Moor fast system?

  • Thread starter Thread starter hmm
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I've never heard good things about these automatic mooring devices. Stories about the buoy spinning out of line with the device, or moving away.

If this was your own mooring, a permanently attached 5' pickup line (not necessarily with a pickup buoy) can be hooked quite easily with a convential boathook.
 
Yes we carry one of these, fixed to 5ft of 25mm ally tube and 4 mtrs or so of 6mm to which you attach the warp with a sheet bend, SWIMBO thinks its magic and I agree - in certain conditions its worth its weight in gold. Try picking up a hoop type pontoon mooring without one - the sort seen in Calais or Boulgne - the ones that sink when you get on them. With this gaget crew dont have to leave the boat and find themselves helpless on a quivering sinking pontoon. However, dispite many attempts we havent managed to break it yet but we have bent a tube or two.
 
I had one of these and lost it overside being too clever trying to get a full round turn on the buoy.
The Scandinavian buoy hook is easier to use. This is a tube with a loop on one hand to which the warp is attached. The other end is a hook which is attached to the buoy. Length of ours is 75 cms. Some have jst a simple hook others have a hook that can be opened or closed from the loop end.
You just leave the hook attached to the buoy. An incidental advantage is that the warp does not chafe on the rusty ring.
The length is convenient for hooking the buoy but in some circumstances could prove too long such as in a marina.
 
We have a Moorfast. Works very well if whatever it is you are attaching to is rigid e.g. a hoop on a pontoon. We routinely use it for picking up visitor mooring buoys, but where the attachment is to a loose ring and it is lying down on top of the buoy (rather than a rigid ring standing up), it can still be very difficult to 'grab' with the gadget. If you have high topsides, though, it is probably still better and more elegant than dangling off your boat by your toenails trying to pass the rope through by hand.
Well worth having aboard IMHO.
 
Seems like a good idea but it doesn't look very strong [but does it need to be, just to thread a line through a ring?]. Price: £39.95; this is about what I paid for a gadget consisting of a very large carbine hook and a slide to attach to a pole, which is sometimes useful but it gets a bit heavy at arms length, and it doesn't bring the rope back on board, like the Moorfast does
 
I have broken 2 of them - don't waste your beer tokens - get a Bosco Boat Hook
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You can buy just the hook end from chandlers,mine cost £7.50.I attached it to a painting pole from B&Q.Does the job.I also found that it is very difficult to use in waves or on buoys that move.I also have a Bosco & it is the dogs do dahs.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I have broken 2 of them - don't waste your beer tokens - get a Bosco Boat Hook


[/ QUOTE ]I have both the Bosco (bought first, at LBS) and a big Italian job, similar but without the release mechanism. The mouth on the bosco is too small on many occasions, but the release is sweet. We hardly get to use the bosco... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
£7.99 ...... screwed onto Boathook opposite side to the normal hook. Unclips to give you normal boat-hook back.
Yes its plastic - but works.
Only limitation I found is it's useless on any small cleat or on any ring that doesn't stand up. But on the "iron-hoop" style that you find on some dock's - great.

Amount of use it get's ?? Can't justify cost of more expensive ones ....
 
Moorfast, we bought ours without the expensive pole, payed about £12. Having had it attached to an old broom handle we are about to upgrade it to an old broken boat hook, using the still good telescopic handle.

Once you have the hang of how to use it, they are brilliant. Ideal for getting a line through the top of a mooring buoy (where there is no pick up float), attaching a warp to the riser on pile moorings and getting a line onto a shared mooring buoy, saves having to use the dinghy.
 
I have both a moorfast and a bosco. Personally I prefer the moorfast for an upstanding rigid ring (as in Calais). The secret is not to be gentle in proding the ring. Being gentle simply pushes the buoy away. You do need to think ahead as to where the recovered warp is going to come back on board and reasonably quick to detach the warp from the device. Possibly my preference is influenced by the high freeboard of my Southerly.
 
[ QUOTE ]
£7.99 ...... screwed onto Boathook opposite side to the normal hook. Unclips to give you normal boat-hook back.
Yes its plastic - but works.
Only limitation I found is it's useless on any small cleat or on any ring that doesn't stand up. But on the "iron-hoop" style that you find on some dock's - great.

Amount of use it get's ?? Can't justify cost of more expensive ones ....

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree 100% with this response. Don't go to Alderny without one.
JOHN
 
I have something that looks very similar, though it's a different make, Italian IIRC called something like a "handy hooker". /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

I mostly use it to try to catch the former HIDB buoys with no pickups, and it sometimes works (maybe once every 3-4 goes) but usually doesn't. It either gets caught at an angle that means it can't engage or, for some reason that I haven't yet caught in action, both ends of the bar come away from the plastic fork without having threaded the buoy's shackle.

I'm waiting till it breaks or gets lost before buying something better.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I have something that looks very similar, though it's a different make, Italian IIRC called something like a "handy hooker". /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif



[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't that something that stands on street corners?
 
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