How to Tie a Boat to a Floating Dock

Well , good morning .

We're in Cape Carl Florida today , walking down our dock and as you can see , we stopped at a boat because every time I look at boats , I look at how they're tied and how people left them .

Here's an example of a poorly tied boat .

Nice and lumpy .

And as you walk down the boat , they left the spring cleat untied and tied it around a rail .

So we're gonna fix it .

We're gonna show you how to tie a boat the right way how to tie a cleat properly .

And if you learn to do this , you'll be the coolest kid on the block .

Here we go .

Ok .

What I'm gonna do with this right now , you just take it off of the rail and I'm gonna tie it to the cleat properly .

Ok .

So we're gonna tie a midship cleat .

We're gonna pull it forward a little bit and a midship Clive should be tied this way .

So I'm taking the load to the far end of the cleat , always take your load to the far end of the cleat .

Give it a half wrap , come over once and now I want this end this end here to lay against there and be cinched by this .

So I flip it .

See that folks look , watch this flip .

This is the key , you flip it over .

It's nice and neat .

Look how neat that is .

That's the way a cleat should look when it's properly tied .

You may have missed it .

So I'm gonna do it again .

Come on down here , we take a line , the load is going this way .

So I go to the far end of the cleat , pull her tight .

Take it halfway around one time over .

Now , here is the flip .

The flip is the most important part .

They end up with a beautiful looking knot .

See how neat that is nice and neat .

Come on down to the back of the boat .

This is the way people usually time .

All lumpy looking ugly .

It's a mess .

Let's take it off , improperly loaded to the front of the cleat .

That's not what you want .

You go away to the far end of the cleat .

As you can see here , I'm going to go halfway around and I want this to cinch up nice and neat .

So there it is .

Look how neat that is .

Now , that's a properly tied boat right there .

Hey , excuse the Bruise Noggin .

I did a honey dew weekend .

Instead of going out on the boat , it would have been much safer to be out in the boat .