Lassoing a buoy

[Seajet]

I'm with Daydream Believer on this; the only time I've ever lassoed a buoy was a National Trust one at Newtown Creek, on my YM course - and it was ridiculously tricky.

In Chichester Harbour there's a byelaw one is OK to use someone elses' mooring while they're away, but must not leave the boat unattended and must clear off pronto if the owner turns up.

As only a real idiot would choose a mooring with a tender on it, this usually keeps my buoy safe unless on hols.

 

[BrendanS]

I'm with Daydream Believer on this; the only time I've ever lassoed a buoy was a National Trust one at Newtown Creek,

You should have been at the the first YBW Mercury meet, where we all got to together at Newton Creek first, and about 7 boats were on one mooring, and kids sent out in tender to retrieve one from the shalllows, with about 1000m of line, as they didn't weigh a lot, and everyone else was milling around wondering what to do. Dozens of boats there with no moorings. The Mecury Meet was only just better organised.

 

[Molteni]

We lassoed a mooring buoy in Croatia, bringing both ends back through a fairlead on the boat (Bavaria 36). We loop later came off, riding over the large spherical buoy!!

 

[john_morris_uk]

We lassoed a mooring buoy in Croatia, bringing both ends back through a fairlead on the boat (Bavaria 36). We loop later came off, riding over the large spherical buoy!!

Later came back off? I don’t think anyone has ever taught anyone to leave a boat secured by lasso. At best it’s a way of grabbing the buoy while you root around for the mooring strop or thread a proper mooring line through the ring with a round turn etc.

 

[Old Harry]

oh buoy, here we go again. How long has this forum been around? Quite a few years, and this has been debated almost since the first post. and the first posts no longer exist, as that version of the forum lost everything when it moved to the (then) new forum software, and there have been a few since. It's amazing how many posts do still exist from so long ago.

It is PBO what do you expect. Print for 5 years then repeat

 

[laika]

I'm going to stick my neck out here with 2 things:
* While RYA schools are teaching a technique you don't approve of, maybe advising people of the circumstances in which you believe that technique is inappropriate is better than a rebuke
* Small boats, small freeboard. On a 12m+ boat if a buoy doesn't have a pickup but just a ring at the top, you can't just lean down and thread a large diameter rope through it. It's either gymnastics underneath the guardrail or fancy twizzling boathook work both of which require the boat to be more still for a minute or two than can reasonably be expected in a crosswind except with a strong current. Not that it sounds like those objecting to lassoing are talking about bigger boat moorings.

Are folks objecting to *any* use of lassoing ever (in which case how would you advise your crew to pick up a pickupless mooring in a strong crosswind with no engine and a boat with a meter and a half of freeboard?) or just lassoing as more than a temporary measure? I've not seen it taught as anything other than the latter.

 

[RupertW]

Later came back off? I don’t think anyone has ever taught anyone to leave a boat secured by lasso. At best it’s a way of grabbing the buoy while you root around for the mooring strop or thread a proper mooring line through the ring with a round turn etc.

Exactly - the idea is just to hold the boat briefly while you get one or ideally two proper lines on.

And to me, the two most important parts are dragging the loop in the water for a minute before deplying so it’s wet enough to immediately sink, and getting the boats bow stopped by the bouy as you should be almost dropping the loop over the bouy rather than flinging it a distance.

 

[Daydream believer]

Loads of people will now claim that the best practice of temporarily lassoing a bouy to allow you to safely make fast properly will cause harm.

Thats nonsense.

They will come up with anecdotal evidence, mostly secondhand, of damage caused.

It can only be caused to inherently inadequate buoys but they will argue to the contrary.

Right, let's put that carp to bed now.
I have been involved in looking after up to 84 moorings on our stretch since 2004. Currently there are 35. We have used inflatable "Dan" buoys throughout that period & they have worked perfectly Ok, if not abused. I have personally supplied & renewed the tackle on 90% of these buoys during that time & aided mooring holders with maintenance. Hence, I am aware of those that may have failed due to poor maintenance, or poor mooring technique, by holders.
So why should we change just because YOU say so?

Now this is NOT second hand
We have club members whose houses are behind the sea wall & several ( including the harbourmaster before I became involved) have telescopes in their lounges so they can look out over the river.
If the ex harbour master says he watched a sailing school boat about 35 ft long come to MY MOORING lassoo it a number of times, then leave I believe him. If then within 7-10 days , after 2 years of good service he rings me to say MY MOORING is missing , does that not suggest a connection?
If we then go out with the work boat, drag for MY MOORING & successfully recover it & find a small slit in the underside of the buoy, about 1-2 inches long
Does that not suggest that the idiot instructor who decided to lassoo it caused the problem?
I have lost 3 sets of moorings now because , unfortunately, old charts show my mooring as a vistors mooring. Which it certainly is not. So when my squib is not on it I remove the pickup ropes & put a blanking plate in the ring & have a solid buoy. I have also moved it inshore a bit in the hope they will pick another

We have lost a number of buoys on the outer trots, so I now have to advise owners to pay the extra £120-00 for solid buoys . Thanks to inconsiderate visitors

As for my feelings about people who use my mooring. I have had two situations where people have arrived just as I was launching & plonked on my mooring. On one yacht, the bloke refused to move, saying his engine was broken & he had sent his son to get new filters. I had to sit & wait for 2.5 hours until he went- Then he actually SAILED off. The other, earlier this year, the crew rowed ashore & one of us had to run up the street to get them. When offered another mooring they decided to leave altogether, but we asked whythey went on the mooring. They claimed he had permission from the harbour master. The current harbour master was sitting right next to me & gently shaking his head from side to side.
We have had others who have been allowed to go on a mooring for a couple of days & it has been weeks before we have been able to get rid of them.
People just think they can take the p...ss

 

[Daydream believer]

I'm going to stick my neck out here with 2 things:
* While RYA schools are teaching a technique you don't approve of, maybe advising people of the circumstances in which you believe that technique is inappropriate is better than a rebuke
* Small boats, small freeboard. On a 12m+ boat if a buoy doesn't have a pickup but just a ring at the top, you can't just lean down and thread a large diameter rope through it. It's either gymnastics underneath the guardrail or fancy twizzling boathook work both of which require the boat to be more still for a minute or two than can reasonably be expected in a crosswind except with a strong current. Not that it sounds like those objecting to lassoing are talking about bigger boat moorings.

Are folks objecting to *any* use of lassoing ever (in which case how would you advise your crew to pick up a pickupless mooring in a strong crosswind with no engine and a boat with a meter and a half of freeboard?) or just lassoing as more than a temporary measure? I've not seen it taught as anything other than the latter.

Has it occurred to you that the mooring may not be designed for your large yacht in the first place?

 

[Poignard]

Not very pleasant to arrive back and find someone has picked up your mooring and buggered off home.

It is not. But the number of times it has happened to me is so small that I can look back over decades of sailing without getting upset about it. In each case except one, it happened because someone (typically a club boatswain) had mistakenly told the person who picked up my mooring that I would not be back before he returned. Annoying but worth getting worked up about? I think not.

The first book about cruising I read was "Cruising Under Sail" by Eric Hiscock and from that and other sources I learnt that the accepted conventions are:

- not to use a mooring that might not be adequate for your size of yacht;

- not to damage it, but if you do you must seek out the owner and pay the costs of repairing it;

- not to leave your yacht unattended on the mooring you have borrowed.


For many years I had a mooring in one of the busiest parts of Portsmouth Harbour, an area much favoured by sailing school instructors for teaching novices how to pick up moorings. I never had any damage done to my mooring and if I returned to find a yacht on my mooring its skipper would immediately vacate it.

Unlike some of those who posted on this thread, I find the vast majority of my fellow yachtsmen to be friendly, tolerant, helpful and understanding.

Long may that remain the case.

-

 

[Poignard]

Later came back off? I don’t think anyone has ever taught anyone to leave a boat secured by lasso. At best it’s a way of grabbing the buoy while you root around for the mooring strop or thread a proper mooring line through the ring with a round turn etc.

Exactly.

It is also wrong to use the buoy as a means of bringing a boat to a halt.

Since I bought a Moorfast gadget I rarely have to lassoo a buoy but if I do the technique we (my wife and I) use is that she goes forward to lassoo the buoy while I bring the yacht to a halt with it up close to the starboard bow. She lassos it or, if I have done my job well, simply drops the line over it. I walk forward and thread a line through the eye of the buoy, while she walks back to the cockpit.

The purpose of the lassoo is simply to keep the buoy close to the bow for the few moments it takes for me to attach a line to its eye. It is not a substitute for a line through the eye.

Now I have the Moorfast I often pick up the mooring from the cockpit; a technique made easy with a low freeboard and an aft cockpit.

 

[laika]

Has it occurred to you that the mooring may not be designed for your large yacht in the first place?

This part of my post which I specifically added on noting that you were talking about sub 30ft moorings should suggest that I am indeed aware that not all moorings are suitable for all boats:

Not that it sounds like those objecting to lassoing are talking about bigger boat moorings.

My post made no reference to any specific mooring, specifically not your mooring buoy, or a boat owned by any particular person. I am simply asserting that there are circumstances under which lassoing a buoy as a temporary measure is a valid technique to be aware of.

 

[RupertW]

Right, let's put that carp to bed now.
I have been involved in looking after up to 84 moorings on our stretch since 2004. Currently there are 35. We have used inflatable "Dan" buoys throughout that period & they have worked perfectly Ok, if not abused. I have personally supplied & renewed the tackle on 90% of these buoys during that time & aided mooring holders with maintenance. Hence, I am aware of those that may have failed due to poor maintenance, or poor mooring technique, by holders.
So why should we change just because YOU say so?

Now this is NOT second hand
We have club members whose houses are behind the sea wall & several ( including the harbourmaster before I became involved) have telescopes in their lounges so they can look out over the river.
If the ex harbour master says he watched a sailing school boat about 35 ft long come to MY MOORING lassoo it a number of times, then leave I believe him. If then within 7-10 days , after 2 years of good service he rings me to say MY MOORING is missing , does that not suggest a connection?
If we then go out with the work boat, drag for MY MOORING & successfully recover it & find a small slit in the underside of the buoy, about 1-2 inches long
Does that not suggest that the idiot instructor who decided to lassoo it caused the problem?
I have lost 3 sets of moorings now because , unfortunately, old charts show my mooring as a vistors mooring. Which it certainly is not. So when my squib is not on it I remove the pickup ropes & put a blanking plate in the ring & have a solid buoy. I have also moved it inshore a bit in the hope they will pick another

We have lost a number of buoys on the outer trots, so I now have to advise owners to pay the extra £120-00 for solid buoys . Thanks to inconsiderate visitors

As for my feelings about people who use my mooring. I have had two situations where people have arrived just as I was launching & plonked on my mooring. On one yacht, the bloke refused to move, saying his engine was broken & he had sent his son to get new filters. I had to sit & wait for 2.5 hours until he went- Then he actually SAILED off. The other, earlier this year, the crew rowed ashore & one of us had to run up the street to get them. When offered another mooring they decided to leave altogether, but we asked whythey went on the mooring. They claimed he had permission from the harbour master. The current harbour master was sitting right next to me & gently shaking his head from side to side.
We have had others who have been allowed to go on a mooring for a couple of days & it has been weeks before we have been able to get rid of them.
People just think they can take the p...ss

Yet you still won’t fork out once to buy a fit for purpose mooring bouy despite all the people giving you the chance to learn from your mistake. I hope you have more of an open mind when sailing, although presumably you also have a boat made out of porcelain, waterproofs made out of tissue paper and lifelines made out of thread which all work perfectly if they are not “abused”.

 

[lw395]

It’s sort of Darwinian - anybody silly enough to have bouys which can be damaged my lassoing need to have them replaced again and again until they buy ones for for purpose. I mean, what other technique can stop a 40 foot boat going at 4 knots. To be fair, the irritating thing is that you sometimes need to use up or three bouys to get one robust enough.

Strangely, the arsehole 'instructors' never choose the sturdy steel buoy for their inept students to practice on, they go for the expensive inflatable one optimised for not damaging the private owner's boat.

 

[RichardS]

I've never had to lasso a buoy to initially hold it, although I have no objection to it.

If we have enough crew we pick it up at the bow with the boat hook and if we are short-handed we just pick up the buoy from the low stern by reversing up to it with a long line.

Richard

 

[Daydream believer]

Yet you still won’t fork out once to buy a fit for purpose mooring bouy despite all the people giving you the chance to learn from your mistake.

No!!! it is you that does not get it. It is not my mistake. the buoys are fit for purpose that the owners use them for. They are not designed for the actions of casual muppets. If a buoy lasts 10 years (without being lassoo'd) & many do, then it stands to reason that they must be fit for purpose.
I believe EYE marine sell the same model by the hundred, so if they were not fit there would be some feedback.

Like I said earlier, If I bashed into your boat in a berth & claimed any damage to your boat was your fault because your fenders were inadequate would you agree then?
If you park on my mooring then use it as designed. I would never object to people using my mooring if
1)The boat was no bigger than mine ( one mooring is for a 20 ft Squib , the other a 20 ft launch)
2) They only used it for a short stop off
3) They used it as it was designed & did not damage it ( by lassooing, & letting it ride up & down on the centre spindle)
4) If I returned when they were on it & politely asked to move, they did so quickly as possible. With a cheery wave
5) Alternatively, If I had given permission for a longer stay, or bigger boat

If your boat is too high to reach the ring , then it is too big for the mooring-- simple.

If you do not know how to moor up correctly practice on your own buoy, not mine.

 

[ryanroberts]

I practised sailing on / off and lassoing on a fairly recent RYA course using a chunky steel visitor buoy (that was a bugger to fetch with a boat hook and required lying on the bow) at Tarbet (I think), had no idea it was controversial until seeing this thread. It is one of the many things I am paranoid about planning on single handing a lot.

 

[doug748]

.
Because that is a long-standing custom; a part of the give and take that makes yachting such a pleasant pastime.

Yes, indeed. Some folk always seem so tight arsed in this country.


Once in France I picked up a mooring and a bloke on a slip, 200 yards away, reacted like he had been electrocuted. He rolled his dinghy back into the water and rowed furiously towards me. I thought "here we go"
When he arrived breathless there was no moaning. He wanted to show me a better mooring and insisted on taking a line so I could tow myself across.

 

[laika]

It's quite understandable that someone whose own mooring buoy is continually used for practice, often by boats larger than the mooring was intended for, gets annoyed. I totally get "two minutes won't hurt" vs two minutes several times a day and sometimes mucked up with the boat being stopped by the rope with a few knots of way on. No-one wants that on their mooring day in day our. However that doesn't make the technique invalid.

Do be upset about how your own buoy is being frequently misused but try to differentiate that from utility of knowing how to lasso a buoy.

RichardS talks about "picking up" a mooring at the bow with a boathook. If he's not talking about pick-up buoys I suggest that you can't hold a 10 tonne boat in any kind of a blow with a boat hook (and then you need another person, possibly with another boat hook, to thread the rope through the ring). Reversing up to a buoy is not always practical under sail and does require another person and a step close to the waterline, so not practical for all.

 

[RupertW]

Strangely, the arsehole 'instructors' never choose the sturdy steel buoy for their inept students to practice on, they go for the expensive inflatable one optimised for not damaging the private owner's boat.

That’s because they are trying to teach the stubborn fools to buy bouys that are fit for purpose. But some people prefer to gripe and keep replacing one flimsy bouy with another.