Poignard
Well-Known Member
This type is useful for picking up the pick-up buoy rope
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Versatile-Marine-1-5m-Heavy-duty/dp/B00STFIHLW
Also good for retrieving hats.
Can anyone recommend
- Thread starter claymore
- Start date
This type is useful for picking up the pick-up buoy rope
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Versatile-Marine-1-5m-Heavy-duty/dp/B00STFIHLW
Also good for retrieving hats.
Kukri
Well-Known Member
I am a moderate enthusiast for the old fashioned Grabit boathook. You have to remember to hold the line onto the shaft.
lw395
Well-Known Member
Get or make a pick-up buoy which is easier to pick up.
A foam-filled can with a loop of SS wire is one answer.
Dan-buoy pick-ups seem like a good idea but are unwieldy once you've grabbed them.
Or forget the buoy and lift the mooring pendant from the tender.
When it's windy or I'm s/h, then running a line back from the bow and picking up from the cockpit is the reliable method.
A foam-filled can with a loop of SS wire is one answer.
Dan-buoy pick-ups seem like a good idea but are unwieldy once you've grabbed them.
Or forget the buoy and lift the mooring pendant from the tender.
When it's windy or I'm s/h, then running a line back from the bow and picking up from the cockpit is the reliable method.
claymore
Well-Known Member
This thread is developing nicely but it may help if I advise that I am currently using a boatyard mooring as I find it a bit of faff going up to the lagoon to use my own - hippo connected- jobbie.
We have never had a problem on our own mooring but only with the Ardfern one. Our own mooring is in a fairly remote location whereas the boatyard one is - as you might surmise - close to the pontoons and other moorings so when I make a buggers muddle of it there are plenty of spectators...Much to Dear Heart's consternation
We have never had a problem on our own mooring but only with the Ardfern one. Our own mooring is in a fairly remote location whereas the boatyard one is - as you might surmise - close to the pontoons and other moorings so when I make a buggers muddle of it there are plenty of spectators...Much to Dear Heart's consternation
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wully1
Well-Known Member
But it keeps us entertained..
I have a nice stainless steel hook thing for picking up marina mooring balls in Sweden that might be worth copying..
Laysula
Well-Known Member
claymore
Well-Known Member
OH I do agree with that!
Meerkats spring to mind when a seemingly deserted anchorage is suddenly full of people peeping over their spray dodgers at the sound of a ding or a "WHOA"
Meerkats spring to mind when a seemingly deserted anchorage is suddenly full of people peeping over their spray dodgers at the sound of a ding or a "WHOA"
BelleSerene
Well-Known Member
The Moorfast is lightweight and doesn't stand up to much force. It's tedious when the plastic gate bar comes out.
The Exebuoyhook is great for lifting a pick-up buoy to the deck, but won't attach you to it.
The Robship Hook & Moor is very clever, but I found its plastic ball bearings gunked up with salt after a while which meant it required great force to swivel. And that meant yanking the pole back and forth while trying to avoid crew members' jaws.
I now use and swear by one of these [ https://swi-tec.ch/en/anlegemanover/23-mooring-buoy-retrieving-hook.html ] (I think the light not the heavy version, but I can't be sure) which mounts into an adapter [ https://swi-tec.ch/en/boathook/29-b...oathook_systems-art_2022_tip_of_boathook_25mm ] on the end of your boathook.
The brilliant thing about it is that it's a secure, gated loop, but also allows you to release the boat from the deck by pulling on the thin red line to capsize the hook and open the gate.
As marine extendable mooring poles are universally weak, I attached the adapter to a much more solid decorator's extension pole [ https://www.screwfix.com/p/harris-trade-extension-pole-medium-1400-2400mm/5679x ] and glued and riveted the adapter to the end. If you remove the riveted end piece, the inner pole is 25mm diameter just as a boat hook pole.
The hook lives in a short section of vertical drainpipe strapped to the pushpit with a Danbuoy. I use it to pick up pick-up buoys, to link to mooring buoys (for any length of stay I'll then put a mooring warp around the buoy once this has secured me), to reach low-down French or Baltic pontoon fittings from the cockpit, to link to chains in locks from the cockpit...
D
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Claymore, I find when sweeping under the pickup buoy, if I miss the rope it is because, the hook is flat against the rope and not at an angle to catch it. Try rotating the boat hook as you sweep and pull back to catch the rope. I have a mark at my end of the boat hook that tells me where the hook is in relation to the pole. I have the traditional double hook type, no spike.
ditchcrawler
Well-Known Member
Just a further comment. The Exe Buoy Hook can pickup the whole mooring buoy if you are strong enough so you can thread a line through it.
It is said that it will pick up a person but I haven't tried that.
Once while picking up a waiting buoy outside St Catherine's Dock at Tower Bridge it was a bit blowy and lumpy water and we were the only boat that could
pick up the buoy. All the other various hooks and gadgets failed. We ended up with other boats attached to our stern and yes the buoys are substantial.
I also have other mooring hooks which I use at other times but they are only suitable for some buoys and mostly when it is calm.
It is said that it will pick up a person but I haven't tried that.
Once while picking up a waiting buoy outside St Catherine's Dock at Tower Bridge it was a bit blowy and lumpy water and we were the only boat that could
pick up the buoy. All the other various hooks and gadgets failed. We ended up with other boats attached to our stern and yes the buoys are substantial.
I also have other mooring hooks which I use at other times but they are only suitable for some buoys and mostly when it is calm.
BelleSerene
Well-Known Member
Yes, those big yellow things are buggers at SK Docks - but just as well, as the tide roars past. The Swi-Tec hook helped when I was single-handed there: first it hooked the buoy so the boat was secure, and then once secure I could use it to hoist the buoy so I could put a permanent warp around the ring.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
You may well be right but why should it need to stand up to much force? Its purpose is to simply to pass a line through a ring or cleat and bring the line back on board; something it does very effectively.
BelleSerene
Well-Known Member
Yes, sure. I found when I attached a long mooring warp to it, to go round a buoy's ring, I'd end up with a lot of wet, heavy rope on the way through and sometimes adding friction by twisting over itself - the outward line crossing once or twice over the inward line - as the bow bucked around on the waves. (If you get the gate one way round you can guarantee it won't do that, but the variety of rings and orientations means you can't so you get at least one 180º twist in the line.) Doing it in gentle conditions and out of the sea would be a different thing. But I'm sure it works for some people.
Personally I also had a problem with the flat rings that collapse back onto buoys or (usually foreign) docks. I think the yellow buoys outside St Katharine Docks that someone referred to may have a flat ring, so you need to hook it. IIRC the ones in Braye, Alderney do. And Denmark and Germany where I sailed in the summer are plagued by the most impractical flat rings that man could devise; in some harbours helpful bypasses would even prop them up with a wooden plank so people could hook them from the aboard. To get round those, you need a hook of some sort, and reasonably rigid, to lift the ring.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
Perhaps, since you don't like it, you might be wanting to sell yours at an advantageous price. I could use another one,
BelleSerene
Well-Known Member
I hate to tell you this, but I, um, broke it.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
Kukri
Well-Known Member
Years ago, on my first visit to Hong Kong, I enjoyed an RHKYC evening race aboard a friend's Impala, and was hugely impressed when Ah Ming held up the buoy rope whilst standing in his sampan. I still think that is the very best possible system.
Boathook
Well-Known Member
I've got something that is between
https://swi-tec.ch/en/anlegemanover...ooring_buoy_hook-art_1034_strong_more_than_8t and the one on http://boatasy.com
Mine is a nice s/s with a 2" opening. Only problem is removing it once hooked on. It must be over 40 years old so the idea is nothing new.
https://swi-tec.ch/en/anlegemanover...ooring_buoy_hook-art_1034_strong_more_than_8t and the one on http://boatasy.com
Mine is a nice s/s with a 2" opening. Only problem is removing it once hooked on. It must be over 40 years old so the idea is nothing new.
Topcat47
Well-Known Member
I bought one specifically for Alderney buoys, having lost a couple of trad boathooks trying to moor up. It doesn't work with them so it's back to the old wooden boathooks for me. PS the Aluminium extendables just pull apart.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
I have quite an armoury of boathooks. A Moorfast, a Grabit, a St Vaast Hook, a S/L BoatCrook and a conventional one. The Moorfast is the current favourite; no doubt destined to join the other unused ones in the cockpit locker when I am tempted to buy some new gadget!