Dock questions for newbie

[hartwell75]

I am buying a house that is on a cove on the lake and has relatively deep water but only a 10 foot X 10 foot floating platform dock. My question is is I can dock a 20 foot pontoon boat at this dock safely and keep it there for the summer? Is the dock too small? Does the dock need to be at least as long as the boat? My alternative is to secure a slip at the marina, but I would prefer to keep the boat at my house.

[jimrs]

I don't know where you live or anything about the body of water you are on. However just looking at the pictures I would say yes you can use the dock that you have to keep your boat for the summer. I would try pulling the nose of the boat up to shore and tie it off both to the shore and the dock. Without more info you are the only person who can figure out if the boat can be kept there.

[lakerunner]

Jim knows nothing on docking as you see by avatar he docks on the lawn

[dockholiday]

Welcome

Might could extend some treated 4x4's attached with gal. lag bolt or use mooring buoys.

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... SiteSearch

[mikeherb]

I don't think you would have any issues docking a 20 ft boat there. We have only 15 ft fingers in our marina with 32 ft boats docked on them. Our boat is 24 ft so a good 9-10 feet of our boat sticks out past our dock. It ends just past our side gate on our toon.

As long as you are protected from wind and wakes you should be just fine.

[tkrein]

heres what i think. if your dock is secure it doesn't twist on you there is no high waves you should be fine. i would check how well the dock is ancored to the shore. that would be the key thing to check. also you could aske the previous owner about it. if you are skeptical about it you could always throw line to the shore tie it to rebar that is pounded into the gound. just my thoughts.

[OldePharte]

I don't see any real problems. Use a spring line setup and a couple of 6 inch, or so fenders and you should be good to go.

I trust that your mooring cover will keep the critters out?

[hartwell75]

Thanks to all for the great feedback. I did manage to hear from the previous owner and he confirmed that he has kept a 19 boat (not sure what kind) moored at the dock over the summer. He did say that he tied off to a line from the shore as well as the dock - as a couple of you wisely suggest. Overall I think I am comfortable that this set-up will work. I am going to go down there with a friend on his 20ft pontoon boat this weekend to test it out. Thanks again for the help everyone!

[lady on the lake]

with proper bumpers and mooring cleats your dock would be fine for a 20 ft pontoon- you probably won't get much wave action in the cove and that's good- i agree with other person, make sure the pier itself is anchored securely to the shore!

[scfishnman]

Should be okay. My floating dock is 16 ft and my pontoon is 24 ft -- no problem.

Is your dock on Lake Hartwell? (guessing based on your user name)

One thing I noticed about your floating dock is the cables anchoring it to shore. On our lake, floaters anchored with cables have the cables criss-crossing under the ramp. You might want to look at switching yours to that configuration which should offer more stability.