Engineering advice re self mooring concept

[Oscarpop]

As a cure for my insomnia last night I was laying awake thinking of a safe and sure way of berthing your own vessel in its regular berth using a cheap and safe method while singlehanded. This is my idea, can regulars, engineers and alike please shoot this down.
The concept is based on me having a finger berth with 3 cleats, fore ,mid and aft. I admit that i looked some bits up last night and have liberally borrowed from other systems already on the market.

The idea is to set up some kind of flexible safe bracket that protrudes about 2ft off the starboard bow at 90 degrees to the fore /aft line.. Something say like a plastic pole 1/4' diameter. To this via a series of detachable clips there is a 5mm stiffened line which has a bowline with a large bight in it. So in my mind you have the business end of a lassoo hanging off your boat.The other end of the line passes aft and is passed around the coaming winches without being tailed.

Now the pontoon has something like a curved pool noodle or flexible plastic pole rising up from the mid cleat. the curve would be facing slightly outward but completely towards the arriving boat. the base of the pool noodle sits perfectly flush with the nearest horn of the mid cleat.

The idea is that as you approach the mooring, you extend your lassoo loop and aim the loop for the noodle. you then thread the noodle through the lassoo end. The clips release from the plastic bracket hanging off your boat. The bowline then drops over the mid cleat and you winch it tight with the coaming winch. You are then hopefully attached to the pontoon and can step off and leisurely attach the other lines.

Ok, so this is definitely work in progress, but can we have suggestions for either improving this, scrapping this or just spending more time in the pub to acquire more crew.

Cheers

 

[Kelpie]

Good luck to you but personally I would sail with crew, it's much more fun!
Or get a mooring and a dinghy

 

[pvb]

Ok, so this is definitely work in progress, but can we have suggestions for either improving this, scrapping this or just spending more time in the pub to acquire more crew.

Oh dear, far too complicated. Just have a big loop of line attached to the midships cleat on your boat. Motor partly into your berth, slow right down, step onto side deck, drop big loop over the end cleat on the finger pontoon, allow momentum of boat to pull loop tight, then motor gently against it. By use of the rudder, you can bring the boat neatly alongside and you can then step off and secure bow and stern lines.

 

[nimbusgb]

Pub!

 

[prv]

Seems unnecessarily complex to me.

Personally I use a boathook. In calm conditions I use only the boathook - lay the boat alongside and I have time to hook the permanent shorelines off the pontoon before it goes anywhere. If the tide's running or there's a bit of a breeze anywhere but onshore, I use one of those detachable carabiner things on the end of the boathook. Two lines from the hook, one to the bow and one to the stern, and hook into a cleat as soon as I come within a boathook length of it. The bow line is longer than the stern, so the hook point is alongside the front of the cockpit, not halfway down the side deck (helps that my cockpit is relatively far forward in the boat). In theory this should only need the bow line, with the engine and rudder controlling the position of the stern, but in my berth that may not work given the tide, so I have a stern line from the hook too.

How is your "pool noodle" attached in such a way that the bowline can run right over it onto the cleat?

Pete

 

[Tranona]

Far too complicated. I have a pole on the end of the pontoon (1" water pipe) attached to a stanchion base from Force4. At the top is a hook (guttering support). On that I hook my permanent lines in the following order - stern spring, bow spring and most important midships line.

Get the boat sufficiently far into the berth so that you can reach the top 2 lines. Walk forward, putting the mid line on the cleat as you go. Next bow line then calmly walk back, picking up the stern line as you go. Finally walk back to the bow and pick up the two bow lines with a boat hook. All done. Leaving the berth, just reverse the routine.

Key thing is the midships line which stops the boat from going anywhere. Best of all is no need to jump off the boat - not a good idea for old blokes from a high freeboard boat.

 

[pvb]

The beauty of my technique is that it works on any pontoon berth with a cleat at the end - not just your own berth.

 

[Tranona]

The beauty of my technique is that it works on any pontoon berth with a cleat at the end - not just your own berth.

Except where there is not a cleat, but a ring or loop as on most of our pontoons.

In your own berth (which is what the OP asked about) having your lines permanently attached to the pontoon and exactly the right length in the right position is the way to go.

 

[Billjratt]

Like PVB, I lassoo using a rope with a large bowline loop. Mine (loop) is partially stiffened with a piece of blue water pipe about 1/3 the circumference of the loop.
The standing part has a series of loops tied, any one of which can be slipped over the centre cleat of the boat, depending on the length of pontoon (or relative position of the cleat to the root of the finger).
When the pipe is held overboard, the loop hangs open and it is easily dropped over a cleat.
The boat can then be driven forward (gently) and "steered" so the bow, stern or whole boat can be brought closer to the finger when being blown off.
Our home finger has another piece of waterpipe over the out-facing cleat-horn, bent upwards, so the target is easier to hit.
It works in principle, but the real trick is to position the boat accurately in the first place.