Fore and Aft mooring where the tide roars in

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tangomoon

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Has anybody any experience of a fore and aft mooring (instead of a swinging one) in a situation where the tide hammers in and retreats not quite so quickly. Would water be forced up the exhaust pipe. Would the boat slew beam on with ??what consequences?? Anyone with suggestions/experience/knowledge please.
 
It can be done, but the loads on mooring gear and moorings are probably at times at least quadrupled. Generally a bad idea. The boat will usually lie well when bow-on to the tide, but slew and pull when stern-on, even if the rudder is fixed firmly amidships. How much this happens depends on hullform and keel/rudder profile. Also puts great loads on mooring gear on strong beam winds.
 
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Would water be forced up the exhaust pipe

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No more so than getting pooped by a following sea, in fact I suspect a lot less........of course it does depend on how your exhaust is set, but I am presuming it is not a length of drainpipe straight into the engine /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif


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Would the boat slew beam on with

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Yes. At least it would try to (in fact even if it was facing "bows on", it would also tend to slew one way or another).


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what consequences??

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Depends on your mooring lines.

You of course want them long enough to allow for the tidal range but short enough so when the weight is on one of the stern lines (and the other is often slack) that she does not bash the boat in the berth alongside.

The tricky bit is getting this right, as tides do of course go up and down /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif - in practice this is "solved" by berthing boats of similar type (and draft) next to each other so they move in the same direction at the same time and therefore do not collide.....or at least do so slowly........

Your neighbours should also have similar length moorings and also the same amount of chain and rope to help them keep their movements in line.

Of course in my experiance it does not always work, so ensure that the boats are adequately fendered - on the basis that sometimes they <u>will</u> at least touch.

And as already said, tie the rudder amidships.
 
We had a fore & aft mooring on the Beaulieu last season. Water up the exhaust was not a problem but the force of the current/tide meant the mooring bouys and chains were often rubbing against the hull. The mooring was supposed to be the right size for a 30 footer but, in my opinion, was too short. Wrapping the chain in sacking only worked until the barnacles grew big enough to start scratching the gel coat again.
 
Getting on and off lighthanded will sharpen up your boat skills. There will always be times when the boat is across the tide and the loads on cleats, and fairleads, will be high. Some like to bring in the fore and aft line as part of the mooring system, that way it can't fret against your topsides. In any case split the line in the middle so you can get off either side, if the tide and/or wind is adverse. Watch out for neighbours pinching a bit of extra length at your expense. The people we need to hear from moor on the Tamar at Saltash. The tide and floodwater roars down there on days like today.
 
I don't know if they still do it but years ago at Lydey Yacht Club on the Severn, with spectacular tides we used to have fore and aft drying moorings.There were two parallel ground chains with 4 risers so the boat was held in one place. Cross winds did not seem to worry the boats any more than on a normal mooring and obviously there was rather less yawing around. Picking up the mooring was via a buoy on the bow pair of risers and, once that was secure pull up a weighted line running from the bow risers to the aft pair which once retrieved were secured on each quarter.
 
We had a fore and aft mooring a couple years ago, not too many problems other than if yours is part of a trot mooring then yours will tension up if all boats are on theirs. Will be a bugger to get your warps on on a high spring tide I can tell ya!

And in the winter if you stay on the mooring with no one else on the rest of the trot, you have a lot of spare slack on your warps to make up!

Prefer a swinging mooring any day!
 
I am into my 7th year on a fore and aft.
We have a jack-stay between the fore & aft buoys so the trot doesn't go slack for others when a boat leaves and when we return we don't find the gap to be twice the size!
As the trot is against the river bank we can only leave / return from one side. This means that I try to tie up so that my reverse prop walk will push the stern out into the river and away from the jack-stay.
When the river is flowing up my stern, I leave in reverse. When the river is flowing to the bow, I spring off by holding the jack-stay to keep the stern steady and let the bow drift out.
Yes the boat will attempt to slew when tied up but using double lines controls it. Both bow lines come in on the bank side and the stern lines are split one to each quarter cleat which controls the slew with current up the stern. There isn't much of a slew problem when the current is on the bow.
The biggest problem is leaving when the wind is blowing the boat onto the river bank. I have tried hailing passing boats to help pull me off, but the success depends on the competence of that skipper, so in general, not very successful! I now use my kedge Danforth which I lay across the river from the dingy. It works quite well unless another boat tries to pass when the kedge line is under tension /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
As others have said, no problem with water up exhaust - mine is above water level /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Lock the rudder amidships.
Oh! sometimes get a slight problem with floating weed / grass on the prop, but that is normally sorted with a bit of fwd / reverse before I leave.
 
I had a fore and aft mooring in the Rumney River once(near Cardiff). The tide actually makes it easier to pick up the mooring as the boat is moving through the water all the time.

Never heard of anyone having water up the exhaust probs. If the mooring is correctly laid you wont end up side on to the tide,the boat will allways lie to the tide with the weight on the uptide mooring.

Its worth repeating that you Must lash the helm. or a lot of strain will occur on it and the boat will keep trying to drive across one way or the other.

The big problem we had was trees and other rubbish coming downstream during winter storms then tangling in the moorings.
 
On the dart, I had fore and aft mooring, the tide fairly gushes out there as well, never had any problems, the two bouys had a line between them, I dint seem to swing around mush either. Bouys were laid and maintained by dart river/harbour authority, dont know what they were like under the water.
 
I think you'll find that in this case the "Jack Stay" is called a "Span-line" /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Re your problem leaving when the wind is blowing you on - have you tried springing the boat off?

Peter.
 
Yes - the **** line moves and I either drive my nose into the bank or end up with the F*** stay round the prop /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
A cross wind on my boat with a lot of windage area is mostly too strong to maneuver against it without something to pull me out.
 
We have one, and the worst, most annoying, irritating, awful (get the message) part are the other people in the trot who shorten their lines to 'stop their boat swiinging about so much'. Our boat is the end of the trot and sometimes I have to winch the strops onto the cleats because of the other so and so's in the trot.

Can you tell that I feel strongly about this?

Our trot of moorings are all 20 metres appart, and its easy to measure your mooring strops to ensure that you take up 20 metres. Leastways that is what you are supposed to do!
 
I can well understand how irritating and difficult that must be, especially when returning in less than ideal conditions, or short handed. Why not print off 20 carefully-worded, friendly, polite and helpful sheets with diagrams explaining the problem and how to estimate when you have the correct length. Then leave the letters on board each yacht on the trot. You might invite them call on you and meet up for a beer when they are down, as a friendly gesture.

Could be that the others feel that their moorings are hard to use and all they have to do is (collectively) do it correctly. You might end up with no frustration and irritation, and 19 new friends /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I am on a fore-and-aft trot, on the Tamar at Saltash (... not too far from you John_Morris_UK: what mooring are you on?). As others have said: the difficult bit is getting on and off with the wind blowing across because there is little room for error. Although some prefer slack tide, I actually don't mind having some tide on Tigger's nose as you can maintain steerage whilst being still relative to the mooring lines. It helps if you are not single handed, but more often than not it is a big sweat. Leaving has caused more grief than getting on, but that may be due to the fact that whe I leave I probably do not yet have the "hand" of the boat.

I must say I prefer a swinging mooring, but in confined spaces you get more boats in on trots. Also the insurers where happier with 4 lines to hold the boat, rather than 2.
 
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I am on a fore-and-aft trot, on the Tamar at Saltash (... not too far from you John_Morris_UK: what mooring are you on?). As others have said: the difficult bit is getting on and off with the wind blowing across because there is little room for error. Although some prefer slack tide, I actually don't mind having some tide on Tigger's nose as you can maintain steerage whilst being still relative to the mooring lines. It helps if you are not single handed, but more often than not it is a big sweat. Leaving has caused more grief than getting on, but that may be due to the fact that whe I leave I probably do not yet have the "hand" of the boat.

I must say I prefer a swinging mooring, but in confined spaces you get more boats in on trots. Also the insurers where happier with 4 lines to hold the boat, rather than 2.

[/ QUOTE ]I have pm'd you with our mooring number.

As I understand it, the local authority have decreed that on the Tamar, South of the bridge as many moorings as possible will be fore-and aft. No sure why it is in their gift to say this, but that is what I have been told so we are stuck with it.

I admit I would prefer a swinging mooring, but it's the mooring we've got and we will have to stick with it.

I don't mind the tide - in fact it makes getting on and off fairly easy. (Max rate at spring tides is interesting and leaves less room for error when I am single handed.)

We have an old line with three old fenders on it that we leave tied between the strops. I motor alongside this (into the tide obviously) and pick it up with the boat hook and get a strop on the bow cleat. From then the boat lies to the tide and even if there is a cross wind you can usually work your way aft with the joining line connected to the aft strops and pull her across the bit that she swings with the wind.

Regarding the post suggesting leaving polite notes on the other boats. The main culprit is a boat that has allegedly sailed round the world. The impression I get is that owner now thinks he knows everything and won't be told/asked. You win a few and lose a few I guess. The club is always reminding people to check the length of their strops. I will ask them to do it yet again if it continues to be a problem.
 
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