More mooring - would this work?

[stranded]

The excitement is reaching fever pitch Chez Maggie as we get ever closer to finally getting afloat. And the worrying grows in direct proportion! So...

Two up for the most part, 43ft, centre cockpit, fairly high freeboard. Finger berth. Assume a pontoon cleat amidships (Nick?). Mu latest plan when coming into the berth is to rig a long line from the bow, with a loop in the middle, run it back round a stern cleat to me in the cockpit leaving plenty of slack. SWMBO steps off (some big assumptions about my boat handling there), pops the loop on the cleat, then i tighten up on my end until we get proper lines on. Seems to me this would be more secure than a simple ship to shore midship line, especially if bow being blown onto pontoon which in my head would allow stern to pivot quite a long way in a tight berth. But would it? And is it workable? Mark

 

[wrr]

At 43 feet, tightening up on lines may require a lot of effort! I cannot pull our long keel 7.5 tons boat sideways alongside a pontoon but I can do this easily with a winch. A line from the midships cleat to a powerful sheet winch will allow you to tighten up the line and prevent the boat pivoting. Rapidly tensioning the line should ensure that your high topsides do not cause it to lift off the pontoon cleat. All of this can be done without stepping off the boat.

 

[onesea]

We do something similar to what you describe but the linesman can stay onboard until boat is held alongside...

We prep a rope as shown in the top picture, from the toe rail to the jib sheet winch with lots of slack on the bight. The linesman holds it out with the boat hook as below. As the cleat comes into range the lines person drops the rope over the cleat with the boat hook..

The helms person uses the tail of the rope around the jib sheet winch to hold boat against engine bringing the boat alongside (bottom illustration) until the linesman is ready to go ashore... The linesman then directs to slack off to come ahead as required and does the business with the rest of the ropes...

It works for us...

 

[pvb]

I usually singlehand my 35 footer. For marina berthing, I have a loop of line, about 3 metres long, tied to the midships cleat on the boat, with the loop itself brought towards the stern and simply hung on the guardrail. Approach pontoon finger, slow boat to almost a standstill, drop loop of rope over the cleat at the end of the pontoon, then motor gently against it. By adjusting the helm, the boat can be kept parallel to the pontoon - even with some side wind. Pop the autopilot on to maintain the boat's position, then step off and tie up with bow and stern lines. Works every time, no winches, no boathooks, no drama.

 

[onesea]

I usually singlehand my 35 footer. For marina berthing, I have a loop of line, about 3 metres long, tied to the midships cleat on the boat, with the loop itself brought towards the stern and simply hung on the guardrail. Approach pontoon finger, slow boat to almost a standstill, drop loop of rope over the cleat at the end of the pontoon, then motor gently against it. By adjusting the helm, the boat can be kept parallel to the pontoon - even with some side wind. Pop the autopilot on to maintain the boat's position, then step off and tie up with bow and stern lines. Works every time, no winches, no boathooks, no drama.

Seems to me like basically the same method, single handed I would do similar and fix the ropes. Two handed we find the winch gives us more flexibility particularly in unknown berths, the boat hook is just laziness.

 

[stranded]

Thanks - I know to some extent its going to be trial and error. pvb - planning to try the motoring against a spring sort of solution you describe. Any sense of what sort of cross breeze that would be reliable in - I can easily imagine it in a calm, but confidence diminishes rapidly as I think about stronger on-pontoon winds - I suppose if the wind is strong enough it would blow the bow some way back against the pontoon but ultimately a balance would be reached with the backend sticking out a bit i.e. as the pivot point moves forward it would take an enormous force on the last 5 or 6 feet of bow to pivot that fat bottom out. I am hoping this is all going to become as obvious as I am sure it sounds to most once I get to try but my nature is to worry myself to death until I have proved it to myself! Mark

 

[stranded]

"It works for us..."

Regardless? Or up to a certain wind stregnth?

 

[pvb]

Thanks - I know to some extent its going to be trial and error. pvb - planning to try the motoring against a spring sort of solution you describe. Any sense of what sort of cross breeze that would be reliable in - I can easily imagine it in a calm, but confidence diminishes rapidly as I think about stronger on-pontoon winds - I suppose if the wind is strong enough it would blow the bow some way back against the pontoon but ultimately a balance would be reached with the backend sticking out a bit i.e. as the pivot point moves forward it would take an enormous force on the last 5 or 6 feet of bow to pivot that fat bottom out. I am hoping this is all going to become as obvious as I am sure it sounds to most once I get to try but my nature is to worry myself to death until I have proved it to myself! Mark

It's obviously very dependent on the windage characteristics of your boat, and also on what sort of boats are in adjacent berths. I've found the method works well; in stronger side winds it's necessary to motor harder against the spring line. The best bit I find is that once I get the boat stable and parallel to the pontoon, I can just turn on the autopilot and the boat will sit there happily whilst I sort the other lines out.

 

[onesea]

"It works for us..."

Regardless? Or up to a certain wind stregnth?

Pretty much regardless we have only tried it up to a F6-7 on this boat but....

The boat we have has the rudder 6 foot from the prop, so if we use a head line or midships line as a spring to "steam" on the bow will pull in regardless (there is not enough water flow over the rudder to stop the rope pulling the bow in).

To counteract this we tie the mooring rope on further aft to make a balance, so little force from the rudder is required to keep her parallel. We found this by trial and error, slack mooring ropes and "steaming" against the berthing rope.

Previous boats I have used a line from the bow as a spring to "steam" against, we could do that in any weather/ conditions we would want to berth in (we used the headline as she was a motor sailor and you could talk to the helm in the wheel house made communications easier).


As always individual boats are different, try different things and see what works for you .Start in good weather and build up your experience and confidence in how the boat will react.

 

[lw395]

Seems to me like basically the same method, single handed I would do similar and fix the ropes. Two handed we find the winch gives us more flexibility particularly in unknown berths, the boat hook is just laziness.

Using a boathook instead of clambering over the guardwires seems eminently sensible to me, especially if you are not a sure-footed, agile young chap like me