New Dock - New Fenders

Our new dock needs a big fender

The old dock height was a bit lower than the new dock ( hey, this is South Florida and just about every dock rebuild results in raising the height of the dock to maintain the structural integrity of the Sea wall), and the tidal range is also slightly higher ( closer to the coast ).

So I purchased an Inflatable Fender from Amazon. A friend had purchased something similar for his 44' Tollycraft before starting in the Great American Loop and by all accounts is still going strong.

I chose the long cylindrical version and must admit it's pretty good for $100.

The fender seems really well made, welded seams, strong attachment points ( SS D-Rings ), however!!!

The inflation valve is not the same as on our Zar Dinghy and I have an adapter for the Zar on our Electric Inflator pump, it does not fit the valve of the Fender! Grrr. The nearest I could find was on Amazon.

It does not fit with that Orange seal, but I replaced that with an 'O' ring and that works just fine, the leakage from the valve during inflation is not enough to be any issue at all.

I'll have to figure out an easy method of switching the adapters over from the Fender Adapter to the Dinghy Adapter, right now I'm using Gorilla Tape It's not that we use the inflator pump that often.

My only concern is that the material (PVC) may decay due to UV in the South Florida Sun, so time to upgrade the fender before it's first use.

Using Sailrite Boat Blanket material, I made a cover that includes most of each end.

It's a simple cover, darts at the ends to wrap it around the curved ends and 2" Velcro Hook material to close the cover around the fender.

The plan is to hang the fender over the edge of the dock between two pilings.

We'll only take the fender with us if we are planning to raft up with another boat, that's typically about once a month.

All of our other fenders are covered in the same material. It has lasted without any deterioration since 2016 = 8 years. So the new fender should last.

The result is impressive enough that we'll buy a second fender, I have plenty of the material to work with.

See you on the water.