Picking up mooring

[Pumpkin]

I own a Leisure 17 with 5hp outboard. My mud berth in Essex is only accessible about 1.5 hours either side of HW and is very near the shore so there's very little room for error. Last week on an incoming tide and with the wind blowing towards the shore I managed to go aground whilst trying to pick up the mooring under power. After a lot of panicky messing about with the anchor and waiting for the tide to float her off I somehow managed to reverse off the shore and onto my mooring. Apart from moving the mooring further away from the shore has anyone any suggestions as to how I should approach my mooring on an incoming tide and with an onshore wind? There are other boats moored nearby so there's not a huge amount of space. Would it make sense to put the bow into the wind and try to reverse onto the mooring? Thanks /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[bobgosling]

Reversing up to your mooring is a perfectly acceptable technique. Just watch out for the danger of getting the pick-up buoy rope around your prop.

 

[ctelfer38]

Hi, trying to picture your situation. Assuming the incoming tide is at right angles to the onshore breeze, approach your mooring bouy from inshore ie with your bow pointing out to deeper water and into the breeze. Aim your bow uptide and to windward of your bouy forward of the beam and as you lose way, your bow will close on the bouy. If you have a crew/he/she can pick up from a point halfway between your mast and stem. If you are single handed, have a long line led from the bow aft to the cockpit and angle your bow more uptide;but keep your bow upwind of the bouy so that as you thread the line from the cockpit, the yacht will fall back with the tide allowing you to walk forward with the line to take in the slack and cleat as you settle to the bouy, If it goes wrong this approach will allow you to abort and escape into deeper water so that you can try again. In all cases as you approach the bouy, bear in mind what escape route you have if you fail to pick up. The latter happens to everybody at some point or other!!. Good luck.
CBT /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[alec]

Just to echo the thoughts of the other contributors.

It is important that we learn things by doing things. Making a mistake is in actual fact a misnomer. All it means is that course of action did not work. There are so many computations in getting in and out of marinas, moorings etc it's great fun in working it all out.

This forum is great for this sort of stuff to get EXTRA ideas. I often find a sketch diagram helps. Wavy line arrow for the tide and ordinary arrow for the wind. Sometimes it may be worth waiting for the right conditions for some stuff. Even the Hornblowers had to do this sometimes.

 

[BlueChip]

Many years ago I had a mooring in that situation. When the wind was stronger than the tide we used to pick up a spare mooring to windward, rig a long slip line and then ease the line out so we dropped back level with our own mooring. Then it was possible to use the motor to 'swing' to the right position to pick up our own mooring, once we were secured we just retrieved the first slip line. This way we had all the time in the world to get it right with no chance of going aground

 

[Allan]

I'm not fully sure of your situation but could you drop your anchor with a tripping line, uptide of your mooring? You could then drop back onto the mooring and then lift the anchor when you are secure.
Allan

 

[William_H]

I occasioanlly have a similar trouble with my mooring where the wind is onto the shore and there is not enough room/depth for normal sailing up into the wind to stop the boat.
The generally used method though very messy is to sail past the mooring at rightangles to the wind and make a grab for the mooring with a hook and hope the person on the bow can make fast before the boat (going too fast) pulls up on the mooring.(or can be rounded up to stp it)

I use a long painter on the dinghy to the mooring to make a large target and a longish rope to pull on board to get around the bow cleat. Hopefully the boat is turned into the wind to slow it down but this often involves over running the mooring. Like (I said very messy.
I imagine having the tide run fast would require the same sort of procedure if it was contrary, so left insufficient room to round up into the tide. The difficulty as I have occasionally found is that sails can remain full and driving even when moored so making it difficult to pull them down. It is all a lot easier with a motor of course.

So not much help but sympathy at least. Not all departures and arrivals are to be proud of just take it as part of sailing. ie it is all crisis management. olewill

 

[Birdseye]

[ QUOTE ]
J
It is important that we learn things by doing things. Making a mistake is in actual fact a misnomer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent. I must remember that for the next time I forget the wedding anniversary. "Sorry dear, but it wasnt a mistake. It was a learning experience"

It probably will be , too! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[pyrojames]

Presumably the tide runs along the shoreline? Or you have little tidal flow? I have a similarly placed mooring which gives me problems at low tide and SW's. If you can sail slowly up tide, across the wind, you may be able to pick up the mooring with little speed over ground but maintaining steerage, alternatively, if the tide is minimal, you may be better off appraoching downwind, sails down and using the outboard astern to slow you up. As the bows tend to blow downwind under power, you should be able to have reasonable control. After pick up, it is going to be a bit messy as you swing to wind/tide!

 

[Pumpkin]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll have no excuse next time I go aground.