Marceline
Active member
Hi - bit of a long question but thought best to check and ask:
At the weekend we finally slipped our swing mooring for our first sail and left our dingy on the strop.
But earlier on before we put the boat on there I'd made a (one of oh so many) rookie mistake of buying far too long a strop (4m which is way too much for our small boat - I've been wrapping it around the three cleats at the bow to shorten it which seems to work ok, but I'm looking to get a shorter one made up soon and replace it)
Anyway - when we returned to the mooring it looked like the strop had got wrapped around underneath the swing mooring with the dinghy blowing around/tides, and I was thinking 'oh, sh*t - how are we going to sort this as I imagined it'd chaffe the strop if it was still wrapped underneat'
so I decided to still pick up the strop and attach to our bow cleat for now, and unteathered the dinghy's painter and walked it back to the stern and tied it up to later jump in and try and untangle it.
I felt I needed a rest and a brew before trying to do that so sat for a while and tried to think through how to solve it.
But 10 mins later I looked up and ... the strop was all freed from underneath the mooring ball and we were on it's (way too long) 4m again (was VERY glad and hugely relieved to see this)
So - my questions are:
- did I read it wrong and the strop wasn't wrapped around the mooring chain ?
- or did the strop somehow unwind itself with the weight of the boat pushed by the tide ?
- and if so, is this usual and how these things tend to work ?
- or was I just very very lucky that day, and it could well be much worse/headaches next time it does this ?
I'm thinking of temp 'shortening' the strop next time I leave for a day sail (thinking of having a small bit of rope tied one end to the end of the strop, and using a rolling hitch further up the strop towards the base of the mooring ball to make it about 1.5m or so to the pickup float) - or could this be an even more risky thing to do?
any advice/suggestions/gentle mockery all very welcome
EDIT - ps, I should also have mentioned the mooring is on the Menai Straits, so strong tidal flows and the mooring has a heavy swivel+shackles
At the weekend we finally slipped our swing mooring for our first sail and left our dingy on the strop.
But earlier on before we put the boat on there I'd made a (one of oh so many) rookie mistake of buying far too long a strop (4m which is way too much for our small boat - I've been wrapping it around the three cleats at the bow to shorten it which seems to work ok, but I'm looking to get a shorter one made up soon and replace it)
Anyway - when we returned to the mooring it looked like the strop had got wrapped around underneath the swing mooring with the dinghy blowing around/tides, and I was thinking 'oh, sh*t - how are we going to sort this as I imagined it'd chaffe the strop if it was still wrapped underneat'
so I decided to still pick up the strop and attach to our bow cleat for now, and unteathered the dinghy's painter and walked it back to the stern and tied it up to later jump in and try and untangle it.
I felt I needed a rest and a brew before trying to do that so sat for a while and tried to think through how to solve it.
But 10 mins later I looked up and ... the strop was all freed from underneath the mooring ball and we were on it's (way too long) 4m again (was VERY glad and hugely relieved to see this)
So - my questions are:
- did I read it wrong and the strop wasn't wrapped around the mooring chain ?
- or did the strop somehow unwind itself with the weight of the boat pushed by the tide ?
- and if so, is this usual and how these things tend to work ?
- or was I just very very lucky that day, and it could well be much worse/headaches next time it does this ?
I'm thinking of temp 'shortening' the strop next time I leave for a day sail (thinking of having a small bit of rope tied one end to the end of the strop, and using a rolling hitch further up the strop towards the base of the mooring ball to make it about 1.5m or so to the pickup float) - or could this be an even more risky thing to do?
any advice/suggestions/gentle mockery all very welcome
EDIT - ps, I should also have mentioned the mooring is on the Menai Straits, so strong tidal flows and the mooring has a heavy swivel+shackles
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