Lassoing - the RYA way

[awol]

Don't ask me what I was looking for, but I came across this nugget on a RYA How-to-do-it webpage. It seems a long time since the forum split into 2 camps on this - I was definitely in the not-on-my-mooring-you-don't side.

If there isn’t a pick up buoy, the easy way to do it is to use a lasso. Take both ends of a long and heavy mooring warp and cleat them to the boat with ‘figure of eights’, which can always be undone even under load.

Pass the large loop of rope out over your bow roller and then back aboard over the rails. The foredeck crew should now divide the loop of rope into two even handfuls and, when the helmsman brings the boat to a halt, cast the rope out and over the buoy.

As the rope settles and sinks, back away from the buoy and the rope will pull tight around the chain beneath the buoy.

 

[Angele]

I seem to remember this got the Forum rather heated a year or two back.

I think the RYA is suggesting this as a temporary solution to enable you to tie up properly thereafter. Not as an overnight approach.

It is what was taught on the Day Skipper practical I did 12 years ago.

 

[Seajet]

Must say I've never had much luck lassoing !

Another consideration, even as a quick aid to getting a hold of the buoy, is that some deep water mooring buoys have lots of razor sharp barnacles underneath, the ones I remember on a mooring I had might well damage even a hefty temporarily used line.

 

[Sailorsam101]

I hate using that. Tried it in the Silly isles a while back...so much weed on the mooring buoy that the rope would not sink past it....failed and failed again and again...in the end we brought the buoy midships and did it the right way.

The good old RYA...skills for a sterile world where everything works perfectly.

 

[flaming]

I don't use it often, but it's a tool in the locker for appropriate use.

That appropriate use normally being a designated visitors buoy which has no pickup buoy, and just a shackle that lies flat on top. The worst actually have a depression which the shackle sits in, making it next to impossible to get at from the deck of a modern AWB. Luckily these buoys are normally the massive flat foam things, which are suitable for lassoing.

Before the forum gets itself in a tizzy again, I would reiterate that I would not, ever, use lassoing on an inflatable private buoy, or one with a decent pickup buoy or a tall hoop. And whenever I do use it, it will be in place for a matter of a couple of minutes before I rig a proper line.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Never used it to lasso a buoy but use it to lasso a dock cleat when I am on others peoples boat.

I have a snap hook on a spring on my own boat but still practise lassoing with SWMBO quite often.

 

[sarabande]

the idea of throwing a loop of rope forward over a buoy and waiting for it to sink before pulling tight is daft. And that is also asking you to release a secure handgrip on an often pitching rolling deck.

Nice theory but risky in practice.

 

[TSB240]

I have seen some of the training boats using this technique on the Caernarfon Harbour Trust Buoys.

Most of these have no pick up line or buoy and a top shackle that is virtually inaccessible even when lying down on the side deck from any modern 30 footer.

I know of some that use a weighted line that will sink rapidly to well below the buoy and make contact with the mooring chain.

I personally have made up a mooring strop that has a short length of 6 mm chain in the centre so that it can take the chafe of either a barnacle encrusted mooring chain and buoy or the normal chafe that ruins your mooring lines if you use the top shackle for any length of time especially with wind against tide.

It makes single handed mooring a practical proposition in tricky windy or tidal conditions.

I would never use this for lassoing a plastic buoyed private mooring....

Nor if there is a pick up bouy or line available that is easy to pick up and not covered in barnacles , mussels and 20 years of marine growth!

 

[johnalison]

Not being the owner of a mooring buoy, I can usually enjoy watching people attempting to use this technique with indifference, and usually with great amusement, since it seldom seems to work first time. I think we tried in once, just for fun, but it was so long ago that I don't remember the outcome.

 

[Daydream believer]

I was under the impression that the RYA revised that paper & clarified it with the type of buoy on which it could be used.
It was generally felt that inflated buoys can be easily damaged so they stressed that solid Buoys only should be treated thus. However, how one can tell this is sometimes a bit difficult.
We have lost buoys on our moorings by the Roy Rogers of this world . It is not so bad for the initial catch but failing to then transfer a line immediately to the ring that really annoys some ( me included). Personally I would prefer that the RYA concentrated more on how to pick the mooring up conventionally. The procedure must help with other things. ie berthing, MOB etc so it is not only an aid to mooring that is being taught

 

[ronsurf]

We were shown this on my ICC assessment. My gf found it really useful and uses it as she was shown. I usually bring the bouy amidships so it can all be done from the cockpit.

 

[Poignard]

Like most things it's something that needs using with a bit of common sense.

To temporarily hold onto a buoy with no top ring, as I did the other day in a slow flowing French river, while I untangled the submerged rope with a boat hook seems harmless to me. On the other hand, lassoing a buoy as you dash past it at speed is not likely to endear you to its owner.

John Goode, proprietor of Southern Sailing School, recommends lassoing in his books; and it was taught on the school's practical courses.

Duncan Wells, Principal of Westview Sailing School, and author of Stress-Free Sailing, also recommends it.

They seem to know what they're talking about so if it's good enough for them it's good enough for me.

 

[Jamesuk]

Must say I've never had much luck lassoing !
.

I am not sure I would go sailing if I could not lasso when docking a yacht

 

[dunedin]

Bought one of these this year - blooming brilliant ....
http://www.hookandmoor.com/works

No lasooing needed

 

[James_Calvert]

I tried it single handed last year. With a large bowline from amidships.

First time the loop wasn't big enough. So I made it bigger and tried again. Still wasn't big enough. Third attempt it slipped over the buoy ok but then slipped right off again: the kelp around the buoy had stopped the rope dropping down to engage with the mooring chain.

Obviously I need to read the instructions and get some more practice sometime!

 

[awol]

Then there is the absence of crotch strap and the rope through fairleads instead of, as the text demands, over the bow roller. I suppose a monopoly supplier doesn't really have to make much of an effort.

 

[Jamesuk]

I tried it single handed last year. With a large bowline from amidships.

First time the loop wasn't big enough. So I made it bigger and tried again. Still wasn't big enough. Third attempt it slipped over the buoy ok but then slipped right off again: the kelp around the buoy had stopped the rope dropping down to engage with the mooring chain.

Obviously I need to read the instructions and get some more practice sometime!

If I am praying for a speedy berthing then I always have the two ends inboard with a big loop and you cast the lines out like a pizza and it gets the job done. Lassoing with a bowline is doomed to fail many times due to the weight of the line. If you are thinking about "Rawhide" then that is what you need, stiff line that holds it's shape in air and pulls tight on pressure.

Anyway forget the bowline keep the two ends on board and remember "making the pizza".

 

[john_morris_uk]

Why do people persist on thinking that there is some sort of 'RYA way' of doing things?

There is good seamanship and poor seamanship. All the people saying that it's a rubbish technique or 'it doesn't work' are missing the point. IMHO. It's another tool in the box that is sometimes very useful.

It's NEVER been suggested it's anything other than a quick way to attach yourself to the buoy while you sort out a proper mooring line to the shackle or whatever.

What's this 'proper' way people are talking about? There are lots of ways to pick up a mooring. The proper way is any way that works that is safe and seamanlike.

When I'm examining people, that's all I'm interested in...

 

[Sailorsam101]

Why do people persist on thinking that there is some sort of 'RYA way' of doing things?

There is good seamanship and poor seamanship. All the people saying that it's a rubbish technique or 'it doesn't work' are missing the point. IMHO. It's another tool in the box that is sometimes very useful.

It's NEVER been suggested it's anything other than a quick way to attach yourself to the buoy while you sort out a proper mooring line to the shackle or whatever.

What's this 'proper' way people are talking about? There are lots of ways to pick up a mooring. The proper way is any way that works that is safe and seamanlike.

When I'm examining people, that's all I'm interested in...

I don't disagree..however a quick thing to get the boat stable often turns into a several hour thing....leading to a failure somewhere. People get lazy so if a shortcut or quick thing is taught as the leading way to do it then it soon becomes the norm.

A lasso is easy...simple...quick..almost anybody can do it with some success...meaning that people will use it over other methods that lead to an instant stable secure position.

This is the reason why i don't like such "quick temporary" methods

 

[Poignard]

I tried it single handed last year. With a large bowline from amidships.

First time the loop wasn't big enough. So I made it bigger and tried again. Still wasn't big enough. Third attempt it slipped over the buoy ok but then slipped right off again: the kelp around the buoy had stopped the rope dropping down to engage with the mooring chain.

Obviously I need to read the instructions and get some more practice sometime!

It helps a lot if the rope is wet...

(as it will be after the first failed attempt )