etiquette when you find someone else on your mooring

We came back early from a sailing weekend once to find three cars on our drive. It was pretty obvious where the party was so we went and joined in. I seem to remember we ended up unloading the sailing kit the next day. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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According to Reeds Nautical Almanac: "Anchoring is prohibited off L'Aber W'rac'h.".

This has deterred me from anchoring there in the past.

But your story suggests the HM does not enforce this rule, which is useful to know.

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I thought that too but was told by locals it applied only where the buoys were laid. We had previously gone more up river but a friend showed us a nice spot off the lifeboat slip where there was enough water except at big springs to get inside the local moorings. Later we moved upriver just outside of the visitor mooring buoys but before the river narrows on the first bend. There is plenty of water and the only slight drawback is that the depth means you have a lot of chain out and get a touch close to the withies on the oyster beds at dead LW as you swing. There is less depth closer to the buoys but the HM sees that as 'being inside his marina' and he did move us from there even though we were nowhere near the nearest buoy. The moorings are run by the Yacht Club de L'Abers so they like to collect the money from all but offer few facilities in return. The new marina is much better but they want visitors on the outer wall and all the easy berths in the strong tides are for locals with spare ones taken very early on.

Up river Paluden is better sheltered and buoys are well under half the price. The local tax collector will tell you porkies that there isn't enough depth to anchor up by the bridge but there is, however we do usually use the fore/aft buoys if we go there. You can walk from there up the hill into Lannilis (from memory) where there is a Leclerc supermarket, much better than in L'Aberwrac'h or the little town up the hill (Landeda?) The restaurant on the bridge is very good too or used to be, haven't been recently. Only drawback is that the upper river isn't lit if you need to leave in the dark, but it is very much more sheltered in bad weather.

Most of the time we are just truck stopping L'Aberwrac'h on our way hurrying home and often never go ashore so paying around 24 euros a night for a buoy where they even raft up if busy doesn't appeal!
 
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Can I come and park on your drive when your car isn't there? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif


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The difference between your drive and your mooring is that you own your drive and no-one else has a right to drive on it. Your mooring is in a public navigation area, and the etiquette is that in return for you partially blocking the navigation and preventing other members of the public from passing over or anchoring where your mooring is they can use your mooring when you aren't.

If you want our mooring to yourself you could buy yourself a river with no public right of navigation. Might cost you a bit more than your current annual harbour licence, mind!
 
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Your mooring is in a public navigation area, and the etiquette is that in return for you partially blocking the navigation and preventing other members of the public from passing over or anchoring where your mooring is they can use your mooring when you aren't.


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What is more, a mooring is one thing that can be used without in any way damaging it or shortening its life. Indeed, it is generally better for being used. I have a fine, thick strop on mine and that has never suffered any chafe or other damage from the many people who pick it up when I am not there. Even if it did, its a small price to pay to replace it, by comparison with the benefit to the sailing community as a whole.

The attitude "its MINE and no-one else can use it" is so depressing. Anyone who thinks this way is subtracting a little from the quality of life for all sailors. Shame.
 
Interesting reading. Thanks for that.

BTW having just had another look at the L'Aber Wrac'h chartlet in Reeds I notice that an anchorage is shown downstream of the village, between the two small islands. I have never noticed anyone anchored there but it could be a useful place to wait for a fair tide [if the wind direction is ok], and it is presumably outside the HM's jurisdiction.

Not that I have anything against HM, who was very helpful to us a few years ago when we arrived there with a broken boom.

Paluden is a pleasant spot; we spent a very restful time there once, whilst other yachts in the outer harbour were being bounced around by a gale.
 
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What is more, a mooring is one thing that can be used without in any way damaging it or shortening its life. Indeed, it is generally better for being used. I have a fine, thick strop on mine and that has never suffered any chafe or other damage from the many people who pick it up when I am not there. Even if it did, its a small price to pay to replace it, by comparison with the benefit to the sailing community as a whole.

The attitude "its MINE and no-one else can use it" is so depressing. Anyone who thinks this way is subtracting a little from the quality of life for all sailors. Shame.


[/ QUOTE ] Yes, this is all very nice BUT . . . moorings are laid for a certain length/weight of boat. A substantially larger boat may drag or break the mooring or even possibly swing into someone else's boat and damage it.

We have often lent our mooring out to boats we know when away, but I take a dim view of any yacht over a couple of tonnes that picks up a private mooring without knowing what boat is normally on it. It is both unseamanlike and inconsiderate.

- W
 
My mooring has my mobile telephone number painted on the bouy. If any one wants to use it they can find out when I will be back so there will be no incovenience to either party. It will take up to 30 tons so if anyone is in Chichester........see if you can find it!
 
Our friends who told us about the pool off the lifeboat slip have anchored off those two islands in settled weather but they do have a centreboard they can raise to reduce their draught to 4' which we can't, so they can edge in more out of any tide. Tide is the problem in the estuary as I'm sure you know and onshore winds against that tide makes for real discomfort and if it gets really blowy here Paluden is very definitely the place to be! We once sat out two separate consecutive bad gales up there and BBQ'd ashore under the trees for shelter from the rain, you could see the clouds streaming fast overhead yet there was hardly any wind reaching us in the river.
 
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[/ QUOTE ] Yes, this is all very nice BUT . . . moorings are laid for a certain length/weight of boat. A substantially larger boat may drag or break the mooring or even possibly swing into someone else's boat and damage it.



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Er, yes...I do know that. And there are various ways you can minimise the likelihood of that happening. Some have been mentioned here.

The possibility of making reasonable use of other people's moorings is a huge common benefit, especially where the possibility of anchoring has been severely restricted because large areas of good anchorage have been laid with moorings. We should resist losing the enormous benefit of use in order to avoid the very small risk of abuse. I am certainly prepared to run that risk, even though I rarely use other people's moorings.

If we lose this, it will be another sad result of the erosion of quality of life for all sailors that is the result of ignorance, selfishness and disregard for the traditions and disciplines of seamanship. These things are, of course, often scoffed at on these boards.

We can give in to that or try to combat it. Our own behaviour, both in relation to our own moorings and other people's is the main weapon. To me, it's simply a question of which way we want to go. I would rather contribute to a co-operative sailing scene, even at small risk to my own "well being", than turn into one of those who helps make everything that little bit more miserable. In the long run, consideration for the common good wins. Enlightened self interest trumps pure selfishness.
 
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Er, yes...I do know that. And there are various ways you can minimise the likelihood of that happening. Some have been mentioned here.

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, I can put a notice on my mooring - but the sort of people who think it is OK to pick up any mooring will not bother to read it. I am talking about the sort of tw*ts who pick up peoples' tripping line buoys.

I agree is is annoying when people lay moorings in good anchorages, and perhaps this should be tackled, maybe by the RYA - but I am very much against this 'its OK to pick up any mooring anytime' attitude for the reasons stated, and I think most people in my home waters feel the same. I will pick up someone else's mooring only if there is NO other option, and will have a look at the tackle to see if it looks sensible. Our boat only weighs 3 tonnes though, many yachts weigh three times that.

Still, nice to see the red shoots of socialism sprouting in the Solent /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

- W
 
>> "What is more, a mooring is one thing that can be used without in any way damaging it or shortening its life. "" <<

But that is not true and is a huge risk from my direct experience. I came back from a weekend X-channel trip in the early hours of a Monday morning, to find another boat on my mooring. The skipper was ok about moving to the good anchorage - all of 40 yards away! - and we off-loaded our stuff and shoved off home.

What I discovered a couple of days later by great good fortune, was that this boat had obviously 'run over' my two 25mm mooring strops, virtually severing one and cutting about a third of the way through the other. I know they were fine when we'd left a couple of days before, and other club members told me this boat had been using my mooring the whole weekend.

Ok, despite the big cost and inconvenience to me of replacing both strops which was bad enough, what made me FURIOUS, was that this skipper MUST have known he'd hit them. He therefore not only put his own boat in danger on them for a long period, but more disgracefully didn't have the basic courtesy to warn me that he'd hit them and that damage might have occurred. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

So my boat had been 'secured' by strops that were almost useless (damaged about two feet below the water) with the massive risk that she could have broken clear had there been any strength in the wind during that period before discovery. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

After this experience, we ALWAYS check the strops on return from a weekend or longer away, in case it has happened again. For shorter periods we leave the dinghy there.
 
I wonder if those advocating the free use of any mooring for all would feel the same if use of their marina berth was part of the share it all agreement?

We have a marina berth these days that is administered by a Berthing Master so my earlier comments relate to previous situations when we had swinging moorings. However when we did return to find boats on our then mooring they were very often very much larger and heavier ones (we then had a 30 footer), often big mobos and frequently because our strops didn't fit their high bows they tied off to the plastic handle of the pickup buoy. I should have thought to ask them if it was OK to use their marina berth for free next time we were in their marina.
 
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Still, nice to see the red shoots of socialism sprouting in the Solent /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

- W

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I'm delighted to say that I do not sail in the Solent.
 
"Still, nice to see the red shoots of socialism sprouting in the Solent"

Love it!! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Seriously though, isn't this thread generated by the simple fact that in some areas ie. the Solent (spit) /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif are suffering from too many boats and not enough space?

It's not a problem in my home waters, there are plenty of areas to anchor in, and people just don't pick up anothers mooring without express permission. It's just considered good manners where I come from. It's a bit worrying that some on this thread seem to be excusing bad manners with references to things like the commeradery of the sea and all that sort of thing. Sorry doesn't wash with me, I paid for my ground tackle, I installed it at my expense, I maintain it at my expense, so no, I don't think it's perfectly alright for somebody to just make free with it without my permission.

My mobile number is on the buoy, as is the weight that the mooring is designed to cope with, in the hope that some tosser wont hang a bloody great boat on it and drag it out of the bottom. So there is no excuse for using it without permission. Once again, to do so, as far as I am concerned is just the epitomy of bad manners, and anybody that does will get told to shove off in no uncertain terms.

I might add that all the moorings where I am are owned by local sailing folk, both motor and raggies, and we look after each others interests in this regard.
 
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I wonder if those advocating the free use of any mooring for all would feel the same if use of their marina berth was part of the share it all agreement?

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For most marina berth holders, the marina operator reserves the right to use your berth whilst you're away. Indeed, at the marina I'm at it is incumbent on the berth holder to inform the operators when you will be returning for that very reason.

In any event, I don't think that anyone here advocates that the mooring owner should be inconvenienced at all and you are, of course, completely at liberty to leave a dinghy or a "Keep Off" sign on the mooring if you'd prefer people not to use the mooring whilst you are away.
 
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I wonder if those advocating the free use of any mooring for all would feel the same if use of their marina berth was part of the share it all agreement?



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That is, of course, a mis-statement of my position. What we need to promote is reasonable and responsible use of private moorings on a reciprocal basis. We need to uphold and support the behaviours that make that possible and avoid those that don't.

The situation in a marina is not comparable. Marinas are overseen in ways that many moorings are not (mine certainly isn't) and anyone picking up a mooring must, for example, have the expectation and means to get themselves ashore, which is by no means always the case when people use marines. Indeed, I have encountered quite a few Dutch and Belgian visitors who don't even have dinghies. Also, of course, people use marinas not least for the convenience of stepping ashore, so a stranger in a marina berth is far more likely to be absent from the boat than one on a mooring. Its not unknown to find your own marina berth occupied and have to find an alternative and its not the end of the world, although it can be very inconvenient.

I have had a mooring for 25 years. If I can avoid disturbing people at night or when they are eating, I will. If not, or if I have to leave the boat straight away, I have never found anyone unwilling to leave the mooring at my request. It really has never been any great hardship to me to allow a visitor to enjoy some time on my mooring (which is in a very beautiful and peaceful location)

If the alternative is to fill up more and more sheltered space with moorings and forbid their use to anyone but the owner, then I think everyone is very much the poorer. Sheltered water is a resource for all of us.

Of course, that will drive up the charges for visitors berths in marinas and visitors moorings and put an ever greater premium on space to anchor, justifying ever higher charges for that too (although I'm happy to say that I have never, ever paid to anchor at any time in my sailing career) Then we shall see ever more moans and whinges about "rip-offs" etc. Why are people so short sighted?

Judging from what I read here, the Solent is the heartland of boorish, selfish and ignorant behaviour amongst boat owners. The east coast, where I sail, does seem to be rather more civilised. I hope our wonderful mud and shallow waters will continue to protect us from the encroachment of the insidious malady of Solentitis.
 
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In any event, I don't think that anyone here advocates that the mooring owner should be inconvenienced at all and you are, of course, completely at liberty to leave a dinghy or a "Keep Off" sign on the mooring if you'd prefer people not to use the mooring whilst you are away.

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I entirely agree.
 
>> I wonder if those advocating the free use of any mooring for all would feel the same if use of their marina berth was part of the share it all agreement? <<

I was about to post precisely the same comment. The mooring we use does NOT come free. We pay a substantial amount annually to the fundus owner for the 'privilege' of putting our mooring gear down. In that sense it is similar to the marina berth holder.

I wonder how they would react to find me in their berth when they returned? Or when they were expected to find somewhere else because it was late at night and I felt reluctant to move? I believe many forget that in MANY cases, the mooring equipment they are picking up and using, actually belongs to the user, NOT some remote boatyard or company.

It is similar to someone finding a car parked in their paid-for, designated parking space. They may not actually own it, but they do pay for the exclusive right to use it.

And yes, we too have had dimwits using our mooring hung by the handle of the small pick-up buoy, despite our strops being very long. Is it just idleness or plain stupidity? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

>
 
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But that is not true and is a huge risk from my direct experience.

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Hard cases always did make bad law.
 
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