Me again but on moorings

EASLOOP

EASLOOP

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There must be a good way of picking up my mooring strops while single handed and under power. Does anybody have any good ideas? I am getting my nerve up to go single handed but the nervy bit is not being able to get onto my swinging mooring without becoming a casualty on the run forward of 28 feet - slipsy daisy into the drink scenario. Watching the boat drift away or into the next boat while treading water in a blind panic

Views, as always, genuinely appreciated.
 
I think its an issue of practice and confidence. Like most things in life. The longer the strops the easier; picking up enough of the end to take a turn round the cleat enables you to look calm when in fact the head has blown off while you were going forward. Generally then you can pull up quite easily. And of course approaching the way all the others are lying.

Of course having a quality wooden boat you are now obliged to look cool while doing this and at all times appear in control and confident (even when its all gone wrong).
 
Try picking the mooring up next to the cockpit, easy in a low freeboard boat. If theres tide running, use a big snap shackle attached to a rope run through bow fairlead. Once clipped on pull the strop to the bow, from the cockpit. In practice the approach to this problem depends on how much current there is and how much space there is to the next mooring, but this has worked for me.
 
There are various ways to do it ......... I'm sure others will reply with their preferred way.

Now as you say a swinging mooring - this is actually quite simple when looked at sequentially.

a) you have to approach the pick-up buoy
b) you want to be able to pick-up from cockpit
c) you want to be able to lock onto the pick-up buoy
d) you want to transfer to bow for making fast.

So how to do it ? I would suggest a long line with a snap hook on the end.
Pass line through bow roller and have snap hook on outboard end. This is then passed outside all stays / rails etc. back to cockpit. The other end via small blocks back to cockpit along deck...... with a stop knot in the end.....

Now approach buoy ...... and bring it alongside at cockpit ... snap on line and let it go .... winch in other end to bring buoy to bow as boat falls back. With care - you should get the buoy up to suitable height and position that you can then move forward and sort mooring as all is now there at bow for you. If weather is kind - you probably wont need the winch .... but its nice to have help !

If there is sufficient room between moorings - you may be able to get away with a fixed strop to bow and not have to winch boat in ... just move forward and hand the strop in to get boat up to mooring ....

A variation on it that I've seen used ... is the line is fixed at bow and clipped at stern alongside cockpit. You then pass line through pick-up buoy or strong point on mooring and then back to clip point. Let boat drop back with line sliding through mooring point ..... till buoy is at bow .... But this system requires more effort and time at initial capture of pick-up buoy .....
 
I have a mooring rope - just over twice the length of the boat, with a big spring hook on one end. When approaching the mooring, I clip the hook to the pushpit, run the rope down the outside of the boat, through a fairlead at the front, and back to either a winch or a cleat in the cockpit. I then motor up so that the mooring buoy is alongside the cockpit - pick up the pickup buoy with the boathook, and clip the hook onto it. I am then fastened to the mooring, albeit on over 20 feet of rope. I can then put the engine into neutral, and either pull or winch in the rope (depending on how strong I feel), until the buoy is at the front of the boat. I can then stroll down and attach the mooring strop properly.

Easy.
 
Same method as some of the other replies. I always pick-up single handed, even when others are on board. I know I'll get the pickup bouy when others are stabbing aimlessly (sic) with the boathook.
Wanting to keep my option open I don't rig a haul-in line, but either approach up wind (if there is much) and stop the bow slightly to windward of the pick-up buoy so that in the time it takes me to reach the foredeck if any windage effects the boat I'll be blown onto the bouy and not away from it. I then walk the strop forward when the boat's settled.
If I'm lazy or not too sure I'll motor and stop so the pick-up is next the the cockpit on the lee side so that I can reach over and pluck it from the water. I have two strops with soft eyes attached to the pick-up with lighter line so I can drop a soft loop of a strop over a sheet whinch on the cockpit coaming, which will kill any residual boat speed.
In really choppy and blustery weather I'll approach the pick-up from downwind stern first which gives you the advantage of a front-wheel drive car in that you are pulling the boat up to the buoy. Just drop the loop of the strop onto a stern cleat and knock the motor into neutral to avoid any warp-related mishaps a soon as you've got the strop.
I regularly sail onto the mooring, but often have the motor running in neutral in case of urgent needs. It's easier if you have a furling headsail as you can wind it in when you want to drop the boat speed. I don't have one now so I just try to luff up on top and slightly windward of the buoy.
 
I am on very tight trot mooring (Boat 24ft mooring 26ft ) and can get in single handed via this method. I have devised a pole made of fibreglass a meter high, with a hook at the top, which attaches to the shackle on my front buoy. When leaving the mooring I put the bow line on the hook so it is a meter above the water. I use a hitch knot system which allows me to release from the front buoy from the cockpit. Before coming back I run a rope from the cockpit, through the bow roller and around outside of the rigging back to the cockpit. On arriving back to the mooring I go forward very slowly untill the cockpit is next to the front buoy I can then just reach out and pick my mooring line off the hook and clip it onto the other line and pull very quickly as the tide pulls me back into my mooring space then attach the stern lines. The pole cost a tenner to make and rules out missing with a boat hook. I do have a wooden boat so I have to look as if I know what I am doing....which of course I don't!!
 
Thank you all for your replies. I have printed them out and will have them onboard with me for practice purposes.

It makes sense to pick up mooring buoy at the cockpit end - why didn't I think of that!?

This pick-up buoy? do you mean you have a separate small float that you pick up first, or ar you referring the the actual mooring buoy??
 
Remember, a boat has a lot of inertia. I moor on a river with 5knts of tide but it still takes a good 10 seconds for the boat to start to move away from the mooring buoy after approaching from down tide, I certainly don't need to run f'wd to get to the buoy in time.
 
Thanks for that - but here's another.

Is the pick-up buoy attached to the mooring buoy or to the mooring strop? Seems like it ought to be the strop but if that is the case then I would have this little ball flopping around the foredeck as I tried to tie off the strop.

I do believe I am getting the hang of all this!
 
Normally it is attached via a rope to the strop, either a chain or a rope.... well mine last year was anyway. You grab the pick-up buoy and then haul in until you get the loop of chain/rope to go over the bow cleat/post. Make sense.....
 
Yep, that's how mine is set up. I have the end of the strop in the correct sized loop to drop over my central cleat, so I don't need to mess around tying it on.
 
Two lines from the pick-up go, one to each strop. Yes the pickup lays on the foredeck. I use loops on my strops, but also secure them on the cleat with a cord over the top of the cleat and tied off. Nipping the lines to the pickup with this cord also stops the pick-up rolling around the foredeck and (horror) dangling over the bow.

newmooring.jpg
 
A picture and a thousand words. The way is clear. I need to rework the soft eye in my main strop so it can be dropped over the sampson post. I got it wrong the first time and ended up with the mooring buoy a long way off the bow. Should have reworked it then but chose to wrap it around the post and fasten it off. Shortcuts make short lived solutions.
Thanks
 
I'd take it a little simpler if I was on my own.

Bring her alongside with the wind on/ahead of beam.
Have a lasoo of line rigged from the genny winch & stern cleet.
Spill the wind as I come along side and drop the lasoo over.
Secured now, so sort your bow line to buoy - hey presto - it's vino time!
 
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