Drying mooring - advice please

ProDave

ProDave

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Hi all

Out boat is almost ready to go in the water, and now I'm looking at mooring options.

I've found an available harbour wall mooring but it dries at low tide, so I need advice on whether this is practical, and if so how to do it.

Our boat is a Frolic 18 sailing boat, 18ft 6 LOA 8 ft beam with a lifting keel. Obviously the keel would need to be up.

The bottom of the boat is reasonably flat so would it be okay on a drying mooring? I can take a picture of my bottom if it helps (the boat's bottom that is!!!)

I'm going to look at the mooring tomorrow at low tide so I can take a camera and take a picture of that as well.

I think i'm asking as I find all the pontoons around here are full (with a long waiting list) and most other sailing boats are on swing moorings (which I don't want) so why is this mooring available and nobody else has taken it? It makes me wonder if this sort of mooring is not right for my boat.
 
Nice neat little boat. Have lots of fun !

It really depends on a number of factors.

What kind of ground is below the hull when she dries out ? Any rocks, old shopping trolleys, gullies ?

Does the ground slope ?

Will she always (depending on wind mainly) take the ground in the same place ?

Are there any security issues - can someone walk across the dried ground and nick bits, or drop things down from the harbour wall ?

Will the keel bung up with small stones and/or goo ?


You will need long fore and aft springs , and long bow and stern lines, to allow the boat to move up and down; and perhaps a weight on the outer edge so that as the tide falls, the boat does not lean in towards the wall and damage the mast.

What arrangements do other people using the wall use ?
 
Frankly I think I would prefer the swinging mooring rather than against a wall for any period of time. On the occasions I've had to moor alongside a wall I have needed to attend lines as the tide rose and fell, in most instances only a drop of say 2ft, but with a fixed keel. I'd have to be pretty sure that the wall was well protected from beam on winds and use a plank to fend off with plenty of fenders too.
Any kind of swell would not be a good thing either. A half-tide swinging mooring a better option in my opinion.

ianat182
 
Thanks for all the replies so far.

The disadvantage of a swing mooring is needing a tender to go out in each time, I don't have one so a tender and small motor is another thing to buy if we choose that option and another thing to store and maintain.

Cost also, I can buy a 6 year lease on a swing mooring for £400 then there's annual fees for the mooring and maintenance. But the harbour wall mooring is £161+VAT for the summer 6 months or £240 + VAT for 12 months. Actually there's another harbour now that will give me a 12 month harbour wall mooring for £125.

So a mooring that allows me to just step onto the boat and costs no more, possibly less than a swing mooring sounds good.

When I go to look at both at low tide I'll see how others are doing it and what the bottom is like at both of them.

Because the boat is trailerable and we are close by, we will be taking her out in the winter and would do so even in the summer if storms were forcast or we were not expecting to sail her for a long time.

Yes anyone can walk out to the boat at low tide, but then anyone can walk along the harbour wall anyway, so there's no more chance of bits getting nicked. The pontoon moorings (even if one was available) have no more security. Don't forget this is rural north east Scotland, not a city centre harbour.
 
Here's another tuppence worth....

Once you've satisfied yourself about the nature of the bottom - and anything other than soft mud will probably damage your boat on some windy night - you need to consider what happens there when a full-blown storm has worked itself up nearby. Consider 'surge and scend' - ask locals who really know. Consider the nature of the mooring rings/bollards you will be secured to. Consider the nature of the edge of the wall, its likelihood of chafing through your lines, and whether you'll need chain loops over the bollards and over the edge of the wall, with your mooring warps tied to them.

You might consider running a long permanent warp from well forward to well aft of your boat, secured on the quay both ends but hanging down in a loop, in 4" or larger hawser. You could secure your boat to that.

You'll otherwise need a pair each of long bow and stern lines, which can be crossed over each other ( chafe? ), to accommodate tidal rise and fall without letting your boat 'Frolic' back and forward along the wall, and it is probably helpful to rig a car tyre onto each of these. The weight helps take up slack as the tide rises.....

Consider whether a 'big slop' running around inside the harbour, when seas are breaking outside, will splash up the wall and fill your cockpit in a few minutes. It happens elsewhere... so go and look at what happens there, in bad weather, before you commit.

Consider whether your lines are strong enough to cope, should your boat half-fill with rain/seawater and still be surging about.

Use 'industrial quality' antichafe wherever your lines touch something. Tubes of outdated firehose, tied on to the right part of your lines, do the job well, cost nothing, and are replaceable.

Enjoi!

:)
 
If it is YOUR harbour wall mooring only, and it is safe from swell etc, then consider digging out your hull shape at low water, then see if you can fix slider planks down the wall, then use 4ft lengths of plank as fenders with carpet nailed on the hull side, you can also run a steel tubing within the tidal range, down the wall and have a connecting line to the mast to stop the yacht from falling over if it ends up to close to the wall. I did this for a couple of years on a drying jetty mooring, after watching what the locals did. Just a thought.
 
My father has always rowed a little inflatable tender without the need for engines - even now at 75 years old. Getting aboard from his tender is more tricky for him than rowing! :eek:
 
On the subject of how the boat copes in rough weather, I found this interesting video: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/r1LRJTccZBPxvDvQGow4BcXC_UhZ4DP859l1gBOjyVA?feat=directlink

It's a video of a local boat club taken on what was supposed to be their crane out day last year. It's interesting because there are shots of boats on swing moorings, tied up to the harbour wall, and on pontoons.

I have to say those on the harbour wall don't look to be doing so badly, but I still think if that weather had been forecast I would have gone and got my boat out onto the trailer and bought it home (the slip at that harbour looks very awkward with a tight turn at the top so might be very hard to reverse a trailer down)

This isn't either of the harbours that I've been offered a mooring at, but is still quite close and one I might also enquire at. This harbour too dries out.
 
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http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/pho...eat=directlink

I would much rather have my boat out on one of those swingers if the swinger was a sound one.
Correctly attached and with the boat well sealed up it would fair better than it would inside the harbour being bashed by other boats or dragged up and down those walls.

On a slightly different tack....... I used to own a Thames cruiser years ago (dread the thought) and I kept the boat afloat through the winter. With very long bow and stern lines and spring lines attached, I also sank a long scaffold pole into the river bank and welded a tow ball onto the top. Another scaffold pole with a hitch one end was attached to the ball and taken out to the boat and another ball and hitch attached the pole to the samson post on the foredeck. This kept the boat a good distance from the bank at all times and allowed free movement up and down as the flood waters came and went.
Not perhaps a suitable method for alongside a harbour wall with high tides and storm force winds but I thought I'd share it with you.
good luck
S.
 
Harbour wall moorings are sought after where I am on the R Seoint. There is a very long waiting list & few leave. Even when people die, the new owner will keep the mooring. You can probably get your car full of gear right alongside for loading & unloading, even if you need to move it elsewhere before setting off.

We have about 20' rise & fall & long bow & stern lines & springs are essential. To stop boats blowing off the quay, heavy chain is used for the quay end half of the bow & stern lines. We have wooden posts against the wall which hlep prevent boats floating over the quay wall on extra high tides with storm surge but good fendering is needed as walls are seldom flat or smooth. Many owners use a row of fenders fastened to a plank or plastic gas main (you know, the yellow plastic thick alled stuff) this can be attached to the boat rail so it rises & falls with the boat but is left on the wall when you leave harbour.

There are lifting, twin & fin yachts & mobos all along the quay. I reckon that the only issue (beside a rocky or fouled sea bed) would be the risk of mud or pebbles jamming your keel. I have heard that people don't leave them fully retracted so that they move a few inches up & down as they ground & lift. The movement (along with the moveing water) should be enough to prevent jamming.

As always ask around locally - locals will know what works & what doesn't. Few on here will know Jack Sheet about your harbour - I certainly don't.
 
I'm back after going to look at the first harbour wall mooring.

Unfortunately this one is noo good as although it dries out to a mostly sandy bottom, there are some rocks in the sand and concrete projecting at the bottom of the harbour wall. The other boats using the harbour wall are steel fishing boats which I guess are less fussy about a hard landing.

This harbour has offered me a running mooring for the remainder of the year, only available because some users have taken their boats out already. Or I can moor up to the very top of the pontoon (not normally used), but that dries out very early so only available at high tide, but at least it's a soft sandy bottom with no rocks.

So I will use that to get the boat in the water for a couple of weeks soon to try her out. But for next year we are now on the waiting list for a running mooring. Once you have a running mooring you can join the waiting list for a pontoon berth.

I've got the other harbour wall mooring to go and look at which I will try and organise for this week if possible.
 
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If it's a reasonably sheltered harbour most of the time, don't worry about having to get out to her - anything that floats will get you there. A cheap inflatable, a battered wood or grp dinghy, even a raft will do. Very often there will be stuff abandoned that you can "borrow" in the short term. You can sort out a proper tender at some point in the future.
 
I'm not worried at getting out to the boat on a running mooring, it should be possible to pull her back almost to the shore.

Anyway it's getting better. Having just phoned another harbourmaster, I've been offered a drying pontoon mooring for next season which I'm going to look at tomorrow. Sligtly more expensive than the others but still affordable. It's also a little further from home and doesn't have a slip, but you don't have to launch her at your berthing harbour anyway. It's probably closer to good sailing than the others as well.
 
Right, it's all sorted.

Today I went to look at both the pontoon and harbour moorings that are available, as it happens both only about a mile apart, so I viewed them both today at low (neap) tide, pictures atached.

The pontoon mooring as you can see was already dried out even at low water on a neap tide, so would be very restrictive on when it's accessible.

The harbour wall mooring had a couple of feet of water still, so my boat would still be floating and it will only dry out on larger tides. The bottom is soft sand / mud, no sign of rocks and the harbour wall goes straight down with no projections.

So it's decided, I've agreed to the harbour wall mooring and that will be Ferndell's new home.

The mooring is available straight away, so hope to put her in the water towards the end of next week to give her a trial, but then take her out later for the winter.

This is only a small harbour and only has these 3 permanent moorings, the rest being reserved for visitors and for the use of tenders for the swing moorings, so I'm lucky to have found it available just now. There is a reasonable slip at this harbour available at all tides so perfect to launch and recover by trailer but if that proves difficult, the local boat club that we are joining organises a crane in and crane out day each season.

The two other boats in this harbour use an array of fenders and tyres to protect the boat from the harbour wall, otherwise nothing complicated at all. There are chains over the wall to tie the mooring ropes to.

This has actually been quite a taxing excercise. It's consumed a lot of time, visits to 6 different harbours, meetings with or phone calls to harbour masters, and searching on the internet. But considering we set out just to find the best slipway for trailer sailing, and ended up with an infinitely more convenient mooring at an afordable price it looks to have been succesfull
 
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Just finishing off this tread by saying we launched Ferndell today and she's on her berth in the harbour now.

My avatar shows a photo just after launch near high tide, and the atached photo shows how she dries out at low tide. I waited for low tide to make sure the ropes were set right, and they are now marked to ensure repeatability.

The only tweak needed is to do as the other boats do and suspend a heavy weight half way along the bow rope to reduce the amount she swings out at high water. I'll probably go back and do that tomorrow.

P.S see my new thread about outboar motor trouble.
 
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