Berthing tips please

I assume this is a finger pontoon. I always put fenders out both sides because nudging up against your neighbour is sometimes inevitable. Try to take a very wide turn so that you are almost coming back towards the wind and have someone off with bow and stern lines pdq. On your own there is little choice but to nudge up gently. Of course, sometimes your neighbour isn't in his berth and then it's best (and easiest) to go in against the down wind finger and warp the boat back across.

Fun ain't it (fun to watch other people).
 
As above, nice and slow, fenders everywhere, ropes at the ready. If you have very strong prop walk and you are confident reversing, you might want to think about reversing in - might be easier if you are solo. Most importantly, be confident and get ready to act as though any mistakes you make were done absolutely on purpose /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
and if you have to go alongside the single berth against prop kick, then rig a spring, and don't worry about the bow or stern lines.... put the widest part of the boat against the first part of the pontoon, drop the spring (made off on the centre cleat) on the end cleat on the pontton and motor gently forward against it, with the wheel turning the stern towards the pontoon.... as the spring tightens, it'll hold the boat nice and tight in, and give you loads of time to get the other lines sorted at your leisure....
 
Should have also mentioned - no centre cleat on boat and no cleat on end of pontoon!

I can make fast a line on the toerail and usually tie off a short line onto the toerail about halfway between the widest part of the boat and the stern. Crew has to leap off boat and get this short line under the D ring on the end of the pontoon, handing the end back to me before legging it up to deal with bow of boat.

This system works well in most situations, but obviously will only work if I can get close enough to the pontoon for the crew to leap ashore. I've got one of those mooring gadgets that feed a line through (theoretically). This is so hit and miss in its success rate that I wouldn't like to rely on it for berthing.

The 'drifting down onto neighbour' system sounds OK but it relies on the boat turning at a nice right angle. In practice, you start to put in a nice right angle then a gust hits you and you end up with your bow dangerously close to neighbours back end. Alternatively, you deliberately overstand in the expectation of being blown down and the wind dies and you end up aiming at the pontoon finger.

Fortunately, the prevailing wind sees to it that the 'blown off the pontoon' scenario is relatively rare on my home berth.
 
If you have an aluminium toe rail with holes in it then you can buy a bolt on cleat for putting midships . You can get them from Mailspeed or Yachtstyle. That's what I did and I have a spring permanently attached to the pontoon which when popped over the mid cleat stops me in the right place. A boat hook ready to pull in the back or push off the back while other lines are sorted. Obviously a problem if you can't get near enough to jump off. In Bradwell the berths are 'cosy' and if the other boat is in then you are near enough.

You used to able to get plastic poles to attach to the pontoon on which the ropes were hooked for easy retrieval but they don't seem to be around any more. The picture at the bottom of this page shows one:
http://www.monarchproducts.com/linemate.htm

Some marinas don't like attachments to the pontoons but I have seen them at SYH a few years ago.

Practice makes perfect and of course nobody is looking when you mess it up /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Hi
If you have D rings on the pontoon rather than cleats, you could get one of those gadgets which put ropes over mooring rings on bouys.
You could always ask your marina to swap over the D ring for a cleat. Mine were ok about things and added an extra one on my finger berth.
We always put the spring on first on our finger berth and then went to the bow.
 
i'd fit a centre cleat onto the toe rail... and then fit a permanent line onto the D ring......

Failing that, you can always put a block on the toe rail, and lead a line back to a stern cleat... and then you'll have to work a way of fastening it quickly to the D ring.... perhaps a large snapshackle?
 
or one of these
pbkg-mh20.JPG
 
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