tying a small boat to a big boat in rough water

I have a small boat (14’ runabout). Occasionally, my friends and I will go on a houseboat trip, and I’ll take my boat along. When we’re out in the middle of the lake, just drifting, there’s always this pain in the butt problem: how do you tie the little boat up to the big boat in choppy water? The little boat is small enough that when there are waves, its nose rises up and down by a few feet, and it will occasionally end up shoving its nose under the metal edge of the houseboat and then violently crashing its beautiful fiberglas deck into the underside of the houseboat. This is bad.

So what I want to know is: what techniques do people have for tying boats up in this situation? Getting fenders big enough to prevent this isn’t feasible (they wouldn’t even fit in the little boat). I usually just end up letting it drift on a long line, but I still have to keep an eye on it and kick it away from the big boat occasionally. I’d like a system where it’s securely tied to the big boat, but still held half a dozen feet away so they can’t collide.

To clarify: the issue is not the act of controlling the boat while tying it up, but rather how it should be tied so that it doesn’t continue to crash into the houseboat when left unattended.

I’m afraid I’ve got almost no experience in operating boats, but in addition to a securely-tied rope could you also attach the two using a rigid metal pole of some sort? The way I envision it, you could slip hooks on either end of the pole through rings on both boats.

That might not be enough to keep the two boats from coming apart in really rough conditions, though, so I guess you’d still want to rope around for insurance.

Just my $.02

Boat US seels fiberglass flexible whips intended to keep a small boat away from the dock but it should work on a houseboat too. And you may even be able to improvise something similar with some semi-rigid plastic tubing.

Doesn’t the houseboat carry fenders? Those fenders should be big enough for the job. All you need is two and they don’t even have to be very big. That’s the only solution I can think of.

In rough waters fenders may not be enough or appropriate. If the dinghy is getting under the house boat a fender may not work well but Imagine a long, flexible whip, sticking out at an angle, like a fishing rod. That will keep the dinghy away.

If the houseboat is docked then you could put out an anchor to keep the dinghy away but if the houseboat is swinging on an anchor then that will not work.

Fenders often need boards and other contraptions of the two surfaces are not vertical

Large ships will put a boom out to keep the boat away from the ship. When under way one boom is enough but if you are at anchor you need two, one for the bow and one for the stern. You can probably rig a couple of lines through a couple of lengths of plastic tubing which is flexible enough. I never really encountered this problem as I just let the dinghy drift to leeward. I don’t understand why you need to keep it right there. Give it a few yards of line and let it drift to leeward or bring it onboard.

http://www.sailboatstuff.com/mor_morwhip.html

there’s no need to keep it close, but just letting it drift on a line doesn’t work, since it occasionally comes over and crashes into the big boat anyway.

And you’re correct, fenders, as I mentioned in the OP, are not enough, since the little boat is dipping down in the water and crashing into the bottom (horizontal surface) of the houseboat’s metal deck.

Mooring whips look like a great solution, but they’re incredibly expensive and probably not very convenient to mount temporarily on a rented houseboat. I like the boom idea the best so far.

davitts might be another solution

This might get confusing: A drag anchor on the small boat will make it have a different rate of drift on a windy day. If you put the small boat on the windward side of the houseboat, the houseboat will drift faster from the wind, and the drag anchor will slow the little boats drift, keeping it away.

UNLESS

The little boat is very small and light, in which case it drifts faster. Then putting it on the leeward side of the houseboat and putting the drag on the houseboat would acheive what you want.

or

If the area you are in experiences a heavy current, a drag might actually drag the boat.

or

there are shifting winds

or…

Man, there are just too many variables, but I think a drag anchor is a nice cheap variable that you can toss into the mix. The goal of it would be having the drift line nice and taut. The danger of a drift line is that little boat can now gain speed before ramming the big boat, so you would still need to be on constant alert.

How about a wench on the house boat, and you can just pull the plug on the little boat every time :smiley:

First, you get a really long rope.

Tie one end to the big boat.

Run the rope all the way around the earth.

Tie the other end to the small boat.

The rope now prevents the small boat from getting any closer to the big boat.

Hey, I said it was a really long rope.