Bigger boat - will it fit our swinging mooring?

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NPMR

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We are toying with the idea of a 32-33 foot boat. At present we have a 27 foot one, kept on a swinging mooring. We want to keep our mooring but will a bigger boat fit?

Is it just a simple calculation - if new boat is 5-6 feet longer and if we have 5-6 or more feet 'space' now, it'll fit?

Or is it more complicated than that?

Ignoring chain strength as that would not be an issue, nor the block of granite on the bottom!
 
The type of boats near you will affect the situation.

For example, in a wind against tide situation you might end up with a deep keeled yacht being tide-rode whilst a nearby motor boat is wind-rode and the two boats come together.

Or, as in one mooring I had, when my neighbour left his mooring my boat sometimes touched his mooring buoy, and vice-versa.

Best to have a word with the mooring bosun at your club/boatyard.
 
NPMR said:
We are toying with the idea of a 32-33 foot boat. At present we have a 27 foot one, kept on a swinging mooring. We want to keep our mooring but will a bigger boat fit?

Is it just a simple calculation - if new boat is 5-6 feet longer and if we have 5-6 or more feet 'space' now, it'll fit?

Or is it more complicated than that?

Ignoring chain strength as that would not be an issue, nor the block of granite on the bottom!
Click to expand...

Where is your mooring in Falmouth harbour? Penryn, Falmouth, Mylor, Loe Beach, St.Just, St.Mawes?
 
Don't be so sure about the granite block unless it's the size of a car or something ! Needs to be something with at least a little calculation involved.

Also, at a lot of moorings it's easy to think the boats generally lie in two directions, to flood or ebb; a lot of people thought this was the case at my club, until I took some aerial photo's showing the marks in the mud 360 degrees around the moorings.
 
On Windermere generally one mooring block is sufficient for boats up to 26ft, but two are required for boats over that.
6ft extra in a boat is all amidships and so the forces involved are much greater.
 
A heavier boat will pull the chain straighter, so it's not just a couple of ft on the swinging radius.
If all the other boats are different, yours may lie at a different angle in wind over tide.
It's not an exact science.
 
NPMR said:
We are toying with the idea of a 32-33 foot boat. At present we have a 27 foot one, kept on a swinging mooring. We want to keep our mooring but will a bigger boat fit?

Is it just a simple calculation - if new boat is 5-6 feet longer and if we have 5-6 or more feet 'space' now, it'll fit?

Or is it more complicated than that?

Ignoring chain strength as that would not be an issue, nor the block of granite on the bottom!
Click to expand...

Truro Harbour Office mooring recommendation.
 
philip_stevens said:
Where is your mooring in Falmouth harbour? Penryn, Falmouth, Mylor, Loe Beach, St.Just, St.Mawes?
Click to expand...

The Mooring is off the Flushing side of Falmouth, opposite and a bit E of Greenbank Hotel. We've had the mooring for years and I know the block on the bottom is huge, so I am confident that is OK. We sit over a hollow in the sea bottom, which I thought was where it might be scoured by tide or something but I heard recently it is believed to be a bomb crater!

When I spoke to the divers I rent it from, they suggested we'd be OK but asked what we thought of the clearance we'd noticed on what we have now (just 27 feet). It feels as though once in a while one or other of the other boats around us have come quite close but I can't offer a definitive answer; hence my question.

So is it really just suck-it-and-see?
 
NPMR said:
The Mooring is off the Flushing side of Falmouth, opposite and a bit E of Greenbank Hotel. We've had the mooring for years and I know the block on the bottom is huge, so I am confident that is OK. We sit over a hollow in the sea bottom, which I thought was where it might be scoured by tide or something but I heard recently it is believed to be a bomb crater!

When I spoke to the divers I rent it from, they suggested we'd be OK but asked what we thought of the clearance we'd noticed on what we have now (just 27 feet). It feels as though once in a while one or other of the other boats around us have come quite close but I can't offer a definitive answer; hence my question.

So is it really just suck-it-and-see?
Click to expand...
No, it's not a question of suck it and see. You can easily determine whether your boats are going to crash by measurement. As someone else has said different boats may lie to wind or tide so won't always be streaming in the same direction. The only safe way is to allow the full swing radius at LWS.
 
ghostlymoron said:
The only safe way is to allow the full swing radius at LWS.
Click to expand...
But impractical in many areas ... which is why many adjacent moorings are occupied by similar craft.


Anyway - what do you consider "too close" ...
for example - currently at LW can you motor astern and reach the buoy of your neighbour? If so you're probably a bit close ...
 
fireball said:
But impractical in many areas ... which is why many adjacent moorings are occupied by similar craft.


Anyway - what do you consider "too close" ...
for example - currently at LW can you motor astern and reach the buoy of your neighbour? If so you're probably a bit close ...
Click to expand...
I have a drying mooring with boats of dissimilar size adjacent so they all ground at different times/depths. When they float again, the tide has obviously turned so they will drift off downtide where my boat is still aground, aligned to the formerly outgoing tide.
Too close, to me, is when adjacent boats collide.
 
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