Securing to a visitors mooring

[Dino]

Hi, I’m planning a big cruise this year and I expect to use a fair few visitors moorings. I picked up a Kong mooring pick up shackle to help attach to the mooring but I was wondering how people usually secure themselves to the ring on the mooring.
I usually run a line from each bow cleat through the eye and back, so two lines.
While clearing out some presses on the boat I found some heavy 3 strand rope with eyes spliced at each end and a stainless thimble fitted. Would this be suitable for use with a large stainless snap shackle?

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Use the boat hook of your choice to thread a line through the top shackle or eyelet, if there is no pick up line. Secure to the boat so you have a loop through the eye. This is temporary. Thread another line through, and bring it back to the boat. On this line, tie a big loop using a bowline from the convenience of your deck. let the boat fall back so that the bowline is now taking the strain of the boat and cleat off such that the line is running through your stem head fitting. Now adjust the original loop line so that it hangs slack but is secured at each side of the bow. This is your back up line.

Hanging from a single line, even with a bowline, reduces any wear on your line from chafing as the boat yaws about the mooring. The other line is a back up and allows for easy slipping when it comes to leave.

Some people use a line with a section of chain spliced in the middle and threaded through the eye on the mooring buoy.

Edit: corrections to text to clarify and correct procedure.

 

[wonkywinch]

We've got a Buoycatcher, really easy to poke the ring and get a line through, even if it's heavy or stiff to lift off the buoy. Just poke it with the catcher and bring your first line back. Set and adjust everything else at your leisure.

No connection to the business but found these work well especially if the wind is blowing the bow off quickly when you're trying to moor up.

Buoycatcher: the ultimate boat hooks & mooring accessories.

 

[ylop]

I've never used a snap shackle as you described (although if your trip is as far as W of Scotland you may be pleasantly surprised that most visitor moorings come with penants and pickups these days). My experience of snap shackles in marine environments is depending on design they can open when you don't want, or seize when you want to be able to release. A quick "clip" sounds easy when its calm - but when the weather picks up and you are bouncing round whilst hanging over the bow you might be wishing you could just slip a rope.

 

[dunedin]

…..
While clearing out some presses on the boat I found some heavy 3 strand rope with eyes spliced at each end and a stainless thimble fitted. Would this be suitable for use with a large stainless snap shackle?

No. Never use a snap shackle to secure to a mooring, unless as a temporary expediency for connecting whilst fit proper mooring ropes.

 

[Skik op reis]

Hi, I’m planning a big cruise this year and I expect to use a fair few visitors moorings. I picked up a Kong mooring pick up shackle to help attach to the mooring but I was wondering how people usually secure themselves to the ring on the mooring.
I usually run a line from each bow cleat through the eye and back, so two lines.
While clearing out some presses on the boat I found some heavy 3 strand rope with eyes spliced at each end and a stainless thimble fitted. Would this be suitable for use with a large stainless snap shackle?

We always have one line and a spare one just a little bit longer. Just in case.
By the way we always pick up the mooring from aside, out of the cockpit (with a mooringhook). And then bring the line to the bow. Picking up from the bow often fails.

 

[Dino]

Great information folks, thanks.

 

[johnalison]

If staying overnight I arranged things to avoid chafe. I make fast with a single line through the ring and back to the boat and bring it up tight and tie to a cleat. I then pass the loop from a second line through the ring, bring the loop back to the boat with a boathook, and pass the tail end through the loop. I then pull on the tail end, dropping the loop down to form a sort of cow-hitch on the ring. I then make fast with this line and slacken the first line to act as a back-up. As a refinement, I attach a light line to the loop, which I can later use to pull the loop up when leaving the mooring. This is all much easier to do than to explain, and is much kinder on the mooring lines.

 

[NormanS]

Hi, I’m planning a big cruise this year and I expect to use a fair few visitors moorings. I picked up a Kong mooring pick up shackle to help attach to the mooring but I was wondering how people usually secure themselves to the ring on the mooring.
I usually run a line from each bow cleat through the eye and back, so two lines.
While clearing out some presses on the boat I found some heavy 3 strand rope with eyes spliced at each end and a stainless thimble fitted. Would this be suitable for use with a large stainless snap shackle?

A line from each bow fairlead, passing through the eye on the buoy, is the WORST way. If you rig a line that way, it saws back and forward through the eye, and will chafe through quite quickly. I seldom use visitor moorings, and as said, most of the Scottish ones have a pennant on them, but I do have a dedicated line for those that don't. It is two lines, each having an end spliced to the ends of about a metre of chain. The idea is to have the chain through the eye of the buoy, and both lines coming aboard over the second bow roller, and then each one being made fast to cleats port and starboard. Having both lines coming aboard over the one bow roller, or fairlead, if you don't have twin rollers, prevents any sawing at the buoy.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

There aren't a lot of moorings without mooring strops attached any more. Pretty much all of them have one. They used to be a feature of council free moorings but most of those have gone. A few free ones still exist like Brodick and Millport but they have strops too now.

 

[Skik op reis]

A line from each bow fairlead, passing through the eye on the buoy, is the WORST way. If you rig a line that way, it saws back and forward through the eye, and will chafe through quite quickly. I seldom use visitor moorings, and as said, most of the Scottish ones have a pennant on them, but I do have a dedicated line for those that don't. It is two lines, each having an end spliced to the ends of about a metre of chain. The idea is to have the chain through the eye of the buoy, and both lines coming aboard over the second bow roller, and then each one being made fast to cleats port and starboard. Having both lines coming aboard over the one bow roller, or fairlead, if you don't have twin rollers, prevents any sawing at the buoy.

That was my initial reaction to. But then after second reading, I noticed that Dino wrote about two lines. So one from each bow cleat.

 

[sigma38dave]

Lasso the buoy, sort lines out at you leisure…

 

[Skik op reis]

Slightly off topic: mooring buoys can give a lot of fun for spectators. Mostly the man steers while he sends the lady of the ship towards the bow, armed with a boathook. But the buoy is in the blind angle and the skipper is afraid to touch it. So milady can't reach the buoy. He is getting mad because the darned women seems not to be able to do a simple task. She than accuses him for bad manouvring. Stress all around. The coming night wont be very romantic...
So you'd better pick it from the side, both of you near eachother in a much more teameffort situation.
How I've learned this is my secret. But This year we will be sailing together for fifty years. And she still likes to come with me every now and then.

 

[Stemar]

Lasso the buoy, sort lines out at you leisure…

I won't thank you for lassoing my buoy. It puts strain on it that it was never designed to take

 

[rotrax]

Hi, I’m planning a big cruise this year and I expect to use a fair few visitors moorings. I picked up a Kong mooring pick up shackle to help attach to the mooring but I was wondering how people usually secure themselves to the ring on the mooring.
I usually run a line from each bow cleat through the eye and back, so two lines.
While clearing out some presses on the boat I found some heavy 3 strand rope with eyes spliced at each end and a stainless thimble fitted. Would this be suitable for use with a large stainless snap shackle?

After nearly losing our new-to us-boat off Glengariff when the bridle chafed through on the rusty ring, I made a bridle with a metre of chain in the centre. Works perfectly, no chance of that chafing through. PM me if it might be of use - I wont be needing it uo the Grand Union Canal!

 

[sigma38dave]

I won't thank you for lassoing my buoy. It puts strain on it that it was never designed to take

The smiley face was a clue!

 

[jdc]

Chafe works both ways. I don't like chafe on my buoy's galvanising either!

So don't put chain through my buoy's ring, instead I prefer that you tie a bowline to it - if using rope - or attach chain via a shackle. It's only a matter of moments to do this.

 

[NormanS]

Chafe works both ways. I don't like chafe on my boy's galvanising either!

So don't put chain through my buoy's ring, instead I prefer that you tie a bowline to it - if using rope - or attach chain via a shackle. It's only a matter of moments to do this.

How many visitor moorings do you own?

 

[RunAgroundHard]

How many visitor moorings do you own?

Even if he owns one, it’s a valid point.

 

[NormanS]

Even if he owns one, it’s a valid point.

If a bridle with chain in the middle is rigged properly, with both legs brought back aboard to a single fairlead or roller, there will be no more chafe than there would be with a shackle.