Mooring Buoys - How to Find / Best Practice - Can I just use any?

[Aja]

Do you have experience of people doing this? I would have thought that it's very rare.
OK, lasso to arrest the buoy but the next step is to put a line (in my case, a rope and 6mm SS chain bridle) through the top ring and remove the lasso.

You would think so. On West coast of Scotland soft mooring buoys are very popular and don't have top rings. My mooring (private) for a time was very popular with a training yacht from Largs which killed two birds with one stone by using the mooring as a lasso target and then as a lunch stop.

It took a couple of emails, the second with a picture taken by me from an adjacent mooring of the boat in question bouncing about in a stiff Easterly with the mooring just lassoed.

I was advised by the training company that lassoing a buoy was recommended by the RYA. I advised them to lay their own mooring.

 

[jdc]

On the web page address written on my mooring I say:

Pick-up​

The owner understands that, in an emergency, any expedient technique may be used. Nevertheless he requests that under normal circumstances no attempt is made to 'lasso' the mooring, whether using rope, chain or any other contraption. This is because the swivel is about 30cm under the buoy and would very plausibly be subject to bending loads which it is neither designed nor specified to withstand, and/or the associated shackles risk having their mousings damaged by the lasso.

and I go on to say:

Attachment to yacht​

No strop is provided by the owner, so a visitor must attach to the mooring using his own strop(s). Under no circumstances should the Mooring Loop be loosened or undone.

The visitor can either thread rope(s) through the Mooring Loop or attach his own system using his own shackle(s). The owner requests that if chain is used it not be passed through the Mooring Loop but attached with a shackle. This is to help preserve the galvanising of the Mooring Loop. On leaving, please don't leave behind any strops, shackles etc.

So, MontyM, on two counts you're not welcome on my mooring! I don't want a lasso and my property is not 'sacrificial'. Perhaps that's why the time-honoured give and take is no more - as lamented by Vyv Cox (and by me) - good manners and good practice can no longer be taken for granted.

 

[Sea Change]

I've never lasooed a mooring in my life. What's wrong with dropping your anchor if you want to stop??

 

[Major Tom]

I've never lasooed a mooring in my life.

Not have I, even when sailing into a mooring with engine failure - sounds like a fairly shoddy practice.

 

[Aja]

Not have I, even when sailing into a mooring with engine failure - sounds like a fairly shoddy practice.

It was certainly RYA approved practice. Don't know if it still is as I can't see a reason for it.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

There is no RYA method per se, rather there are ways to approach the mooring. This is how Sail Train, an RTC for shore based courses describe a mooring How to pick up a Mooring Buoy under sail - Sailtrain

To Lasso or not to lasso?
Normally you chose to sail onto a buoy to test your skills as a yachtsman, so if at all possible avoid lassoing. Slow the yacht and with a boat hook pick up the pickup buoy or with a crew member lying on the deck amidships, pass the line through the ring and take it forward. Although lassoing is not the preferred option sometimes in an emergency or if you are short-handed a lasso is the easiest option. Help crew rig the lasso and get them to practice throwing and securing it prior to the approach. If you are using a lasso have a second line ready to use so as soon as you are attached by the lasso, rigging a line to the correct ring or loop on the buoy and removing the lasso. Don’t stay on the lasso as it damages the buoy, creates chafe on your warp and can fall off of or get tangled around the buoy.

My experience since the late 70’s, Firth of Clyde and WoS.
There is no doubt that when the Hippo buoys appeared on scene back in the 80’s, the ubiquitous pick up line was replaced with the fixed hoop in many cases, and this was common on visitors moorings. I clearly remember the transition from picking up a pick up buoy, making fast with the mooring pendent, to managing Hippo buoys with no pick up line. Two things happened: sailing schools started using mooring strops fitted with a length of chain in the middle, and lassoing started, which was a convenient way, and was adopted by the RYA as one method. Also special boat hooks such as the Moorfast, started being marketed.

Now, lassoing, is not a method advised except in an emergency, because the Hippo style float gets rammed up against the mooring eye and collapses, rips through the outer cover, exposing the internal foam. Completely unacceptable and often the damage is hidden and deteriorates the more it is lassoed.

The once ubiquitous Hippo, has somewhat been superseded by traditional mooring buoys again with pick up lines. They are still in use, including some new ones in the Hippo style, including with pickup buoys, and mooring pendants. They are expensive.

 

[MontyMariner]

Perhaps contributors who feel that lassoing a mooring buoy with no pick-up line is bad practice would say how they do it, especially if when laying on the foredeck, the buoy cant be reached and solo.

I would love to know how this guy hooks that buoy, lifts it and gets a line onto it.

 

[dunedin]

Perhaps contributors who feel that lassoing a mooring buoy with no pick-up line is bad practice would say how they do it, especially if when laying on the foredeck, the buoy cant be reached and solo.

I would love to know how this guy hooks that buoy, lifts it and gets a line onto it.

Hook and Moor pole.

Loads of moorings in Scotland have no pick up rope, just a shackle on top. Regularly pick up solo.
Never lassoed

You should equip with the right tools and trchniques so as not to damage other people's property

 

[MontyMariner]

You should equip with the right tools and trchniques so as not to damage other people's property

My tool of preference is a wishbone style pickup pole.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Perhaps contributors who feel that lassoing a mooring buoy with no pick-up line is bad practice would say how they do it, especially if when laying on the foredeck, the buoy cant be reached and solo.

I would love to know how this guy hooks that buoy, lifts it and gets a line onto it.

Pick up from the beam if too high. I have an old hull shape, over hanging bow, high, flared bow, a lot easier just in front of the shrouds. I use Moorfast type of boat hook to thread the mooring strop.

 

[Sea Change]

Perhaps contributors who feel that lassoing a mooring buoy with no pick-up line is bad practice would say how they do it, especially if when laying on the foredeck, the buoy cant be reached and solo.

I would love to know how this guy hooks that buoy, lifts it and gets a line onto it.

Reverse up to it, attach a long rope led from the bow, haul in.

 

[MontyMariner]

Reverse up to it, attach a long rope led from the bow, haul in.

Great if you don't have a centre cockpit ketch

 

[Sea Change]

Great if you don't have a centre cockpit ketch

Even with a centre cockpit, it's a much shorter walk to the stern than the bow, and there's a ladder to climb down

 

[Aja]

Perhaps contributors who feel that lassoing a mooring buoy with no pick-up line is bad practice would say how they do it, especially if when laying on the foredeck, the buoy cant be reached and solo.

I would love to know how this guy hooks that buoy, lifts it and gets a line onto it.

I would either have to launch the dinghy or if already launched astern get into and take a line from the boat through the mooring and back to the boat. Five minutes work.

 

[johnalison]

Pick up from the beam if too high. I have an old hull shape, over hanging bow, high, flared bow, a lot easier just in front of the shrouds. I use Moorfast type of boat hook to thread the mooring strop.

That is so obvious that it shouldn’t need saying. It has been our practice for as long as I can remember. Not only does the picker-up have an easier job but the helm can keep the buoy in view until the last few seconds. Until her knees got the better of her, my wife would lie along the side deck to loop our line through the ring if there was no pick-up line.

 

[WFA]

Perhaps contributors who feel that lassoing a mooring buoy with no pick-up line is bad practice would say how they do it, especially if when laying on the foredeck, the buoy cant be reached and solo.

I would love to know how this guy hooks that buoy, lifts it and gets a line onto it.

Select a mooring you feel you can cope with.
Every hull form and rig handles differently so for my 36" long keel 10 ton centre cockpit yacht with high topsides;-
I make a judgment on which wind/tide elements will allow a safe and slow approach bringing the buoy alongside the leeward bow - this to allow me time to walk forward, pick up a boat hook if a pickup line is available otherwise a Moor Fast Hook if attaching to a large top ring and for the bow to drift down towards the buoy.
If the tide is running at pace then holding position by maintaining way at slow ahead may be required - again a judgement call that comes with experience.
Approaching down tide is usually avoided as there will be no water flow over the rudder when closing to the buoy - better to balance the wind and tide effects on the final approach and go round again if the first attempt isn't quite right. Moorings out of the main stream may actually be in a back eddy!
Rope eyes through heavy buoys are usually avoided due to the time taken to thread the eye also the weight of the buoy and riser when the rope is too short to haul up to deck level can introduce all sorts of dilemmas.
Bare pole sailing down wind in a blow works well.
Picking up from a quarter is OK if the bow line is long enough and your confident which way the boat will swing once the bowline starts to take the load.
I say again - Select a mooring you feel you can cope with.
If you are a marina dweller, practice makes perfect but please don't blame the mooring owner when things don't work out the way you had hoped.

 

[ylop]

I would either have to launch the dinghy or if already launched astern get into and take a line from the boat through the mooring and back to the boat. Five minutes work.

Getting into the dinghy whilst the boat drifts around some moorings unmanned in anything but benign conditions would be pause for thought.

 

[winch2]

Perhaps contributors who feel that lassoing a mooring buoy with no pick-up line is bad practice would say how they do it, especially if when laying on the foredeck, the buoy cant be reached and solo.

I would love to know how this guy hooks that buoy, lifts it and gets a line onto it.

Just drift it down to the lowest point of the deck?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Just drift it down to the lowest point of the deck?

And if the lowest point of the deck is still too high, as on the Moody 31? I could use the sugar scoop on my Mk 2, but the Mk 1 doesn't have a sugar scoop!

 

[winch2]

Just remarking on that photo.. looks doable to me.