Docking

Some friends of mine are building a house on a lake and they are letting me keep my boat there. The house has a wooden dock with no bumpers/ whips/ any protection period. The lake gets pretty busy on weekends and there are a few wake boats. What should i use to pretect my boat. Since it is only temporary, the dock will even be knocked down eventually, i would like something as cheap as possible but saving money is not worth it if my boat will be destroyed. What is the cheapest solution for tying my boat up safely to the dock?

Get whips/ You have three bolts or lag screws holding the base of each whip and you can remove the bases easily to use another day, or sell. The whips and bases take up no room.
I've also used old fire hose that is nailed on and folded out so you get a cushion that sticks out a couple inches between each time you nail it.

You have a couple options.

Before I purchased a boat lift, I had a couple things that I would do so the boat was not rubbing on buoys against the dock. Over time, the bouys will slowly work on the gelcoat and dull the finish. You can put an anchor out in front of the dock and hook the tow eye to that anchor and let the boat swing free, we used a tube to float out to the boat. I would do this when we were heading into a week (M-F) when the boat was not going to be used as much as on the weekend. On a weekend, I would tie the tow eye to the dock and then run a line from the back of the boat to shore and swing the back of the boat away from the dock and tie off on shore.

Good luck,
JT

Mooring dock whips are the way to go. They are cheap and easy and will keep your boat protected from crashing into the dock. It's $200 bucks and 30 minutes well spent.

get some whips

whips. in front of our house on a busy weekend it keeps the pontoon well away from the dock. Best investment that I have ever made as far as mooring equipment goes. I would suggest getting the ones with the pulleys at the top though. You can always sell them later. Also most of them the rods are two pieces so they store very easily for use later.

Look into mooring arms. They are an alternative to mooring whips, and are less obtrusive.

Moore it off shore! If the lake allows it that is. Just stand a 3" piece of PVC in a 55 gallon cardboard drum, then fill that drum about 1/4 - 1/3 full of concrete. After it sets, break away the drum, put a chain through the PVC pipe and attach a nice mooring bouy. Finally, get some buddies to help you drag that sucker out to a safe distance from shore.