Tying off at the dock

[nofearengineer]

I tie off to the dock cleat with the standard cleat hitch. I would assume most people know and use that knot.

However, how do you tie your rope to your boat?

My boat has the standard cleats. My ropes have pre-made loop at one end. Rather than take that loop and run it under the cleat, and then pull the loop back over the two horns, I put the loop around the horns, and then pull the rope through the loop, so that the dock end of the rope is on top of the loop.

This way, it is impossible for the loop to come undone from the boat because of some fool making a wake in the no-wake zone.

Does anyone else do this too? I see a lot of other boats with the loop on top of the line. That could be undone in one second, or even worse, by accident.