Mooring Bits

This puppy's shipping weight is 4.25 pounds and is all stainless steel. Hefty piece of hardware.

My Center Cockpit Sailboat looks like the CM factory had a single dock cleat between two docking chocks pictured below. I still have two of these on each side of my bow, but nothing to use with them, except a single 4" cleat several feet away from the docking chocks that I figure was added incorrectly, or has another lighter duty purpose. . The original placement and of what, is a mystery.

I looked at 10' SS dock cleat, but went with a Mooring Bit instead. This will be one of the very few changes I will make to the sailboat to make it not as sold originally. This will cut down on chaffing lines as they are not forced into sharing a space made for one line and the four mounting points should make it good and solid against my boat.

Paint and Mooring Bit are being shipped from Secaucus NJ.

I have been there, for a Tattoo Convention. 2005 Pretty cool town.

High concentration of Jewish people. The Jewish faith is not big on Corn Sweeteners in soft drinks, so the area stores sells Coke in the Original formula. OMG! Had I known Defender was in that area, I would have ordered a case of pop as well! lol

It is a stone throw from the World Trade Center site. It was the only landmark I visited. Any historians in the group? One thing is always true about history, history books are written by the winning side. Ask yourself, who was the winning side of 9/11? What group made big strides in both power grabs, as well as money grabs. Big time. Follow the money.

One neat thing about owning the board, I can talk about Jewish soft drinks, or 9/11 truth, and no one bans me, or deleted posts.

You guys can try it also, very few rules here.

Gone has a mooring bit that looks to be factory. It is mounted in a raised area the perfect size for it. However she has no chocks which I intend to add.

Does yours have the raised area?

I do not think so, but maybe.

My 32 aft cabin also has no dock cleats in the middle of the yacht. Seems like a 32 foot long boat would have a few more docking cleats.

I agree, not enough cleats on them. I will be adding 8" cleats amidships as well as swaping out the bow and stern cleats w/ 8"ers.

I will be at the boat in three weeks and will take pictures of everything. Wish we were bringing her back but that will have to wait.

http://www.defender.com/ProductDisplay?id=38627



Ordered one of these some time ago to check them out, and after much mental turmoil, I ordered 4 more. Hate drilling holes!

To call them heavy duty, in terms of a 32' sailboat, is an understatement


Over all Height: 5 Inches
Cross Bar Length: 7 Inches
Base: 4.5" x 3.75"
Fastener Size: 4 x 5/16 Inches


Sugar Bee has the nicest dock lines on my marina, (5/8") and now She will have them tied up to something just as nice.





Adding one on each side, mid-ship, where no dock cleats are currently, replacing one small 4" dock cleat on the bow, and one on each side at the stern also replacing small dock cleats.


Going from three small dock cleats to these five mooring bits will allow Sugar Bee to be tied up properly. Let The storms blow.



Really, really, really, really hate drilling holes in a boat.



Once this install is complete, this will be the most holes I will have ever drilled into a boat. Yikes!



Before I install these, I will go to a machine shop, and order 5 matching backing plates to sandwich the deck.

I will have almost as much money in tying up my boat, as I do in the boat! lol

One already on the boat (not drilled yet, waiting for all of them before I commit.)

That leaves one on back order.



Back ordered till mid AUGUST!



That is no good.



Found another supplier that hopefully will ship right away.

Still waiting. I need a fifth one before any holes are drilled. Errrrrr

Could maybe go with four if I used a pair of docking chocks at each side in the stern and one mooring bit in the center stern. That would match the set up I am going with at the bow.

It would have been nice if they told you at the time you placed the order that they could NOT fill it, eh??!!

Maddening the level of customer service these days.

Trying to fix two 3/4" and one 5/8" anchor rode to two 6" deck cleats on Seaweed during storm prep got me wishing for larger cleats and mooring bits. Got me thinking about this thread.

Gary, did you ever get the back ordered bit? I am anxious to see Sugar Bee sporting all of them.

Also wondering what your choice of bedding compound is.

Last things first.

Bedding compound, when there is a great source of hold via nuts and bolts, according to the book, this old boat, is silicone. Plain old hardware store, walmart silicone.

Apply liberal silicone, place bit in silicone, put on nuts and bolts. DO NOT HEAVLY TIGHTEN NUTS / BOLTS. Lightly tighten only. After full cure, then fully tighten nuts / bolts.



That sounds like the best logical idea I have read for keeping the water outside a boat for thru hull fastening.







Backordered. They are saying October now. Buzzards.



The only thing about a 5" tall mooring bit that I am worried about, is in a 40 mph wind, a sail gets wrapped around one, and there goes the sail. Might be a good idea to keep the bow one under a wench cover to protect the jib sail.

Gary wrote:

Might be a good idea to keep the bow one under a wench cover to protect the jib sail.

Very good idea, may save an ankle as well.