Avoiding buoy contact on a swinging mooring

[Conrad]

Hi has anyone had any experience of using a drogue on a swinging mooring, it is really annoying when the wind is stonger than the current to see the buoy wearing away my paint and I would like to try something different to keep it off.

Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions welcome.

Regards
Conrad

 

[James_Calvert]

No. Won't a bow fender or a stem protector do the job?

 

[misterg]

A number of people in Conwy trailed a bucket behind their moored boats to avoid this - seemed to work.

Others had canvas 'aprons' draped around the bows to stop the buoys rubbing directly on the hull - I would be concerned about the apron rubbing the hull.

Yet others (ourselves included) kept the mooring strops short, and padded the shackle on the buoy with an old fender (traffic cones were also popular). This doesn't work if you have a vertical stem though.

The buoys in question were the soft foam (Hippo ?) type where the mooring chain passes through to the top of the bouy, and you attach to a swivel on the end of it.

Andy

 

[oldsaltoz]

Try securing the tiller arm to one side.

Andavagoodweekend......

 

[William_H]

The best option is to pull the buoy aboard onto the deck. However n my mooring area we are obliged to use great ugly buoys that are too heavy to lift. They grow weed and barnacles and mark the hull.

My primary boat attachment is to a U bolt fitted half way down the bow for winching the boat onto a trailer. So I have a fairly short strop from under the buoy to this U bolt via a large snap shackle. Thus the buoy can't move around very much compared to the bow. Not totally successful however.
There is a rope also from the top of the buoy to the deck cleat which is secondary safety rope but is used as last cast off and first pick up line.
olewill

 

[lw395]

Using a drogue may cause problems with your boat swinging differently to its neighbours, and if its big enough to work will be putting quite a load on the mooring etc.
I found the only acceptable solution is a soft or fendered buoy hauled tight under the stemhead roller. It seemed to suit my boat and mooring as there was much less snatching and rolling than nearby boats that allowed the boat to pitch independently of the buoy. When my paint was new I made a couple of fender skirts, basically a camping bedroll mat with one side covered in fleece material, the other acryllic canvas. These were used successfully on various visitors moorings, wrapped around the bow.
The best solution is to haul the buoy forward using the bowsprit or spinny pole, but I don't think I'd leave it unattended through big weather.

 

[Robin]

The Hippo type buoys are the worst and the large soft ones with no top ring the best. When we were on moorings in shallow waters (Poole with a tidal range of little over 2m) there were two options. Option 1 was to use no surface support buoy but just the pickup one with a long enough line to drop the chain riser almost to the bottom, that way the pickup buoy doesn't sink. Next option and especially in deeper water where the weight of the chain riser would be too much to routinely lift every time from the sea bed, is to use a large soft PVC buoy like the ones marking offshore pots or used for big boat fenders. These big spherical buoys have no through rings so are attached to the riser above a swivel just for supporting the chain and take no load from the mooring itself unlike where a steel swivel ring is on top and passes through to another below. The soft buoy will rub on the hull but does significantly less harm than the harder Hippo type ones.

On visitor moorings away from home we will try to pull up the main buoy as far as possible so it's weight is hanging off the bow and we don't ride over it.

 

[Dave_Rolfe]

On the swinging moorings on the River Teign the boats are quite close together so contact when the tide is slack and the wind is blowing is not uncommon.

Popular solutions are hanging items over the stern to hold the boats in the tide (however slack) rather than the wind. Usual items used are old car tyres or traffic cones (how many other uses do these things have I wonder).

A friend who was continually being pushed forward onto the boat on the mooring infront when the wind / tide conditions caused it hangs a car tyre from his two rear cleats so it is central to the transom and has virtually stopped it happening. One down side is where to store the tyre when out sailing so he ties it on the rear platform. A bit unsightly but practical.

 

[mikedw]

[ QUOTE ]
... I would like to try something different to keep it off.
Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions welcome.


[/ QUOTE ]

As an idea - what about some form of struts/A-frame from the boat to the mooring. They could either replace the mooring strop if sufficiently dimensioned and attached, or could be a supplement - see crude sketch below - to keep the buoy in front of the bow and prevent the boat and buoy coming together.
Two struts attached on opposite sides of the boat forward e.g. shackled to cleats or rings mounted forward with a large ring over a short section of chain (to avoid chafe) before the mooring strop, so as to only take load when the boat rides forward.

 

[James_Calvert]

http://www.compassmarine.co.uk/product_cat.asp?CategoryID=45

A link to a stem fender, further to my post above

 

[CPD]

Get a gull to sit in the water upstream.

That'll be far more interesting for the buoy.

Sorry, couldn't resist /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[doug748]

I think Misterg is on the money here.
One refinement is to use a rubber mooring compensator, on the short strop, to take out the shock loadings. Make sure you also have a swivel and backup chain (run in poly tube to prevent damage).

 

[Conrad]

Thanks All, I think I'll try the bucket and offset tiller to increase the drag to start with.

 

[simonfraser]

another good reason for owning a multihull

 

[lw395]

[ QUOTE ]
another good reason for owning a multihull

[/ QUOTE ]
Doesn't help much with a trimaran!

 

[simonfraser]

haha, i was waiting for that one, you're wrong.

the displacement is so light that with any apreciable wind the boat turns into the wind and hangs off the mooring, even against the tide ;-)

 

[lw395]

Yes you're right, although its presumably more to do with having lifting rudder/boards than displacement on a tri?

 

[srevir]

usually have this problem when we stop over in Omonville where the buoys seem to be particularly manic

Our solution is to create a "sausage link" by threading fenders together. Take the line from one fender through th hole at the bottom of the next fender and fix with single hitch.

Repeat until you have 6 or 8 linked together. Then dangle the fenders from the pulipt such that they lie horizontally - mine reach to the water-line but I guess it depends on how generous the lines were in the first place.

Its a bit of a faff but the end result is a continuous defence around the first couple of metres of the hull.

It certainly works as a temporary expedient but have not tried it on a long term basis.

Have fun

 

[graham]

Never tried this but have heard it works.Try threading your pick up rope through a bit of rigid plastic waste pipe.The pipe acts like a pole which pushes the buoy away from the boat.

 

[chewi]

Thats' odd.
My experience in Poole is that with a mooring taken from the bottom of a buoy the see-saw action of the boat vs the buoy severed the shackles at the bottom of the buoy and the boat went walkies. I now use a soft through buoy and moor to the top so the load line is static in foul weather, and quietly carries the weight of the riser in fine.

She still runs over the buoy in wind over tide though. I haven't seen a solution here that I would implement, the most sensible seems to be to keep the line from the top of the carrier buoy to the deck short and let the bow overhang do the job.

I wouldn't rig multiple strops ( they tangle) or solid bars (they'd wreck the hull). I have no bowsprit and moorings are for unattended use, so the sp. pole is not an option.