Midship cleat: deck, sliding or toe rail and the last, why so expensive?

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Neil

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Looking to put a pair of cleats midships to aid single handed pontoon mooring. Bolt to toe rail, slide one on the genoa car track or just bolt though the deck? A deck mounted one will be awkward to fit and get in the way. The toe rail one - easiest to fit but is it strong enough, and why is it 3 times the price on a deck cleat?
 
Neil said:
Looking to put a pair of cleats midships to aid single handed pontoon mooring. Bolt to toe rail, slide one on the genoa car track or just bolt though the deck? A deck mounted one will be awkward to fit and get in the way. The toe rail one - easiest to fit but is it strong enough, and why is it 3 times the price on a deck cleat?
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Hi Neil

Yes I fitted one two years ago and I think they were £68 then, But I have to say it does work well and I have my two springs to it, BUT make sure you fit it 'tight'.

Fitted mine right at the end of the track so it does not need moving if I have to adjust the Genoa track pulley quickly.

Not the best deck fitting in the world but much better than having to drilling more holes in GRP and another possible source for a water leak.

PS: Check your track size BEFORE you buy!!!

Mike

Picturesaver138.jpg
 
Deck cleats are trivial to design and fit any type of boat, so there is a big market for them.
Toe-rail cleats have to be designed to fit a particular toe-rail extrusion and so have a very limited market.

It is possible to create a bracket to mount a standard two-hole cleat on a toe-rail, it won't be as strong, but might be adequate. If you end up bending the toe rail, you will be well out of pocket I expect.

Genoa track cleats are great if the tracks are stout in relation to the size of boat, but you have to remove them most of the time.
I would go for a permanent cleat if possible, even it was a bit small. You can use a light(ish) line on this cleat if it's only for temporary mooring.
 
Neil said:
Looking to put a pair of cleats midships to aid single handed pontoon mooring. Bolt to toe rail, slide one on the genoa car track or just bolt though the deck? A deck mounted one will be awkward to fit and get in the way. The toe rail one - easiest to fit but is it strong enough, and why is it 3 times the price on a deck cleat?
Click to expand...

Hi Neil, Barton sell an adjustable cleat which expands then fits over the genoa track without removing any end fittings making it easy to change from port to starboard therefore you need only one cleat, I used one for 4years which made single handed pontoon berthing very simple .
 
I took the cheap, and practical, way out by taking a piece of 40 x40mm aluminium angle, grinding off a bit of the "heel", so that it fitted snugly up inside the toe-rail, to which it was bolted with 3 x 8mm bolts. This gave a flat surface. The fore and aft corners were cut away, to make it look tidy, and a plain, but substantial cleat bolted to it, with two 8mm bolts. IIRC the angle was about 300mm long. Just a little work with a hacksaw and drill. Use zinc chromate, or similar, inway of the bolts.
 
mid cleat

guess i'm just cheap, mounted my mids using 6 inch ordinary cleats and bolted them using large backing plates made from plywood....and they work great.
 
If you have the toe rail then think about using a 'big' soft shackle - relatively cheap and if you are only using for mooring then it should be fine
 
I haven't got midship cleats, although I wish I had. I do have closed top fairleads amidships though, so I run a warp out through the fairlead and take the spliced eye back to the cockpit and also take a loose turn round the cockpit sheet winch with the other part. Coming alongside I drop the eye on the first convenient pontoon cleat and take the weight on the sheet winch. If the wind is off the pontoon I can haul her alongside if need be. Put the wheel over and leave the engine on tick over ahead and a few turns of the warp on winch keeps her alongside while I get the other ropes ashore. Because I'm always singlehanded I have spliced eyes in the ropes so that I can just drop them on a shoreside cleat, take up the slack and turn them up on my deck cleats. Sometimes it's a bit of a cowboy trick lassoing the shore cleats but I'm near enough rodeo class now after doing it for so long, although sometimes it beats me and I have to hop ashore..:D
 
silverdawn said:
Hi Neil, Barton sell an adjustable cleat which expands then fits over the genoa track without removing any end fittings making it easy to change from port to starboard therefore you need only one cleat, I used one for 4years which made single handed pontoon berthing very simple .
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Any link - couldn't see one like that
 
john_morris_uk said:
The last time I used cleats on genoa tracks they slipped when the boat surged against her lines, no matter how hard I tightened up the thumbscrew on the cleat.
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That doesn't seem a good design. I have Barton track cleats and they have a spring loaded plunger that engages in a hole in the track. They, together with the track and its fastenings are very strong (as I have proved on several occasions when a berthing manouvre was not as well executed as it might have been :o)
 
Pfeiffer Cleats

Neil said:
Looking to put a pair of cleats midships to aid single handed pontoon mooring. Bolt to toe rail, slide one on the genoa car track or just bolt though the deck? A deck mounted one will be awkward to fit and get in the way. The toe rail one - easiest to fit but is it strong enough, and why is it 3 times the price on a deck cleat?
Click to expand...

I fitted a pair of these as midship cleats. Being only two hole fixing they were a lot easier to bolt on as there is only a narrow access strip between the moulded cabin lining and the hull of about 65 mm, enough to get a decent backing strip in but difficult to do up 4 bolts.
I think they were worth the effort over a clamp on version. I fitted them offset forward of the fairlead so the pull is along the cleat.

http://www.seascrew.com/browse.cfm?PFEIFER-DECK-CLEAT-MADE-OF-LIGHT-ANODIZED-ALLOY&l=0000000643
 
No longer able to rock climb so used two surplus carabiners each side clipped thro the toerail. I mentioned it here once and a comment was that the pull would damage the toerail - well the toerail bolts are in line with the direction of stress and there's plenty of em. Dunno what current cost of krabs is but a lot less than the hardware mentioned above.
 
I fitted a pair of Holt toe rail cleats a few years ago and they work fine, except I did have to drill an extra hole as the cleat hole dimensions did not fit my slots in the toe rail. Not a big problem, and some large countersunk washers to suit the screws were also supplied. They were just like standard cleats which had an extra rebate machined to suit the toe rail section. I managed to get them cheap from ebay but normally they are about £75 each ?. Sorry can't find the link to them - is Holt still around?
If doing it again I would use standard cleats with large washers to fit on the inside of the toe rail.
 
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