...Some days you're the Nail

 As the saying goes, "Some days you're the Hammer, some days you're the Nail".

We had gale winds this week in San Diego, and Mystic Star's home on the South Pier at NBPL is exposed to a south fetch and southerly winds.

Over the past month, I've discovered that the best way to moor the boat is stern in/bow out.  This puts the bow in to the waves and wakes from passing boats (which is what the bow is designed to do).

Here's a shot of the boat moored with Tom Hamm's lighthouse in the background:

As you can see, the nose of the boat is facing Tom Hamm's lighthouse (roughly south) and the marina is exposed to swells from the Coronado bridge area.  Here's the same shot at night for the Holiday Boat Parade:

It's a fun and convenient spot to get in/out of, but MAN is it exposed to southerly winds/ swells.  As I mentioned before, this was an ominous sign when I moved in.  One of my mooring cleats was snapped before I arrived:

Well, here's what nature handed me during the Gale event on Dec 14th.   2 of the 3 Shockles (snubbers) I had installed were broken/unserviceable (the carabiners were bent beyond repair).  The forward spring line snapped and the stern of the boat drifted in to the main dock and I got some 'dock rash' on the transom:

As it turns out, I got off easy.  One of the boats broke free and drifted on to the rocks.  Another boat snapped one of its dock cleats and drifted /banged in to another boat with significant damage (fortunately above the water line).

Since the damage to Mystic Star was superficial (I crawled in to the lazarette to inspect from the inside) I cleaned up the damaged area and covered it with some MarineRX epoxy from West Marine.  Not "original finish" pretty, but at least watertight once again and ready to sail tomorrow:

Going forward I am using 5/8 inch lines (one continuous stern and forward spring, one continuous bow and after spring) with "Donkey D**k" style snubbers on the bow and stern lines instead of the garbage Shockles.  I also added 2 more fenders to cover the stern/transom area and a 'backup' forward spring line.  Hopefully this is a better mooring setup and prevents another 'dock rash' event in the future.