awol
Well-known member
....... or a selfish git using a short painter to attach his dinghy to a pontoon .....
Hissy fits
- Thread starter zoidberg
- Start date
Mudisox
Well-known member
And furthermore puts a short chain and padlock on it.
I was taught that you may own the dinghy, but not the cleat/bollard.
johnalison
Well-known member
If you really want to wind me up, put your bowline above mine but make it a slip knot that tightens fully. I am accustomed to people putting their loop above mine, and it is unavoidable on Baltic-style stern posts. Generally, it doesn’t worry me other than a moment’s sadness at the decline in etiquette, because one can easily free one’s own line by the reverse of the loop-through method already described. It’s all a matter of topology innit?
Stemar
Well-known member
I prefer to do it with my 7 1/2m one. Positioned correctly, I can take up the whole thing, with just not quite enough room for anyone else - far more annoying
john_morris_uk
Well-known member
One of my pet hates.
I even saw a dinghy locked fore and aft 'alongside' once.
Adios
...
Part of the freaks ire was that there was space enough for me to stay further back down the landing (whats the word) and use a free bollard. I had thought of that but then silly me was thinking someone else might be coming behind and want to also tie up there. My consideration for others was terrorism for him. The fact he was using a waiting landing to tie up and fish from seemed to put him automatically in the wrong but no doubt not in his eyes.
Adios
...
Maybe its from mostly single handing but I always tie up with a line around and back to the boat so it wouldn't matter at all what someone else does on a bollard. I just untie and pull it through. But as for etiquette the sad decline is in the etiquette of calmly explaining etiquette to someone who doesn't seem to know an etiquette.
pyrojames
Well-known member
I usually pass the end of the rope under all others and then tie the bowline. It works on pontoon cleats too.
RupertW
Well-known member
For a couple of nights if cleats and pontoon/wall are smooth I will do the same. Otherwise it’s bowlines then only changed to a line around and back when we are leaving. I prefer shared cleats to have people cleating their ropes over each other on the cleat itself. That allows my bowline to go on and off very easily
Frogmogman
Well-known member
Which angry boater could have demonstrated in a calm and friendly way, if it bothered him that much, without going off on one.
It must be so tiring to be one of those furious people who is in a strop the whole time.
johnalison
Well-known member
I find myself mooring to cleats more often than bollards, but the same consideration applies. I too would generally moor with a loop, using a bowline for the springs, since these are longer. I much prefer to flip the loop off rather than feed it round because snags tend to occur when doing that. If leaving with someone else's line above, I would tend to replace mine above the other before departing, to make a flip possible.
I agree that education is really the answer, but often inadvisable since many of those who have shown lack of consideration tend to believe that they are always right.
LadyInBed
Well-known member
I'm not keen on people who oxo on shared cleats!
LadyInBed
Well-known member
A good outcome.
Adios
...
Now if you don't explain what oxoing is to the uninitiated I may well be doing that as well. And then I'll be accused of more lacking consideration. TBH the who came first has upper rope etiquette seems like splitting hairs, either way is hardly a challenge and who's to know who will be leaving first. At a lock where likely we can expect all leaving together it would make the least difference. I think angry man was just using me as a pressure relief valve on his pre-existing boiling brain condition.
I wonder though if other angry boaters I've encountered were also due to etiquette fails. I was tied up on a town quay in Willemstad, Holland, quite a tricky one to do due to there being piles to line fenders up with horizontally rather than a flat wall. There was lots of empty space behind and in front of me. Then another boat came in, significantly larger than mine, and skipper announced he was going to raft up, rather than going against the piles himself. I think he looked pleased we were there maybe knowing the place and thinking what a lucky thing it was to have a handy fender for his boat. As we were leaving before long and I expected certainly before they would be, I politely refused and explained why. Furious swearing under his breath and scowling at me like i'd broken some centuries old custom. Whats the etiquette on that one?
john_morris_uk
Well-known member
I think that the etiquette is to explain that your leaving very soon, but rarely if ever to say no to requests to raft up.. If you say you are leaving soon, then you genuinely do need to be leaving soon as some people use that as an excuse to avoid other people coming alongside them. Conversely, it's not good etiquette for them to ask to raft up alongside a boat that's considerably smaller than yours and if you were to politely protest because of the size difference, then it's difficult for the other party to complain. It's got to be a really big size difference and adverse conditions to make much difference though.
Adios
...
It was a much larger boat. Mine was 26ft and his must have been mid to high 30s. Mine was new to me and not very securely fendered so it certainly made me nervous. Personally I would only ask to raft or expect it to be seen as a reasonable request if there was no other berth which wasn't the case there. But I was really leaving soon anyway. Perhaps his anger was thinking that I was saying that as an excuse if people do that.
JumbleDuck
Well-known member
johnalison
Well-known member
Most marina cleats these days are of the type that gives you the choice of oxoing/figure-of-8ing or passing a loop through a hole, or lazily looping it round as we usually do. An oxo basically takes up the whole cleat and makes it hard or impossible to add a second line, especially if the oxo morphs into a bird's nest.
I don't think it is ever reasonable to raft onto a boat if there are free spaces available, other than to friends, or on the instruction of the harbourmaster. There is the odd exception on some Dutch waiting pontoons, where boats are instructed to fill each mooring point with five boats before the next point is used.
JumbleDuck
Well-known member
From occasional ventures into canal forums it seems that "the cut" is an extraordinarily rancorous place. Wide-beam versus narrow boat, owned versus hire, residential versus cruiser - lots of tribes all at each others throats. Apart from the man who nearly had an apoplectic fit when he saw me leaving my berth, opposite his, in Bangor Marina under Seagull power I don't think I have ever had or even seen an argument between sea-boating types. The Thames lot seem to seethe quietly at each other, but mainly over slightly askew regimental ties or suspected foreign-ness.
JumbleDuck
Well-known member
And even then it's sometimes the done thing to offer to leave temporarily and go to the outside yourself - I've done this myself. On the other hand, you may get someone like the notorious super(sailing)yacht skipper who accepted an offer of that sort in the Menai Straits then rigged his boom so that the original yacht couldn't come alongside. Still the rudest thing I think I have ever heard of at sea.