Mooring to pontoons

[Ian_Edwards]

Thanks to everyone who posted a reply, there are some viable ideas which we will try over the next 2 week, I'll report back. My better half isn't renowned for her rope throwing ability, more likely to end up with some knitting! I like the idea of a loop, boathook and tape. I think we could make that work for traditional cleats, anyway will give it a go.

 

[Roberto]

For cleats, I have made this thing which SWMBO found quite useful: it is a 1.5-2m long rope threaded inside a hose, with a spliced ring at the extremity, spliced after having passed the rope inside a second plastic hose.

The longer "handle" hose is sufficiently stiff to bring the ring away from the boat, the ring is kept open by the second hose. The free end of the rope (the one to the right on the picture) is tied to the toerail (still in the process of fitting a mid cleat /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif )

Just lasso the cleat (you have almost 3 metres of boat movement to do that) then motor against the pontoon

 

[eddieperkins]

Get a piece of 3/4 inch hose, about 2' long, pass the rope through it and splice an eye. The you shove the pointy end of the boat hook into the hose and hang on to the rope and you have a large hard eye you can just place over the cleat. Make of the end on board on a midships cleat and leave the engine ticking over ahead and she will sit there sweet as a nut whilst you sort out your moorings.

 

[Talbot]

Another vote for the bosco boat hook and its additional wire strop. Great for lassoing cleats, and good for mooring buoys as well. The singlehander's friend.

I have tried a number of other "infallible" methods for hooking a cleat or reeving a rope through a mooring eye - none of them worked (other than to relieve me of money) - no I should not say that they didn't work cause that is not entirely true. They worked nearly perfectly whenever I practiced, but never seemed to work properly when needed for real. The bosco was a different story. I was always confident of this device.