Mooring/Berthing Design Advice

[Ross D]

I need help with the design of a berthing arrangement for a mud berth.

I currently have my (long keel) yacht in a mud berth, where she floats for the top of the tide on the Spring half of the tidal cycle. This makes sailing a little restricted as we have to plan our sailing around when we can get in and out of the berth, which doesn't always tie up with weekends etc.

We have been offered a jetty just up from where we are berthed, which has just been vacated by the boat that was on there. The jetty is accessible (for us) on all high tides so we really want to take it, but the mooring lines arrangement is a pain in the *>&% as it involves really long lines to take the tidal range. One of the lines ties another boat into the adjacent berth, and another has to be tied off on a neighbouring piece of land.

I am looking for a solution which can be simply connected/disconnected when I leave or return. Currently we only have about 1m of movement so our lines are fairly short and directly to the shore. They remain in-situ permanently and are marked so returning is simply a case of connecting up and putting a weight on the mast so we lean the right way.

We were thinking of adding a scaffold pole, or similar to either end of the jetty with a mooring ring to ride up then connecting to it similar to a pile mooring, with maybe lazy lines ashore as a back up. The floating tidal range is about 2.5m and we overhang each end of the jetty by about 3'.

Any help advice or any thing anyone has seen would be appreciated.

 

[NickRobinson]

Hi

At Gibraltar Point I use two hinged scaff poles with floats on the 'wet' ends.

They are located with two ropes each from the seaward floating ends triangulated to the bank.

Magna sits between the arms which are only 2/3 metres further apart than her 8m length. There are pickup buoys bow and stern with pre- set loops to go onto the cleats

As the arms go up and down with the boat and tide no great long lines are needed to locate the boat very accurately.

BTW, the new fashion at GIb Point is to get rid of arms and moor like you, using long lines, and piece of 5" sewer pipe as a fender board-

Let mw know if you want pics emailing, it's too hard here.

Nick
Magna

 

[ProDave]

My boat is tied up to the harbour wall in a drying harbour.

In common with the other boats in the harbour, I have a weight tied into the fore and aft lines, to try and maintain a bit of tension on the lines at high water. I don't have any weights on the spring lines.

I set up the lines at low water, when she's settled on the mud, so they are almost tight, with just a little slack. I then mark both ends of all the lines with a couple of cable ties. The theory being when I come back to the berth and tie up, as long as the cable ties are visible then the lines are long enough for low tide.

Actually my spring lines are set up even better. There's a loop spliced into each end, so I just slip the loop off. to "tie up" just slip the loop on, and of course it's still the right length. Perhaps I'll get around to splicing loops in the other lines as well one day.

Your tidal range is less than mine, and long ropes means less variation in length between states of tide, so I don't see any great problem.

Obviously in my case plenty of fenders to protect from the granite wall.