Attaching pick-up buoy line to strops

[wfe1947]

I've used various methods for attaching the line from the pick-up buoy to the mooring strop and none were particularly good. Last year I used an 8mm three core, using a bowline to attach to the bottom of the pick-up buoy and then tied the other end to one of the strops, just below the spliced loop, using two round turns and a few half hitchers. I am thinking of using one pick-up buoy secured mid-way between a 1 metre line that goes between the the two spliced loops on the mooring strops. This means you only do one pick up and get both strops with the two strop being then secured to the port and starboard bow cleats. Anything wrong with this?

 

[sarabande]

Yes, as I understand your method, you will have to undo the 1mtre midway line to separate the two mooring strops to go to P and S cleats (that is if you have a saily boat...)

 

[wfe1947]

Yes, as I understand your method, you will have to undo the 1mtre midway line to separate the two mooring strops to go to P and S cleats (that is if you have a saily boat...)

No, I should be able to attach one strop to starboard, loop the connecting line around the bow and attach the other strop to the port cleat. May need a bit more than 1 metre but I only have an 18 foot Leisure 18 so should be doable.

 

[Rappey]

You should put an eye in the rope end where it attaches to the mooring buoy as without it that will be the first point of failure.
I may misunderstand as mooring line, mooring strop or penant/pendant are all used as a name for the line between the mooring buoy/chain and your boat.
I would also like a much thicker line due to wear and tear.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

I used to sail on Glenan's 5.70s, which are just slightly bigger than your boat. They were kept on club moorings at Baltimore. The buoys were quite light, only about 12 inches diameter, with two strops beneath, similar to yours. The pickup buoy was attached to the eye of one strop with , I think, 8mm line.
The procedure was to use the boathook to grab the pickup buoy, get its attached strop through one fairlead and onto the cleat on the opposite side of the boat, then hook the other strop, bring it through the other fairlead and onto the opposite cleat. The pickup buoy line was then belayed over one of the eyes as a precaution against the unlikely event of both strops being dislodged by any chop building up in a westerly.
I can' see any advantage in complicating things by joining the strops so that you can lift both simultaneously, as you can only attach one at a time. I had a Leisure 17 which I kept on a mooring at Malahide. Its freeboard was such that I could have lain on the deck and picked up the buoy or the second strop without resorting to the use of a boathook, (but I was much younger then ?).

 

[wfe1947]

You should put an eye in the rope end where it attaches to the mooring buoy as without it that will be the first point of failure.
I may misunderstand as mooring line, mooring strop or penant/pendant are all used as a name for the line between the mooring buoy/chain and your boat.
I would also like a much thicker line due to wear and tear.

Yes I do have steel eyes on the end of the strops where they attach to the mooring buoy. I will now use a thicker line for the pick-up buoy condidering that the previous one failed.

You should put an eye in the rope end where it attaches to the mooring buoy as without it that will be the first point of failure.
I may misunderstand as mooring line, mooring strop or penant/pendant are all used as a name for the line between the mooring buoy/chain and your boat.
I would also like a much thicker line due to wear and tear.

 

[Graham376]

I have a short length of floating line from the pickup buoy. tied to the end loops on the strops. Just haul up and drop both strops on to one cleat (with pickup line) then separate them and transfer one strop to second cleat.