How to Attach a Tender to a Boat
- 1). Make a loop two feet from the end of a 50-foot piece of 1-inch diameter polypropylene rope. Hold the loop in one hand. With the other hand, pull the end of the rope up through the loop, behind and around the rope above the loop and back down through the loop.
- 2). Pull the loop tight to form a bowline knot. Tie another bowline knot on the other end of the rope.
- 3). Lift the tender's towing bridle -- the rope that runs from the front of one side of the tender to the front of the other side -- and slip the loop on one end of the polypropylene rope under the bridle.
- 4). Pull the other end of the polypropylene rope through the loop you tucked under the bridle. If you have not already disembarked from the tender, do so, carrying the polypropylene rope with you.
- 5). Place the loop in the end of the polypropylene rope over one of the deck cleats -- the small, T-shaped fixtures you tie rope to when you tie the boat to a pier or wharf -- at the rear of the boat.
- 6). Allow the tender to drift away from your boat at least one tender-length. Wrap the excess polypropylene line around the vertical bar of the deck cleat.
