Our little touch with the pier caused more damage than we expected. When I talked to Monitor, they said that very rarely does the shaft inside get bent. To be on the safe side, I bought one of those two.
I set them side by side on a flat piece of wood, base to base, and you can see how they go different directions. This is because the flange at the bottom of the old one got bent about a millimeter! I tried to reuse the old one but it would bind and I notice the slight gap on one side of the flange.
They look identical at first glance, but when closely inspected, the damage becomes apparent.
That little bump with the pier turned out to be really expensive!
We pulled in stern to for the express reason of hiding the Monitor from the fairway traffic. I worried that someone might bump it while trying to dock so we pulled in Monitor first to keep it safe and protected.
Looking back, I wonder what would have been better? Risk a collision by keeping it in the fairway or placing it so close to a pier that with the simplest stretch of the lines, it would bump into a pier?
