[upthesaukee]

I am docking my boat at a good friend's dock in Alton Bay. Although the dock faces north, and we are on the western shore, we are somewhat protected from the wind and waves. That being said, there is the need to have whips because of the boat wakes that hit the dock on a 30-45 degree angle, and can give the boats a pretty good rock and roll.

I have a 25 ft Mariah bowrider and he has a 26 ft Cobalt bowrider. We could have saved a little bit of money on the whips by just meeting our boat's weight, but opted to upsize the whips. We both have 14 ft whips from Overton's, with fixed bases (do not rotate up to verticle when not in use).

We installed the whips yesterday on an aluminum dock with a plastic grid walkway, requiring the use of support brackets that are 90 degree aluminum with gussets on the side for added support, and three holes drilled for matching the whip bases. The other side of the 90 is drilled out with four holes to go through the dock sides. Whips and brackets are secured with through bolts with washers.

It was amazing to sit back and admire the fruits of our labor. The instructions said to "load" the whips by pulling the tips down 1" for every foot of length of the whips. Also, take the time to set the tie down lines so that the boat is as close to parallel to the dock as possible, and make sure that a line from the boat cleat to the whip base is as close to perpendicular to the dock as possible.

As we sat there enjoying some libation, and watched the boats ride the waves created by several boats that passed by riding bow high and throwing pretty good sized wakes, there was little pull on the dock lines, and the whips did their flexing thing.

There are some other threads on this forum dealing with whips, and my friend and I actually had looked them over the winter in making our decision on what size to get and types of base. Thanks to all who contributed to those threads.