Picking up mooring with anchor on bow roller.

J

JimC

Well-Known Member
Joined
30 Aug 2001
Messages
1,570
Location
Lancashire
Visit site
How do you secure to a mooring buoy if you carry your anchor on the bow roller? In the past I've reached forwards & outwards between the pulpit rails and lifted the anchor back onto the foredeck to free the bow roller for the mooring strop, but this isn't getting any easier with the advancing years. I have fairleads on each side of the bow and I've tried running a rope from one to the other threaded through the loop on the buoy's pick-up line or the ring on the buoy's top. I spliced a metre of chain into the middle of the rope to take the chafe. This works OK as long as the rope is in tension but when it hangs slack e.g. in wind over tide or slack water, the rope often gets between the bow and the anchor resulting in jams and tangles. What do others do?

My boat has a double bow roller but when one side is occupied by the anchor you can't use the other for a mooring strop as it would foul on the anchor.
 
JimC said:
How do you secure to a mooring buoy if you carry your anchor on the bow roller? In the past I've reached forwards & outwards between the pulpit rails and lifted the anchor back onto the foredeck to free the bow roller for the mooring strop, but this isn't getting any easier with the advancing years. I have fairleads on each side of the bow and I've tried running a rope from one to the other threaded through the loop on the buoy's pick-up line or the ring on the buoy's top. I spliced a metre of chain into the middle of the rope to take the chafe. This works OK as long as the rope is in tension but when it hangs slack e.g. in wind over tide or slack water, the rope often gets between the bow and the anchor resulting in jams and tangles. What do others do?

My boat has a double bow roller but when one side is occupied by the anchor you can't use the other for a mooring strop as it would foul on the anchor.
Click to expand...

ever thought of stowing the anchor in the anchor well :)
 
sailorman said:
ever thought of stowing the anchor in the anchor well :)
Click to expand...

I don't like doing that as I want the anchor easily deployable as its my usual mooring method when out of my base marina.

I do use the other roller when tied to a bouy and find that with a short strop it is vertical enough to avoid chafing on the anchor. Your arrangement might be different so I suppose I would make up a bridle.

I find it easiest to actually attach to the bouy, first temporarily by lassoing it and bringing it close to a bow fair lead, then lie on the foredeck under the guardrails and attach the proper rope led from the other bow roller, all without any tension on the proper rope. Once all the leads are sorted and secure I then release the lassoo rope and adjust as needed, sometimes with a bit of towel tied around the mooring rope as it passes through the roller.

For some of the bouys we use, the only proper attachment is through a loop under the bouy, so that means the dinghy or a swim instead of the foredeck.
 
I've often though to make a rope/chain/rope mooring strop, but would want the chain long enough to come through the fairleads with rope tails just to make off on the cleats. The other advantage of more chain would be that it wouldn't chafe if it catches on the anchor flukes. Just the other day someone suggested just lifting the anchor up and securing it under the pulpit so as to clear the roller.

Rob.
 
sailorman said:
ever thought of stowing the anchor in the anchor well :)
Click to expand...

That means lifting it out and threading it through the pulpit rails to position it onto the bow roller every time one wants to anchor. Whilst doing this one's arms and back are cantilevered out in just the way that the lifting safety manuals warn one to avoid. What I'm hoping to learn from this posting is a way of both mooring to a buoy and anchoring without any heavy lifting in awkward positions.
 
Last edited:
As Rob suggests what I do is lift the anchor onto the pulpit via two snap links one at the front and one at the chain shackle position . This is easy for me as I have a Manson that has a bar between the blades so I keep a short piece of rope permanently attached to this to help with tying the anchor in position on the roller, lifting it up to the pulpit and lifting over the bow roller when it has rotated during raising.
No clear pictures I am afraid.

cheers
Andy
 
JimC said:
My boat has a double bow roller but when one side is occupied by the anchor you can't use the other for a mooring strop as it would foul on the anchor.
Click to expand...

So do I and have the same issue too. My answer is to put the anchor in the locker on the basis that I moor to a buoy at least 50 times more often than I anchor.
 
I too spent ages hurting myself getting the anchor aboard until I thought of this, which works if you have a double roller. Mooring line in one roller, and anchor upside down in the other ...fluke upwards. My roller is deep enough that the sides easily contain the delta anchor, I can tie it down (round the projecting roller) if I think it might jump out, and I can silence it with a piece of 2" neoprene hose which I have cut longways to slide around the shank.

I dont have a swivel between chain and anchor and never need it. I drop the anchor to just above water level, extend my boothook, rotate and then snag the anchor fluke in generally the right direction, and as I wind in the chain, the roller guides it in.

Upside down, a delta is well clear of the mooring rope in the adjoining roller.
 
That means lifting it out and threading it through the pulpit rails to position it onto the bow roller every time one wants to anchor. Whilst doing this one's arms and back are cantilevered out in just the way that the lifting safety manuals warn one to avoid. What I'm hoping to learn from this posting is a way of both mooring to a buoy and anchoring without any heavy lifting in awkward positions.
Click to expand...

As Valia1 says, using a rope to lift the anchor out of the roller makes the job much easier, no need to bend and risk back injury. It doesn't have to be permanently rigged - I just keep an odd length of rope about 1 1/2 metres long handy and run it round the anchor shank, at the balance point, and then just lift it in - or out - of the roller with both ends held in one hand.
 
We have a double bow roller as well, but the anchor is a CQR so hinges out of the way (we tie the plough to the pulpit with a small length of cord). We attach to our swinging mooring via a pick-up buoy which in turn leads to chain. We haul enough chain on deck through the bow roller to attach to a large cleat, then use a large diameter hawser attached to the mooring buoy as double insurance, as required by the harbour board.

When picking up a visitor's mooring elsewhere, we tend to attach the mooring line to it using the port and starboard bow fairleads, so as to make a bridle of sorts. This avoids use of the bow roller.

Hope this helps.
 
..... or use the tripping eye as a lift point.
Click to expand...

You can, but there's two problems - it's further away, so harder to pass a rope through, and it's forward of the balance point, so it doesn't give a level lift. If you just loop a line round the chain and then pull the loop forward, so it slides onto the shank, it's easy to find the balance point, and lifting the anchor level makes lifting it much easier, with no need to lean out over the bow.
 
we have a double bow roller and use the spare one for the mooring. The mooring line does foul the anchor sometimes but we protect it from chafe with clear plastic tubing replaced every couple of years. Lifting or rotating the anchor would not work as the anchor would foul the nav light.
 
How about this arrangement?

3394fb6b.jpg
 
mauricewoodhouse said:
I too spent ages hurting myself getting the anchor aboard until I thought of this, which works if you have a double roller. Mooring line in one roller, and anchor upside down in the other ...fluke upwards. My roller is deep enough that the sides easily contain the delta anchor, I can tie it down (round the projecting roller) if I think it might jump out, and I can silence it with a piece of 2" neoprene hose which I have cut longways to slide around the shank.

I dont have a swivel between chain and anchor and never need it. I drop the anchor to just above water level, extend my boothook, rotate and then snag the anchor fluke in generally the right direction, and as I wind in the chain, the roller guides it in.

Upside down, a delta is well clear of the mooring rope in the adjoining roller.
Click to expand...

+1
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top