Leaving fore and aft mooring

benw

benw

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Your thoughts would be good here. Have a fore and aft mooring this year. Arrangement being fixed trip line between bouys and our own pick up mooring warps joined with floating line and pick up buoy.
With the wind today we were blown hard against the tripping line. Bows to a certain extent pointing into the tide and cross wind. My neighbour attempted a departure only to be blown against the lines with one set passing under his keel and then jamming between rudder and Skeg (contessa32).
We ended up using a rescue boat to pull the stern round holding it against the wind effective assisting reverse once the bow line was released.
Without the assistance this would have been impossible it seems.
Have considered meshing off bot with moorings OCR yChts and a cardinal in SHB green buoy in the vacinity it doesn't seem like a good idea.
Thoughts from experienced fore and aft mooring folk greatly appreciatd.
Ben
 
One approach is to make the connecting line removable. I take it you are on a trot so need to leave a fixed-length connection between your buoys when not moored. If you have a strop either end and connect them together when leaving you can always connect the line on the weather/up-tide side to avoid being pushed onto the line. Use a double sheet bend into the eye of the strop so it's easy to untie. Just make sure the line isn't threaded through your guardrail before casting off. :eek:

I'm afraid this bit left me totally confused:

Have considered meshing off bot with moorings OCR yChts and a cardinal in SHB green buoy in the vacinity it doesn't seem like a good idea.
Click to expand...
 
I find that a couple of pick up bouys on the line between the fore and aft bouys (commonly known as the "guest line") and a very slow steady approach means that a short burst of astern engine when very close allows enough time to pick up the guest line and walk it onto the boat and attach the most appropriate strop, (usually the up stream in a flowing tide) also into wind approch can make life easier.
The secret is the slow approach so you can react to any wind or tidal flow and make adjustments.
 
As per Snowleopard, but split the fore and aft line in the middle. This makes it easy to put the boat on either side of the trot. You can then turn the boat if you need to, simply by walking the bow alone the line.
You thus have four possible positions for getting the boat away, one of them will be easy in any condition of wind or tide. In anything except a gale, or a really close set of trots alongside yours, this is no problem singlehanded.
You end up at an angle of 90deg to the trot as you walk it along and may often decide to cast off at that point.
 
I doubt that I was the first to think of it but faced with the same problem at my club, I designed a new set up. Basically there was a hippo buoy front and aft on the mooring and the boat tied up to these. Each buoy was on a 6 ft chain riser and the bottom of each riser was fastened to the anchor ropes. Between the buoys and at the level of the bottom of the chains ( ie 6 ft down) ran a leaded rope. This gave you two surface buoys which were a fixed distance apart and you could motor a figure of 8 round them without problem.

To moor you approached the uptide buoy and fastened on with a long rope. You drifted down onto the downtide buoy and tied on. You then adjusted rope lengths to put the boat where you wanted it in the middle of the gap. Incidentally, the buoys were about 6 ft further apart than the length of the boat.

To sail away you simply drop the downtide ropes first, then the uptide as you motor into the tide. Nothing to foul on your prop. In my case the space between moorings allowed me to drop the bow ropes whichever way the tide was flowing and to weathercock down tide hanging on by the stern. It made single handing a doddle.

The system worked well and all bar one member copied it. Only problem we had was at slack water with a wind across the moorings. You simply had to wait for tide.
 
Hmm good old predictive text , the mashing sentence was meant to say:
Kedging off with green SHB and other moorings not advisable.

For info, our lines are separable and can therefore be re aid upon whichever side supports an off wind departure. It is the tripping line or permanent line that is therefore the problem if the wind conspires across the beam.

I can see the advantages of a sunk connecting line. In the first instance a semi fixed line would work in the same way that our mooring lines do.

Ben
 
Fore and aft morings can be tricky to get off without fouling the fixed line between them especially if the wind changes between picking up and leaving. After fouling my prop a couple of times, I now untie my fixed line if necessary and re-tie it on the weather side before attempting to leave. I then cast off aft and swing to the tide/wind before casting off for'ard and reversing or drifting away. I have a floating pick up line with a buoy at the middle. My mooring dries 2hrs after HW and I have also squashed one of my buoys in the past. Single point moorings are much better if there is room!
 
Funnily enough, I never had a problem leaving the mooring. I simply unhitched the pick-up line and refitted it on the other side if the wind was awkward. At times, I was sharing with another boat, so the line was simply draped over the neighbours rail out of the way.

Arriving was always more difficult unless crew was available to pick up the line and pull the slack aboard before it found the prop/keel/skeg. I have been moored by keel and skeg, but at least I could haul in to the buoys and attach the strops before unshackling the pick-up line and haul it out from its circuitous route round the underwater sections.

Rob.
 
I have found that I can use the seperating line over the guardrail to hold me in place while securing the fore & aft lines in their "resting places". I then walk the boat forward (tiller hard over) by holding the separating line & walking aft down the side decks (engine running in neutral).

The tide will help keep the bows out. Once I have some forward movement, I turn the wheel towards the mooring to pull the stern out, clear of the moorings so I can put her in gear & go.

If the wind is too strong, then use a few fenders & pull up alongside the next boat along. This will get you well clear of any lines & you can use a slip spring to get clear & away.
 
Was in Fowey the other week and noticed the visitors trots had no joining line (probably a good idea!). So when I got back home I got out an old John Goode article to remind myself how to use them. He reckoned approach them as you would piles (mooring piles as opposed to the dangly things :D). Pick up the downstream one first at the bow, secure temporarily and then attach a long stern line to this buoy. Motor ahead to upstream buoy, make fast and fall back to equalise lines. Seems to make sense (or does it?)
 
bluedragon said:
Was in Fowey the other week and noticed the visitors trots had no joining line (probably a good idea!). So when I got back home I got out an old John Goode article to remind myself how to use them. He reckoned approach them as you would piles (mooring piles as opposed to the dangly things :D). Pick up the downstream one first at the bow, secure temporarily and then attach a long stern line to this buoy. Motor ahead to upstream buoy, make fast and fall back to equalise lines. Seems to make sense (or does it?)
Click to expand...

Yes, but BenW (OP) was asking about leaving with a wind blowing him onto the line. Did you read any of the thread? :rolleyes:
 
Its all much simpler if you get rid of any permanent surface lines between the buoys. On our trot mooring the the line supplied with the mooring comes off at the beginning of the season and goes back on when our boat is lifted out at the end.

We DO keep a guest line between the strops to maintain the spacing when the boat isn't there, and its got two old fenders on it as pick up buoys, but we just more it to which ever side we want when we are bout to drop the mooring - hence no problems.

There are already lines a few metres underwater holding the spacing of the riser chains, but there isn't room in our trot to do any of the fancy work with a split guest line as described in one other reply. We certainly couldn't hang off the centre at 90 degrees, and the forces involved with 11 tonnes of 39 foot boat in any sort of wind and tide wouldn't allow it either.

The biggest problem we have with our trot mooring are those other boats on the trot who pull their lines in too tight and make our end of trot mooring nearly impossible to pick up.
 
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