As I'm sitting here drinking a cup of coffee, it is raining outside. The forecast was for heavy winds, winds that we aren't experiencing, at least not yet, but I'm hopeful. After all there is always work to be had resewing and repairing torn Genoas that get pulled out because the crew didn't think it important enough to get the sail off before the wind picked up. I do enjoy listening to the thunder and thinking of all the work that will be needed, once this weather has passed due to the lightening, as it does its job on electronics. Ahh, yachting is so much fun. As I was standing here drinking my coffee and looking out one of our 7 inch picture windows, my thoughts went back to the last storm, where afterwards I was called to give an estimate on some "storm damage". In the course of these musings, my thoughts wound themselves around to the many reasons that I hear for the often-too-common use of dock lines that are too small, where the defacto proof (if that's the correct word?) lies in the chafed or parted dock line itself. This particular boat had a simple-to-repair, and fairly inexpensive ($500 + plus haul out and yard bill) hole to fix. When talking with the owner, I found several things that he said interesting. First of all, he lives 3 hours away and has made no arrangements for someone local that he can call on that can run down and check on things. Second, he doesn't double up on his dock lines, which in and of itself is not too bad, if the lines are big enough to begin with. What really caught my attention was size of his lines. The lines on his boat were too small, and way too small for heavy weather. When I asked why, he said he wanted the stretch that they gave. This was and interesting statement in itself as his slip was so narrow that there was no room for his lines to stretch and not have his boat rubbing against pilings or a portion of the dock. Well his lines did stretch, in fact they stretched so well that they also chafed really easy. After one line parted, his hull was blown against the dock and a hole in the hull resulted. Although the hole was only approximately 1.5 x 2 feet in size, it could have been more serious if it had occurred below the water line. At least in this he was fortunate. To us, this is a good example of the error of focusing only on one aspect of a dock line- stretch, at the expense of others- such as resistance to chafe. It is also one example of why we favor not loading a dock line to exceed 15 percent of its tensile strength (what we call the "high strength-low stretch" approach)- the less the rope stretches, the more resistant to chafe it is. Plus thicker lines take longer to part, even if they do chafe. Stretch is often tauted as the goal to achieve when sizing dock lines (rope rodes and snubbers too), but what is seldom, if ever, mentioned is the damage that often occurs with this approach, damage that usually results because of lines that stretch too much, or because of lines that part as a result of chafe (keep in mind that the tighter the line is stretched, the easier it chafes, the same approach you use to cut through a line- pull it tight and commence slicing). And the corollary to this, that also goes unmentioned, is that damage that is a result of lines that are too big, lines that purportedly result in "too low of stretch" is very uncommon, at least in our experience. The fear to having "low stretch" is that it will result in fittings being pulled out, or broken. But, no one seems to qualify "low stretch", so it is always left up to someone's imagination, and often this imagination has no information to help qualify what low stretch means. Besides, if that is the concern, the fittings should have been up-sized to the point that they can handle the stresses involved. After all, storms do occur and a boat should have gear that can withstand these forces, either in a dock or at anchor. So, just some food for thought for those of you who have nothing better to do, and wish to ruminate on your choices- deciding if you'd rather take the more likely chance of sustaining damage because your dock lines are too small, or try the much more unlikely odds of having a fitting broken, because of lines that were to big? Interesting, now that I'm done writing the wind has definitely pick up and gusting even higher... I just love heavy weather! Rudy and Jill Briney Bug, Panama City, Fl