseboat.

(we had an incident one day at Shasta this year where a significant gust hit the houseboat and pulled our spikes out of the shore. We got it corrected in time, but boats could have been damaged if they were tied up to the side of the HB.

We've always tied the bow to the mooring lines by tieing a dock lines to it w/ a carabiner and then tie off the stern to the back of the HB. You can sort of see it in my profile. Never caused any damage that I know of. IIRC, we usually left the stern loose so the boat would float away from the mooring line.

Brent- Here are a few pictures of boats using anchor buddies. The first one shows the boat on the side out of the way so using the slide is safe and the others are just of more boats on other HB that were in our group.

It really depends on the shape of the houseboat hull.

If it is a pontoon houseboat (most rentals are) then the deck can extend over the top of the pontoons a bit and make it very difficult to tie another boat up next to it. Often times this problem is countered by putting additional planking down the side.

Take a look at the picture Mark B posted. You can see that the last 12 feet or so of the houseboat has wood (or probably fake wood) planking down to the water line. A boat tied there will be protected by simple fenders.



Take a look just forward of the planks: The top of the pontoons curve in, leaving a major gap under the deck. If you attempted to tie a boat there a small fender would just get pushed into that gap and not be effective.

If you are not sure what you are going to have then I suggest that you take some really BIG fenders. Minimum of 12 inch, and 16 inch might even be better. If you have a 16 inch fender you could turn it sideways and tie it into the gap.

These are all awesome examples/ideas guys thanks so much. I like the way CAR has done his. Looks the easiest as long as the boat is secluded in a cove or something. Thank you all for your input!!

here is what we have used at powell for the past few years, it has survived in many a storm w/no problem... take a noodle, the one for kids to use in the water, slice length ways on one side, slide over mooring rope and attach the boat to mooring lines w/ bungee style docking rope , if you set it up right you can grab the back of the houseboat from swimstep and pull boat close enough to jump on houseboat, if you do not want to get wet...the noodle protects gel coat from mooring line


(Message edited by mortbike on January 04, 2006)

I've done similar as a couple of the others above with the anchor buddy on the front and attaching a rope to the back and to the HB. I also attached the rope on the back to the front of the ski boat as well (with enough slack that it hangs a little under the boat). Then when you want to load up in the morning, you pull on the back rope (which is attached to the HB), anchor buddy stretches and you step right on the boat. I then clip the anchor buddy and the rope that was attached to the back (using the extra length I'd attached to the front) to a mooring buoy and off you go. Come back and just unclip everything from the anchor buddy and reattach to the ski boat and pull it back into the HB and unload. Works like a charm and the boat sits peacefully about 25 feet behind the HB.
I got this recommendation from someone on WW a couple of years ago so you might even find the additional post with a search as it listed all the specific ropes and clips to get.

May seem like a hassle, but many of these new HB's are tough to attach to and with the slide, water outlets on the sides and the ropes attaching the back corners to land I couldn't find a good spot that didn't rub the tower or otherwise get in the way.

I've approached this process from a more basic method, I use a 6 foot 1 1/4" piece of PVC pipe with a 3/4" PVC pipe inside to act as a stiffener. I tie this to the house boat and attach it to the ski boat. There is also a lead line that is attached to the ski boat and tied about five feet in front of the PVC pipe to provide the triangulation to hold the ski boat away from the house boat. I do have bumpers along the boat to protect it when parked and waves come by. This system has lasted for years with an annual replacement of the rope required. I don't have any pictures but the concept is pretty easy to grasp and has a total investment of about 10 bucks.

Here are some pic of how we tied up our Boat at our houseboat trip last summer. Had a Great time wakeboarding fishing and yes Drinking alot of Beer.