"Hooked" keels on swinging moorings

J

JimC

Well-Known Member
Joined
30 Aug 2001
Messages
1,570
Location
Lancashire
Visit site
I've applied for a mooring in the Conwy river for this Summer. I don't know if I'm going to get one but if I do it's likely to be semi-drying i.e. always covered but the boat will ground on low tides. I've never left my present boat on a mooring and I've started to worry about getting the riser caught round the keels e.g. in wind over tide situations where the boat is blown up-tide of the mooring. My boat has bulbed keels giving them a hooked profile so it would seem to be particularly vulnerable to this. Can anybody offer any advice, preferably in the context of the Conwy river. If Conwy isn't going to be safe for me, any other suggestions?

Here's a photo of my keels
View attachment 29119
 
I think you are right to be concerned about this at Conwy. If the mooring was somewhere where there is a smaller tidal range it would be much easier as there would not be as much slack on the riser when the boat is just afloat. I had a mooring at Conwy for a few years near the bridge and the boat often became wind rode but the council moorings there have (had) big plastic floats to support the chain and the boats are attached to the morring via short strops so you do not have the length of riser likely to catch the keels. The risers have just enough length and no more than necessary and I do not think I heard this as a problem but that was 12 years ago and that might have changed.
What does happen is that the riser float can bash seven bells out of your bows unless you are careful to make provision for how the bows are to be protected from the float.
It is a pretty spot but the river is fast and as dangerous as they come and is not a place for little kids and dogs-when they are gone they are gone! Just a thought.
There are plenty here who know Conwy well and will give you good advice.
 
We were on a swinging mooring in a gully opposite the HM office by the Cobb. It was a lovely spot at night with the castle lit up & we were well out of the main river current in a little eddy.

Problems arise with hooked keels if the boat is pushed by the current before it lifts properly & scours thr the sand picking up any chain in it. But as said above, Conwy HM is well aware of the risk & the big bouys on the riser are an effective solution.

The main reasons why we left;

Prices just kept rising & the council didnt give a toss for yotties

Parking facilities are not good, altho loading is better now if you use the fuel pontoon.

The current at the pontoon is wicked, anything dropped in the water on the flood will be out of sight under the bridge in seconds - which definitely includes kids & elderly crew. You cannot follow them under the bridge with your mast intact, so would need to have the dinghy (with o/b) ready to use if you are to stand any chance at all of recovering a MoB.

NW'ly gales over the early to mid ebb can be pretty bad, but once to outer sandbanks are exposed you will take the ground as gentle as a lamb. We were there with both boats a total of some 20 years.
 
Interesting. I had exactly this problem on a bilge keeled Pandora that I owned nearly twenty years ago on the Orwell. I went down to check her one day and there she was, making her way slowly up river dangling the mooring block below her!

My solution was to attach a GRP sheathed steel rod between the end of each keel and the hull. This cured the problem and didn't seem to make a lot of difference to performance. When I last saw the boat (about 5 years ago) the posts were still in place.
 
Just as a side thought...... Conarfon harbour trust has several moorings at Rowan bay near Port Dinorwic. Very picturesque and quiet, many from PD have spent quiet nights there. Fully floating and sheltered.

May be a better solution for you and worth a phone call to the harbour master.

Just a thought

Tom
 
LittleShip said:
Very picturesque and quiet, many from PD have spent quiet nights there. Fully floating and sheltered.

Tom
Click to expand...

I have a friend who has the little red Achilles triple keeler on the last of the bouys in there. I think he would beg to differ with you regarding shelter.

Try any of the PD moorings with a good south westerly blowing up the reach from Plas Menai and a spring tide running the other way.

I agree that Rowan bay moorings are probably the most sheltered of any then....

Tom you know LS wouldnt like it so she never let you stay there unless it was flat calm and you were rafted up with James....

Nice quiet spot though for fishing, fun box depletion... and watching the sun go down.
 
LittleShip said:
Just as a side thought...... Conarfon harbour trust has several moorings at Rowan bay near Port Dinorwic. Very picturesque and quiet, many from PD have spent quiet nights there. Fully floating and sheltered.

May be a better solution for you and worth a phone call to the harbour master.

Just a thought

Tom
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, could you describe for me just where these moorings are please. Are they where the slipway(?) runs into the straits between the housing estate marina and the sailing club?

View attachment 29192
 
JimC, bottom left corner of map.

Steve, no matter where you go there will always be a wind that isn't right for it. that said I stand by my previous post and ....Personally I would rather be in Rowan bay than the river at Conwy.

There is also the river (Seiont or something) where Searush dumps his on the ground at Conarfon which could be available although tidal it isnt as fast flowing as Conwy.

Now Steve, as for rafting up with Saskia............. we wouldn't do that, two boats on one mooring, no not us !!! :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
I've just been on the phone to the Harbour Master at Caernarfon. He said the moorings in the Straits at Port Dinorwic and Rowan Bay would be awkward for me because each buoy is held in position by two ropes (not chains) going to a pair of sinkers upstream and downstream of the buoy. He didn't want me hooking the ropes with my keels and chafing them. He said he might be able to modify a mooring by interposing a length of chain between the junction of the two ropes and the buoy, but said it probably still wouldn't be safe when the boat was straining hard at the mooring.

For me the attraction of Conwy is the easy access to the sheltered side of Anglesey.
 
I think Richard (aka Dick Dock) at CHT is being a little over cautious there. A 24' Achilles isn't going to put much strain on the bouys at Rowan! & I can't see how it could ever hook either of the securing ropes as the upstream one will always be tight & the downstream one slack. Even at slack water the wind (if any) will keep you clear. There's only about 10-15' rise & fall of tide there at worst & it is in an eddy well out of the main current. But it is a fair dinghy ride from the slipway.

There are almost certainly trot spaces available in the River Seoint at Caernarfon, cheaper than Conwy, free parking for mooring holders & a locked dinghy store, as well as a lot more sheltered than Conway & right on the Straits for all weather boating. The trip from Conway Harbour to Puffin Island (or back again) can be the worst 2 hours (plus) of your life in NW'lies, the boat corkscrews over the rollers & the seas get shorter & steeper in the shallow water.

There is a little boatyard just SW of Bangor Pier with a load of drying 1/2 tide moorings in mud, that's a quiet little spot (mostly -but NW'ly gales over ebb tides will obviously cause some issues until the sandbanks uncover, just before you settle)
 
Searush said:
I think Richard (aka Dick Dock) at CHT is being a little over cautious there. A 24' Achilles isn't going to put much strain on the bouys at Rowan! & I can't see how it could ever hook either of the securing ropes as the upstream one will always be tight & the downstream one slack. Even at slack water the wind (if any) will keep you clear. There's only about 10-15' rise & fall of tide there at worst & it is in an eddy well out of the main current. But it is a fair dinghy ride from the slipway.

There are almost certainly trot spaces available in the River Seoint at Caernarfon, cheaper than Conwy, free parking for mooring holders & a locked dinghy store, as well as a lot more sheltered than Conway & right on the Straits for all weather boating. The trip from Conway Harbour to Puffin Island (or back again) can be the worst 2 hours (plus) of your life in NW'lies, the boat corkscrews over the rollers & the seas get shorter & steeper in the shallow water.

There is a little boatyard just SW of Bangor Pier with a load of drying 1/2 tide moorings in mud, that's a quiet little spot (mostly -but NW'ly gales over ebb tides will obviously cause some issues until the sandbanks uncover, just before you settle)
Click to expand...

I think Richard said the ropes were polypropylene so presumably they would float, I thought at the time that this was an unusual choice for a mooring, I may have misheard him. I'm going to have a look at the drying moorings in the River at Caernarfon, my only problems are that it's another 20 miles from where I live compared to Conwy and, when I've been there in the Victoria Dock on holiday cruises, it's seemed as though everbody flocks to Abermenaii or Pilot's cove when it's a nice day. Speaking just as a visitor it's always seemed to me that there is a wider choice of day-sailing destinations if you're based North of the Swellies. I'll have a look at the little yard near Bangor too. Thanks
 
Trust the white haired sage. Any north east venues are just as accessible from seiont as PD. Our choice of venue is go right if early on incoming tide and you can get to Puffin within 1.75 hours and carry on to Moelfre and all other anchorages to Holyhead with flat water most of the time with prevailing southerly winds.

If east through north around to west then leave after high tide and you can be at Llandwyn in just over an hour from PD. There are plenty of other venues other than Abermenai and Pilots cove. Shallow draft boats like yours can go virtually in any direction you like from the mussel bank bouy and you won't go bump at high tide plus or minus an hour or two.

Using 5 knots of tide means you can passage plan at up to 10 knots quite easily achieved.
 
Last edited:
TSB240 said:
.... Our choice of venue is go right if early on incoming tide and you can get to Puffin within 1.75 hours and carry on to Moelfre and all other anchorages to Holyhead with flat water most of the time with prevailing southerly winds.
Click to expand...

Thanks TSB240, but can you get out of the Seiont early on an incoming tide? I understood from the HM that it was HW +/- 3 hours.
 
JimC said:
Thanks TSB240, but can you get out of the Seiont early on an incoming tide? I understood from the HM that it was HW +/- 3 hours.
Click to expand...

OK, I think I get it now, HW at Caernarfon is about an hour earlier than at the other end of the straits.
 
With your draft on a neap, you'll manage better than 4 hours either side. I've managed to sneak in & out outside those times myself with 4' draft. It seems like ages waiting to float off, but it isn't really & you can carry the flood up to Puffin in short time, but you don't half go thro the Swellies quick when you are an hour or so early!!

I quite often make Red Wharf before the tide goes out there, but there isn't time to hang about.

It's only an extra 20-30 mins on to Caernarfon from Conway.
 
Another vote for the small yard by Bangor Pier.
Had 3 years there, only 275 for the summer and £5/week on the shore over the winter.
The owner was a chap called Jonathan (might be dead now, this was 10 years ago ad he was getting on then) who was very pleasant.
No facilities though, I sometimes went for a shower in the local swimming pool.
Great boat carpenter worked there, Dafyd I think, made me a lovely tiller. He's probably dead also, was a raging alky back then.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top