Mooring buoy - connection to boat. Opinions?

[Mirelle]

For those of us with swinging moorings....

There seems to be a range of views on the connection between boat and buoy.

I dislike the sort of buoy with a ring in the top, because the steel rod through the buoy can corrode unseen, so I use a buoy with no ring on the top and a strop shackled to the top of the riser chain, under the buoy - with a pickup buoy, of course.

Now, my question concerns the strop itself. Some people use chain, some rope. Rope can obviously chafe at the fairlead, and chain will knock hell out of the paint on the topsides. I use a rope strop, with the usual length of hose on it in way of the bow fairlead, but I notice the hose is getting chafed.

The perfect answer would seem to be chain, with hose over that to save the paint, as far as the fairlead, plain chain through the fairlead, and a rope eye to go over the bitts shackled to the chain on deck.

Or what have I missed?

(Boat weighs about 10 tons, mooring is 1" ground chain, 3/4" riser, strop is 24mm nylon and replacement would be 13mm short link chain)

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[LeonF]

I had a large yellow hippo with a swivel on top from the ring which was attached to a chain which went through the middle and two warps which had hard eyes and were shackled to the swivel. A soft eye at the other end and the warps went over the bow roller and onto the cleats on the side of the foredeck. No central samson post. No hose to stop chafe and no problem with chafe. The buoy did rub alongside the hull and sometimes banged alarmingly, especially with wind against tide. Looked at lots of alternatives and decided to get an inflatable from EYE which they provided with a heavy 32mm warp through the middle with hard eyes on both ends. I replaced the top 10ft of the riser and put a swivel at the join. Low down in the dark seems to deter barnacles which clog up the swivel. Last years warps now shackled to the 32mm warp hard eye. A bow fender holds the warps just off the bow and even when it does knock the buoy it all sems quite calm. Has worked fine for the last six weeks.

<hr width=100% size=1>L.A.R.Ferguson

 

[Birdseye]

found the best way of avoiding the buoy banging was to make the rope from the boat so short that the buoy was lifted and inch or two above its normal floating level. this had the side effect of cutting down rope movement and hence chafe. the plastic pipe is sacrificial anyway.

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[Guest]

how about reducing some of the snatch and thus a little of the wear to the hose(extend life) with a cheap spring system in line with the chain from the buoy? Just a thought

Regards

Rob

<hr width=100% size=1>robinwdunham

 

[Guest]

a) I never used one rope or strop. I always used 3 lighter ropes made fast to different points on the boat. I had my boat suffer from a storm that broke my samson post. So I then changed to the 3 ropes .... 1 to mooring post as normal, 2 to the anchor windlass, 3 to the mast base.
b) I always connected to the chain below the buoy and had a lanyard to hang the buoy off the pulpit and stop chafe.
c) Chain or rope - I would still do same........


<hr width=100% size=1>Nigel ...
Bilge Keelers get up further ! I only came - cos they said there was FREE Guinness !

 

[Mirelle]

I've been reluctant to do this, as I often pick up my mooring singlehanded, frequently under sail, and the time needed to hoist the buoy an inch or two clear of the water is just too long to get the soft eye in the strop safely over something, even temporarily. A couple of feet of extra strop make all the difference!

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[Birdseye]

picking up the buoy single handed, i swear by the sort of gadget (i use a swiftie matic) that threads your rope through a ring on the top of the buoy. then i attach the long term mooring rope at my leisure, leaving plenty of time to use the windlass to hoist the buoy a bit out of the water. tends to stop the boat moving about as much too.

hippo marine used to do a buoy that had a soft outer layer to minimise the banging problem you mentioned.

if you are in a river with a strongish current, a bucket on a lanyard over the stern might keep the boat away from the buoy.

as far as fretting is concerned, then the pipe is sacrificial. simply replace reasonably often.

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[peterb]

Try running a warp back from the bow to the shrouds (outside everything). Pick the soft eye up at the shrouds, pass the warp through it, then walk the warp forward to the bow, taking in as much slack as possible, secure temporarily and wait for things to stabilise. Then complete the mooring in whatever way you wish. Has the benefit that you can see the buoy all the way, without the bow getting in the way. Works even better if you have two lines fitted to your buoy; pick one up for the temporary mooring then moor permanently with the other.

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[Gunfleet]

Another mooring question

While you are all giving away your mooring secrets I want to pose a question. I have just acquired a fore and aft mooring. The bouys have rings in the top and the idea is you pass a rope through each of these rings and attach it to your bollards on the foredeck and stern. My boat is a full keel 26 footer. You have to watch it with this sort of slow speed manoeuvering because if you don't the tide can easily sweep you away. The two rings are connected by a floating line and a pickup bouy. What's the best way of approaching them and getting lines on them single handed? Uptide in all circumstances? Or downtide and do the stern bouy first? What would be the best (ie safest) method of attaching to them? I have had a single swinging mooring bouy before, which presented no problems - a line outside of everything to the cockpit did the trick. No doubt I could invent a way of doing it. But also no doubt there's someone here who's an expert and been doing it for years.
cheers
John

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[Birdseye]

Re: Another mooring question

this is a fair description of the mooring system that i now have.

best way of tackling the issue is not to have the pick up line on the surface. instead, i have 5 ft of heavy chain underneath each buoy down to the mooring ropes and the rope joining the two halves of the mooring is at the bottom of the chains and is as strong as the mooring rope itself. this allows you to motor up and around the buoys with no fear of rope round prop.

the rest is straight forward. i moor into the tide using the gadget mentioned above to put a temporary rope through the ring. i then drop back down tide until i am alongside the stern buoy. another temporary rope goes through. then centralise and attach the permanent ropes.

only problem is at the very top of the tide with a cross wind when i sometimes have to connect to the stern by dinghy or simply wait a bit.

big advantage is that is makes single handing so easy, particularly leaving where you can disconnect the bow, pivot (or not depending on the tide) round the stern mooring, then let that go whilst sat by tiller and engine control.

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[Mirelle]

No go

Sorry, a misunderstanding has crept in. The problem is not picking up the buoy.

The problem is getting the strop through the fairlead and over the bitts fast enough. With a strong tide, let alone any sort of wind, there is no way that I could hold the boat myself. The eye has got to go over the bitts before the boat starts to gain momentum.

As a matter of fact, I usually leave my launch on the mooring, on her own strop, with the boat's strop left lying in the launch's bow on the port side and a couple of fenders out on that side. I luff alongside the launch and pick the strop out of it amidships.

The problem is that with a biggish boat, in a strong tideway, and other boats very near by, one has very little time.

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[AndrewB]

Re: No go

I suspect the picking-up question is of more interest to most of us!

The times I've kept yachts on moorings, I've never trusted rope at all but gone with chain the whole way. The main drawback has been the rust stains on deck. One time I found that some £$%# had nicked most of my mooring chain, sawing out the middle and tying the ends together with cod-line, leaving just enough for the buoy to stay afloat at high tide. Goodness knows how long the yacht had lasted on this!

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[LeonF]

MY warps are about 7ft long with a float buoy on the ends. I moor on the Thames and the boat is 33ft long. I often sail single handed. I usually manage to get one warp over the cleat, giving me plenty of time to then fish around for the second. I considerd all the suggested possibilities when revamping my mooring thtis year, including flat fenders fitted to the bow to stop chafe etc. The system detailed earlier seems to be working very well.

<hr width=100% size=1>L.A.R.Ferguson

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: No go

My pick-up strop has always been 1/2 inch galvanised chain, protected with discarded fire hose. A loop is formed in the end of this, about 12 inches diameter, using a big shackle. A longish length of 14 mm polypropylene is eye-spliced to the base of the loop from where it goes to the pick-up buoy.

If all goes well the buoy and polypropylene are hauled aboard and the strop loop goes over the cleat. A few turns of the polypropylene help to hold the chain in place and the remainder plus buoy is dropped into the anchor locker. If things go less than well the polypropylene is quite strong enough to hold the boat for a while after a few turns are taken on the cleat. I can then motor up-tide to allow the chain strop to be hauled aboard with minimum effort.

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[claymore]

I use a yard supplied mooring.
It has a rope strop to a pick up bouy.
This is tied around the anchor winch and has the large eye on the chain central and just inboard of the bow roller. The cheeks on the bow roller are quite high but I tie a short line across to stop the chain jumping out.
I then have two rope strops of exact measurement, massive shackles moused onto the mooring chain and the eyespliced loops on the inboard end of the strops just fit over each of the 2 foredeck cleats.
Works fine and is easy to sort out and I don't spend all the journey home worrying about whether I tied everything up properly.

<hr width=100% size=1>regards
Claymore
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[Mirelle]

I\'ll try this....

I have a length of 13mm chain which will be shackled to the riser under the buoy and can have a hose slipped over it and which will lie in the fairlead. At the inboard end I will have a 24mm rope eye, shackled on, to go over the bitts, with (and this is the bit I have been missing, thanks, Vyv) a 14mm rope from eye to pickup buoy, which I can take a turn round something with when it all starts to go pear shaped!

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[vyv_cox]

Re: I\'ll try this....

Don't forget that the polyprop must be longer than the pick-up chain. I once fitted a new chain and extended it by about a metre but forgot to add to the polyprop as well. Result: pick-up buoy a metre below the surface! But don't make it too much longer as this tends to wrap it around the riser in tidal flow. Just a few inches of slack seems to work OK.

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