Mooring in Grenada - Broken or cut

[Delfini]

Hi - my boat DELFINI is currently on a mooring ball in Grenada operated and managed by Prickly Bay marina

On Monday night during the passing of storm BRET she broke free and was luckily rescued by the local CoastGuard patrol boat - quite a bit of damage sustained

Initially I assumed the mooring riser has just broken under the strain but the marina tell me a catamaran at anchor broke free and in attempting to start the engine to manoeuvre back to their original position they had snagged my mooring and cut it

Just as a general question is there any way to check if a decent sized rope has been cut or just broken ?



Thanks

 

[PlankWalker]

Ropes of that size don't break they chafe. If the severed end is near a bow roller or cleat etc its chafe, if its randomly between two hard points , its probably been cut.

Plank

 

[AIDY]

Sorry to hear this chris... any major damage..

 

[Delfini]

Looks like she got away fairly lightly although quite a bit of hull gelcoat damage plus a whacked toe rail and bent solar panel - time will tell exactly once I get her ashore and checked out - the great news is she didn't ground anywhere and came to rest alongside a big fishing boat next to mangroves

The coastguard took the pictures showing the break in the riser to be about 30 feet down from the mooring ball - unlikely to be a prop cutter but to break under load seems equally unlikely being only 12 months old !

I have been told they clocked gusts of 75knots Monday night so I guess anything was possible

 

[Seven Spades]

Act of God, you probably can't prove negligence in 75knts. Your insurers will probably have to foot the bill.

 

[BobnLesley]

Act of God, you probably can't prove negligence in 75knts. Your insurers will probably have to foot the bill.

I would think the same, however:

"...I assumed the mooring riser...broken...but the marina tell me a catamaran at anchor broke free and...had snagged my mooring and cut it"

Would the 'marina' volunteering this information happen to be the same one who's renting you the mooring?

 

[Delfini]

Prickly Bay Marina who own the mooring want me to believe it was the dragging anchored catamaran that cut their ball mooring rode but given the breakage is 30 foot down from the ball its looking much more likely to be a breakage - given they told me the moorings are insured I will likely claim for repairs from them

 

[sarabande]

I imagine your mooring would be stretched at an angle in the wind strength. Could the cat's anchor chain have dragged across it ?

 

[TQA]

I seem to remember reports of at least two other boats on moorings in Prickly going walkabout recently.

 

[jdc]

I seem to remember reports of at least two other boats on moorings in Prickly going walkabout recently.

We spent last Christmas there, and it's true that there was talk of some boats going walkies. But when I dug into this (I was interested you know; I left the boat there for a few weeks while I flew home) the part which failed was invariably the strops holding the boat to the mooring which can hardly be blamed on the mooring operator. While there we saw a team diving systematically on the moorings and inspecting, and I dived on the one we were allocated. To my eyes they appeared to be well run and maintained - wish I could say the same about all the yachts there.

The point about anchoring amongst the moorings is well made: quite a few do anchor, and holding is variable, so dragging across a mooring isn't that unlikely. The moorings are inevitably rope attached to a screw into the seabed, so quite susceptible to chafe.

 

[Delfini]

The only report of boat walkabout/s I have heard this year in Prickly Bay is a catamaran dragging - that was over by Calabash beach so quite a long way from me - before I got to the Caribbean and when I arrived in December I did a fair bit of research about where to park upon for 2017 - some said don't touch Prickly Bay - some said it was great. I chose Grenada and when I arrived at Prickly Bay to clear customs they showed me inspection certificates of the ball moorings and their policy to get a 3rd party to inspect every 6 months and few boat owners confirmed the moorings were fairly new and inspected and they thought all was good - on inspection last December from the surface the ball and riser looked brand new

It is strange they allow long and short term anchoring in and around the fixed ball moorings and I suppose chafe from an anchor chain or rode would be a serious contender - but how to prove it - the rope looks new at sea level and old and tired at the break

The boat owner that saw Delfini loose in the bay on Monday night has now dived on his mooring and doubled up on the riser with chain. I think I will warn the other mooring holders via the Grenada FB page as the marina seems very reluctant to take any responsibility for my broken mooring or question the integrity of the others - at least in pubic - which I suppose is understandable.