Yokohama Fenders Corraled, but not tamed.

 I've you've been following this thread over the past few posts, you know how Volunteers have been puzzling over, experimenting at, and making several attempts at restoring the three huge rubber Yokohama fenders to their purpose, protecting the wooden  schooner from slamming against the vertical pilings of the fixed face dock where she's been docked since  before 2014.  

The Yokohama's became a problem a little over a year ago, when high winds, and pressure, snapped in two places the telephone pole on which the three fenders were "strung', and arranged across the pilings.  Subsequent attempts to restring with combinations of rope and chain have partially failed, leaving the large fender-barrels stuck uselessly under the docks or trying to float free of the docks with each outgoing tide.  

The problem is complex because these floating barrels, no longer restricted by a linear "pole" axis, must be controlled individually.  Their restraining lines must be slack enough to allow the fenders to stay in position at low tide.  At high tide, those taunt lines slacken by 3-4 feet, sufficient for the barrel to float with the tide or wind, more than five feet off position, exposing the piling or worse. Any breeze on the 180 degree spectrum north-east-south will push the hull against the dock, preventing any manual pushing, dragging, pulling the fenders back into proper position. Lastly, the situation is exacerbated by the lack of full-time crew to resolve the whole thing. Instead, volunteers,  available only on a Saturday morning, rarely with more than 4 mustering at a time, are stymied by the other conditions not cooperating. 

This last two weeks were most critical, because one Yokahoma had come totally loose from any tether, being held under the dock only by the schooner's hull and and easterly breeze. Subsequently, the washers rusted out. They were installed to fasten a chain's link to the telephone pole section, in turn stuffed into one end of a Yokohama fender.  Subsequently, poles as well as fenders were loosely bouncing around under the dock, awaiting only for a westerly breeze to blow the hull off the dock, freeing the mess to drift merrily out into the harbor. 

So, two Saturday mornings of a few volunteers, armed with handy-billy tackles, boat poles, and loose ropes salvaged from the rope locker, were able to restrict that Yokohama fender and pole mess from getting out into the harbor.  Tuesday, Bryan brought out a reel of electrician Fish tape, pulled a messenger line thru the free-floating Yokohama, then bridled it to the dock. Another rope, looped over the end of  the of the telephone pole/snag, and cleated to the dock further locked any thing from floating free. 

With  favorable tide, weather, winds, and  five volunteer hands, to launch the small boat to ease the hull off the dock, others can push the Yokohama's back onto their poles, pull the chain thru the Yokohama's with the messenger line, and restring the whole bunch into a working arrangement.  Today, Saturday, none of those conditions came together, so we'll stay tuned to the next chance.

Stay tuned.