finger pier. In a double-boat slip, various methods have been used to avoid breasting against 

 a finger, including a tie pile centered between the finger ends, three-point ties, steel whips, 

 and cooperative switch-tie systems agreed upon by two-slip occupants (Fig. 59). A 

 compromise scheme places a narrow tie finger (usually half-length) between the two 

 boarding fingers (Fig. 60). The full-length, single-sUp system is the most desirable from the 

 boatman's standpoint, but is more costly than a double -shp or any of the compromises. The 

 system selected will depend largely on what the boat owners of the local area are 

 accustomed to or the amount of slip rental fees they are willing to pay. 



Small boats in relatively quiet waters may be berthed to a dock with stern hooks or bow 

 clamps at a considerable savings in both structural costs and water space, but boarding is 

 more difficult. When not in use, lightweight sailboats are sometimes pulled onto a floating 

 dock equipped with special launching rollers and cradles to keep the hulls dry (Fig. 61). 

 Charter boats are sometimes tied to a system of tie piles with their sterns close to a crew 

 boarding dock (Fig. 62). When the boat is scheduled for a cruise, access to the stern is 

 readily available for tending the mooring lines and subsequent movement of the craft to the 

 passenger boarding dock. 



Berthing facilities for commercial fisiiing fleets are more utilitarian than those serving tiie 

 recreational fleets. Because the hulls are generally more rugged, breasting against a dock is 

 common, and two or more boats under single ownership or cooperative arrangement are 

 often clustered beam-to-beam at a single dock. 



Slip arrangements vary, usually for best conformance to the shape of a basin. The most 

 common is a series of piers or headwalks extending perpendicular to the bulkhead to a 

 pierhead line, with finger piers extending at right angles from the headwalk on either side. 

 For power craft, widths of fairways between finger ends are usually 1.75 to 2 times the 

 length of the longest slips served, while for sailboats the width is 2 to 2.5 times the slip 

 length. Slip widths have been increased in recent years because of the wider beams of some 

 craft. A graph from the boat manufacturers' current catalog data and showing average beam 

 width and maximum depths of keels for various lengths of craft is shown in Figure 63. The 

 graph also shows suggested average widths for right-angle slips where the actual dimensions 

 of craft to be berthed are not known. Where basin configuration or curtailment of water 

 space dictates a need for skewed slips, the slip spacing must be calculated, allowing about 

 1.5 feet of clearance on each side between huU and finger for boats up to 35 feet in length 

 and 2 feet of clearance for longer craft. With the increase of houseboats and multihulled 

 craft, it may be advisable to provide a number of extra-wide slips, depending on past 

 experience record and projected needs of the area (Fig. 64). 



An interesting proprietary system arranges modular floating slip units in star-shaped 

 clusters (Fig. 65). Access to a cluster is either by shoreboat or by a star-to-shore extension 

 of one of the fingers. 



110 



