mediterranean 'long line' mooring

pmagowan

pmagowan

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I am heading to greece in september for a weeks bareboat charter. I have heard that the standard way of mooring in a bay is to anchor and attach a long line ashore. I have never done this. I am aware of how you stern-to moor in a standard mediterranean marina and have re-familiarised myself with youtube. I have been unable to find advice on this 'long lining' technique. Is it just as simple as anchoring in normal fashion and then running a line to shore? How much tension do you put on the line? What is the procedure for dragging?

Thanks
 
Hi
First , it not the standard way of mooring , althought we tend to moor that way a lot ,
Most just anchor .
What we do is drop our anchor and dig it in , then one of us will go ashore with a line and chain , the chain is to put around the rocks , rope it then brought back to the boat , it's that simple , some try to swim ashore dragging the boat behind them , not a good idea , if your going to swim it a shore , tie a fender to one end and swim the other end , once tighted just swim back to the fender and swim it back .
Our lines are normally tight enough to be out of the water , unless there a lot of side wind , where we then do tighten them up .
Dragging ..
We have never drag when we been tight back , although we have had other put out anchor out , in which case we just fender the ropes off and drop them then once we reanchor it just a matter of picking the lines up .
It not that hard once you done it a few times,
 
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Thanks vic, that is very helpful. I hope dragging will not be an issue but when chartering you never know what type of anchor you are going to get or how effective it is. I trust my anchor! I am going to be there with quite a few inexperienced crew in 2 boats. The other boat will be skippered by someone who has just passed their day skipper but does not have much experience yet. I am sure there will be no real difficulties but I really like to get my head around something and everything that can go wrong before I get stuck in. :)
 
Because I singlehandle my boat most of the times, I use a simplier method. I reverse the boat while dropping the anchor (using a remote control) exactly the way I want my boat to be oriented (usually the shape of the bay and they way nearby boats are anchored will dictate this). No need to say that most of the time I have a side wind while doing this. When I finish dropping enough of the chain I throw immediataly a grapnel anchor I have. The grapnel anchor will catch almost immediately. Once the boat is secured I either dive and replace the grapnel anchor (I carry a relatively small one) with a chain and rope from a rock at the bottom of the sea or sometimes simply leave the grapnel anchor (or sometimes both). Of course this method works in areas where there are rocks at the bottom of the sea (for the grapnel anchor).
 
Some people become as defensive over their preferred line ashore method as they do about anchor choice, so be aware that there are many differences of opinion. I wrote up our preferred method at https://coxengineering.sharepoint.com/Pages/Linesashore.aspx But then Dave Berry wrote his up in PBO and it differed in almost every way! A lot of it has to do with the wind direction and the handling of your particular boat.
 
One small additional tip that I learnt from experience when moored in Meganisi with a long line ashore, in Abelike Bay. There was a line of Cypriot registered craft moored next to us, who looked like they had been there for some time and they all had a battery of "half-bottles" on all their lines to deter and prevent rats.
I didn't do this and woke the next morning, after sleeping by intention (!) in the cockpit, to find droppings around the fruit bowl, down below.
My wife and I eventually persuaded the uninvited visitor to leave the saloon via the halyards that I dropped from the cockpit and he/she exited our boat into the dinghy tied up astern.
I thought I had got rid of the rodent but he popped up in the dinghy 2 days later after living under the inflatable floorboard !
This year I will be deploying the water bottles with the bottom cut off when we long-line + any other anti-rodent devices that others can recommend.
 
tat27 said:
One small additional tip that I learnt from experience when moored in Meganisi with a long line ashore, in Abelike Bay. There was a line of Cypriot registered craft moored next to us, who looked like they had been there for some time and they all had a battery of "half-bottles" on all their lines to deter and prevent rats.
I didn't do this and woke the next morning, after sleeping by intention (!) in the cockpit, to find droppings around the fruit bowl, down below.
My wife and I eventually persuaded the uninvited visitor to leave the saloon via the halyards that I dropped from the cockpit and he/she exited our boat into the dinghy tied up astern.
I thought I had got rid of the rodent but he popped up in the dinghy 2 days later after living under the inflatable floorboard !
This year I will be deploying the water bottles with the bottom cut off when we long-line + any other anti-rodent devices that others can recommend.
Click to expand...

I tend to avoid using a line to shore as it's extra faffing about and unless the wind is blowing off the land, when it's hardest to get the line sorted, I don't reckon it's any more secure than just the anchor. However, I have done it where boats are already crowded into an anchorage with lines ashore and there isn't room to swing at anchor although I try to avoid those places.

As for the rats at Meganissi, we had them onboard in the middle of the night whilst on anchor + line but whatever you do don't try and corner them with the intention of whacking them. They will attack you and their bite is very painful and possibly infected as the poor guy on the next boat to us found out the hard way. :ambivalence:

Richard
 
Taking a line ashore is easier with more than three on board. With just two its tricky. I would not attempt single handed - although I do like the grappling hook technique. If you have a centre cockpit - as I do - its more difficult.
On a charter boat, it would be worth checking before you leave the base that there is enough line on board to make a shore line! If not ask the company to supply it.

If you have a dinghy already inflated and enough crew, then send someone ashore to rig the line and then bring it back to meet the yacht as you reverse.
Obviously setting up the shore line is easiest if you are facing into the wind and hardest with wind on the beam.

Where is your starting point?

TS
 
We have never had a rat or a mice on board , we never use disk or bottles or funnels , we just got this big cat you tend to proud at night watching out for any thing that he can kill .
Althought we did some how had a snake some years back , we put that down to feeding the cat too well so now we don't fed him so much .
 
"...differed in almost every way! A lot of it has to do with the wind direction and the handling of your particular boat."

That's the truth. Just take your time and see what works for your boat/crew. Only one tip from me: If you're unfortunate enough to drag anchor, then dump the shore line, get the boat out of harms way and then, if practical, return to retrieve the abandoned shore line. During our time in the Med, we saw three boats end up aground due to the Skipper/Crew faffing around trying to recover a £100 shore line before motoring the £100,000 boat into safer water.
 
Good tip. I had assumed that was the order of things. Lots of good advice on here. I am not actually sure precisely where we are going to be based out of as one of the others are organising it, somewhere in Greece! I will do some research before I go and download the charts.
 
If you anchor in a very small bay and the correct scope would leave you on the beach on the other side of the bay, then there are often very few alternatives to a shore line. Ok, so you could use a stern anchor, but personally i would prefer a shore line over a stern anchor.

It's pretty common practice in Croatia (although I agree it isn't the norm).

If we need a shore line we drop the anchor as normal, get it set. Then flake out the shore line on the deck, jump in the tender take one end and motor it ashore. Then tie it round something big and immovable, and hey presto you're done. Oh yeah, also maybe use a chain or wire if your tying around something abrasive.
 
pmagowan said:
Thanks vic, that is very helpful. I hope dragging will not be an issue but when chartering you never know what type of anchor you are going to get or how effective it is. I trust my anchor! I am going to be there with quite a few inexperienced crew in 2 boats. The other boat will be skippered by someone who has just passed their day skipper but does not have much experience yet. I am sure there will be no real difficulties but I really like to get my head around something and everything that can go wrong before I get stuck in. :)
Click to expand...

Some crowded anchorages you may need to anchor fore and aft eg Girolata in Corsica.
 
Rats. Having watched one of the little darlings leap over a bottle on a shore line, we now hang the scuba weight belts in the middle of the line(s) to submerge them, thus breaking the easy pathway aboard. Also, go ashore and place small quantities of food near the adjacent boats lines to encourage them to investigate them before your boat......

Mostly when we use lines ashore we drop anchor, reverse up to where we want to be, I leap into the dinghy with lines in bags, row briskly ashore whilst SWMBO uses the engine to stay put, I make the first line fast and return with it and SWMBO uses the winch to bring the boat into the right position. Second line is the dealt with in slow time.

I use a collection of climbing nuts to make the shore end of the ropes fast as there are plenty of cracks in the rocks in our main cruising area: quick to set and resistant to abrasion. Our lines are retired climbing ropes, kept in bags so that they deploy without tangling. Guess what my sons hobby is?
 
We found that the rocky shores which were suitable for a shore-line were also home to a lot of sea urchins. Watch out for them if swimming ashore.

Shore line proved particularly useful where the sea bed dropped away steeply. Anchoring with the anchor pulling uphill worked well but would be useless if the boat swung. A shore line kept the yacht in the right orientation for the bower to pull uphill.
 
Abelike Bay must be the most rat infested anchorage in Greece. We had one on board on successive nights there, fortunately gone by morning. We have watched them running along the shore line. The story we were told was that Meganissi was heavily infested with cats. A serious programme was instituted to eliminate them, with the result that the rats flourished. Now, what to do about the wasps? :)
 
vyv_cox said:
Abelike Bay must be the most rat infested anchorage in Greece. We had one on board on successive nights there, fortunately gone by morning. We have watched them running along the shore line. The story we were told was that Meganissi was heavily infested with cats. A serious programme was instituted to eliminate them, with the result that the rats flourished. Now, what to do about the wasps? :)
Click to expand...
Waspa ...
We got around that one when my darling co skipper made our Bimini she also made a zip up side in a fine mesh , it acts has an sun shade as well as a mozzies net ,
Two years ago we was complete covered in Waspa , so much that the boat next to us who we never met dinghy over with there breakfast and asked we if wouldn't mine if hey could eat it in our cockpit ,
Off cause we told them where to go , NO only joking , we been friend every since .
 
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