Bav34
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So I am clear the line runs from your stern and your wife drops it onto the mid cleat on the pontoon, you then put her astern helm over is that correct?
I have a similar recently purchased Bav and am experimenting with various ways to moor up short handed on my mooring the tide runs across the pontoon
No, that picture was just to illustrate how short the pontoon finger is.
We have pre-set lines on the pontoon. Two for the bow and three attached to the aftmost cleat on the finger.
Concentrating on the aft finger cleat:
Shorter preset snubber line. Preset spring that goes through the fairlead and back to the mid cleat. Preset stern line that goes through a fairlead to the aft cleat.
The snubber line has a bowline at the boat end. All I have to do is get my wife onto the pontoon and she just picks up the snubber and drops it over the cleat. Fingers are kept clear as she literally just drops it over ... no leaning out .. if the wind is causing problems I just back out and repeat until she can drop it over safely. Gently ahead, steer in my case to starboard and the boat is literally sucked into the pontoon. Lock off the wheel and the boat would stay there until it ran out of diesel
Then we put on the stern line you can see in the photo, again an existing bowline but not through the fairlead, just dropped over the cleat.
Then the port bow line through its fairlead
Then the starboard bow line is just dropped over the cleat.
The point of dropping the stern line and bow line over the cleats is that the boat is slightly turned in, probably some rotation in the fender, but really not a problem.
Then the only bit of 'effort'
So far I have literally just been wandering around, no rush, no worry.
I go back to the wheel and at the same time as knocking the engine out of gear I pull the stern line in and drop it through its fairlead.
This pulls the port bow away from the pontoon but only so far, as the line is already in place.
It's then a simple job to go to the bow and put the starboard line through its fairlead.
On the way back onboard my wife then drops the preset spring (from the pontoon) through the fairlead and back to the mid cleat.
All lines are now through their fairleads.
I am sure that this has taken longer to write than do but in five years of berthing on that finger we have never nudged the pontoon or swung out to the boat on our starboard side.