Mooring at Burnham Yacht Harbour

Master_under_Dog

Master_under_Dog

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I have taken up the invitation found elsewhere on the YBW fora to join the East Coast Forum. You will be able to tell I'm a beginner when I tell you that I have taken on a swinging mooring for my Trapper TS240, displacement 1280kgs, at Burnham Yacht Harbour with absolutely no previous experience of swinging moorings. Having trawled through other postings about swinging moorings on YBW forums I think I am in need of advice about the stresses and strains placed on a mooring at Burnham and the best way of attaching the boat to the riser. There is a single cleat in the anchor locker.
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Thanks

Michael
 
Welcome Michael.
I have been on Burnham swinging moorings for years.

I think you ought to have a failsafe, so I suggest you fit a Samson post, or a pair of fairlead cleats. These can now be bought very cheaply on Ebay. Easy fitted with a large backing plate underneath the deck.

You will have at least 2 (I have 3) tails attached to the mooring buoy, so it makes sense to attach them to different places to mitigate possible failure.

The loads can get quite high and the river can get very choppy, but loads rarely breakaway on the decks of boats (assuming they are large enough in the first place).

I kept my Jouet 680 (22ft) on the mooring for 2 seasons with the single cleat you see here, but I also used the U Bolt in the anchor locker for a backup. No harm came to the boat.

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Best of luck with the sailing, what is the name of your boat?

You will see Full Circle on the river, we are currently in Bridgemarsh Marina. Give us a wave.
 
Hello well i would definitly take two ropes off the riser one to your cleat ( which looks quite small in the photo) and the other to some other strong point and make sure they cant chafe
 
Thank you for the warm welcome. At present we live in Bracknell in Berkshire but we are looking, in a fairly relaxed way at the moment, for possible retirement homes with easy access to the East Coast rivers.

My boat is called Jessie and is currently in the yard at Burnham Yacht Harbour. I shall be down there tomorrow to take a look at how I might reinforce the foredeck to take a butch cleat or two. I guess removal and replacement of the liner will be the most difficult part of it. I have already found that I cannot get under the stemhead roller fitting, which is only attached with a single bolt and a load of mastic, because the anchor locker appears to be bonded in. Similarly the forecabin bulkhead moulding prevents access from inside. But I should be able to reinforce the deck from just aft of the anchor locker. Another concern, if I do put in a big cleat, is that it might be a trip hazard, which, since I will be singlehanding for the most part, I could do without. The existing cleat is neatly hidden underneath the anchor locker lid.

But I will find a workable solution.

Michael
 
Welcome to the Crouch. We are at Bridgemarsh too, and frequently tack through those moorings, which can be challenging because the tide runs fast round the corner by Creeksea! It's a super place to sail!

We saw a couple of boats whose moorings (somewhere near there) had broken in the easterly gales around August Bank holiday (or was it the bank holiday in May?), but they had just gone aground on the banks of the river, and didn't look to be seriously damaged. So follow Full Circle's advice and use several cleats/attachment points.

We'll wave when we see you - we are sailing most weekends - and we'll probably meet you at one of the EC events.
 
Michael

Welcome.

I do lots of singlehanded sailing in my 27' sloop and on the fordeck I have a large central cleat immediately aft of the anchor locker with two smaller cleats just inside the toerail about one foot from the bow. When on a mooring the main weight is taken on the large cleat with the others offering a back up.

Can just about see the layout here: [image]
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The main trouble I have and still havent really sorted is as the stem is not very 'pointy' I have difficulty keeping the mooring buoy off the topsides so with a wind from astern I ride up on the buoy so can get rubbing. See some folk pull the buoy out of the water so it is hanging on the bow to prevent this. Would be interested to hear how others cope with this? I guess a simple solution is to have a large fender mat to lower around the bow that then doubles up as cockpit cushions maybe!

I wouldn't worry about seeing a cleat as a trip hazard, there are several things on deck you could trip over already and if like me you have roller jib the only time you will be on the foredeck is likely to be when picking up a mooring / anchoring or alongside a pontoon. Even when berthing, other than attaching a mooring rope to the bow cleat and leading it aft I don't go to the foredeck until the boat has at least a midships 'stopper' ashore.

Planning to be in Burnham for the saturday start of May Bank Holiday.

Good sailing!
 
You can get quite steep waves on the Crouch when you have wind over tide which can cause excessive pitching and this is going to put a lot of strain on your fittings and your strops.

I moor on the Roach which has similar tides and winds to the Crouch and the end of the Reach faces the SW gales and a fairly fierce flood and ebb tide. I have had a fairlead pulled out of my deck and a 6mm pin in my bow roller bent at 90 degrees in the pitching that occurs when there is a gale over a spring tide. My previous boat [Popcorn 23] only had a single cleat on the foredeck and a single bow roller. I used to lead my main strop through the bow roller to the single cleat. I would then bring the second strop through a fairlead on the bow and then run an extra rope through the second strop and attach it to two cleats in my cockpit.

I now have two cleats on the foredeck of my current boat [UFO27] but I still often back up the two strops with a line run from the two cleats in the cockpit and through the eye on the top of the mooring buoy just for a bit of safety.

After 50 years sailing mostly single handed, I still find that my toes are able to find things to kick on the deck and cause great pain. While I have occasionally kicked the cleats on my foredeck the most common are the Genoa cars on the side deck which seem to catch me every time I am in a hurry. Perhaps one question you could ask yourself which is likely to cause the greatest pain: a boat drifting down the river for the want of a cleat or a broken toe?

I've never lost a cleat to date but I know of two boats that have drifted off down the River when a strop has parted. That is not to say a cleat wont fail and the possibility does give me sleepless nights in bad weather.
 
It looks from your photo as if you've got a reasonable cleat in the middle of the foredeck for a second attachment, as long as it has a good backing. On the other hand, you seem to have a very sharp toerail so I think protecting against chafe is going to be your biggest problem. We used to put both mooring lines through a piece of plastic pipe at the bow-roller when we had a mooring and I think you need to do something like that. When mooring to two lines I always leave on much longer than the other to prevent them getting tightly twisted by the boat turning.
 
wise move michael,bailing out of Bracknell that is.A town with no soul if ever there was,i bailed out to Crowthorne first,then rural Lincolnshire about 9 years ago,best move that i have ever done.
 
Your biggest enemy will be chafe - ensure that your strops are well protected at the points where they rub against the gunwales or the edge of the anchor locker. If the lid of the anchor locker is half-closed on the strop that could chafe too. The motion from waves can mean that any non smooth edge can become a saw and cut through a line in 15 minutes flat.
 
Hi & welcome to the forum.
I have a mooring at Priors, a few hundred yards from yours.
I've had a mooring on this river since 1970 and have to say I have never experienced the extreme conditions suggested by other people here. Except for the 1987 gale, but even then many of the boats which broke away were hit by Essex Marina going walkies.
I'm sure your mooring arrangements will be ample, but to avoid midnight worries why not add an extra warp back to the sheet winches as a back up?
Come and have a beer when you see us aboard Traigh.
Dan
 
Hi & welcome to the forum.

Like Dan we have a mooring at Priors, a few hundred yards from yours.

Come and say hello if you see us aboard Vamoose... ( I would offer you a beer but you will have already had one with Dan !)

Alan
 
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