Shore lines ... how long?

Bav34

Bav34

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Do you have a 'one-size-suits-all' approach and carry two mega-lengths for your size of boat, meaning that most of the time they are too long, or have you reached a happy compromise whereby on the odd occasion when you are (say) rafted a long way out, you join other ropes together?

To put that in context, our boat is approx. 12 1/2 feet wide. From memory we have only ever been rafted out 5 deep ... and are always rafted onto boats of similar size. This gives a length required of 4 x 12' (the inside boats) plus 'a bit' for tying around cleats plus angle of dangle TO the cleats ... 60' should do it ???

If you had 100 feet it would obviously be more than enough but you would still have 40 feet not being used and even more and more rope to man-handle, the less and less boats you have inside you.

Typical places for rafting for us are The Folly, Yarmouth (not for much longer :() , Lymington Town Quay, picking up the mooring buoys in Lymington ... long stern line needed, Weymouth, Guernsey and a few places around France .... Lezardrieux and Isle Chausey (bouys) spring to mind.

Oh, and we literally once got caught short in the lock in St Malo :rolleyes:

Having just sold our over-length and too-thick shore lines I'd be interested in your views.

TIA
 
Bav34 said:
Do you have a 'one-size-suits-all' approach and carry two mega-lengths for your size of boat, meaning that most of the time they are too long, or have you reached a happy compromise whereby on the odd occasion when you are (say) rafted a long way out, you join other ropes together?

To put that in context, our boat is approx. 12 1/2 feet wide. From memory we have only ever been rafted out 5 deep ... and are always rafted onto boats of similar size. This gives a length required of 4 x 12' (the inside boats) plus 'a bit' for tying around cleats plus angle of dangle TO the cleats ... 60' should do it ???

If you had 100 feet it would obviously be more than enough but you would still have 40 feet not being used and even more and more rope to man-handle, the less and less boats you have inside you.

Typical places for rafting for us are The Folly, Yarmouth (not for much longer :() , Lymington Town Quay, picking up the mooring buoys in Lymington ... long stern line needed, Weymouth, Guernsey and a few places around France .... Lezardrieux and Isle Chausey (bouys) spring to mind.

Oh, and we literally once got caught short in the lock in St Malo :rolleyes:

Having just sold our over-length and too-thick shore lines I'd be interested in your views.

TIA
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For locks(Caledonian) 2x 25mtrs to to bollards and back amidships.

For tidal harbours alongside, 4 x 25mts. Rafted up, same lines do the job.


Rafted up 5 deep to pontoon i kyleakin wtg for F11 to go through ,I had to supply shorelines to 3(I was inside boat) and to 3 on other rafts. It always amazes me to see people who have £100,OOO boats,££££ of electronic gizmos---and tie up with bits of old sheets!

You can't carry enough rope!
 
I bought 33M of 12mm octoplat a couple of months ago and can't decide how to cut it up.

Tides aren't a problem, rafting up isn't either, folk just don't do it round here, well not much.

It's an 8M boat so I was thinking cut it in 3 equal lengths. I do have a 12M 14mm octoplat too but it's a tad large for my cleats.

I tried to get an idea how long the existing old sheets I'm currently using are and found that they are all different and about 7M to 11M so that excersise wasn't much help.

So, 2X15M or 3X11M or 4x8M? what do you think?

Bob.

I would keep seperate long lines for those occasions I wasn't marina/pontoon bound as Ludd does.
 
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Bav34 said:
Oh, and we literally once got caught short in the lock in St Malo :rolleyes:

Having just sold our over-length and too-thick shore lines I'd be interested in your views.

TIA
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I am no ocean traveller but I do like to have two 25m lines aboard.

As you say St Malo is one good example where they are really needed, but I guess any sea lock used by ships may be similar.

Jersey is another case. Waiting for the lock, daft rafts often run the risk of hitting each other. A brand new 45 footer came alongside once when I about 6 boats out. The yoofs in charge could only produce a few bits of 10m dinghy tackle, so a long line was just the ticket.

Having to join stuff takes time, tends to snag, pick up things from the water and can look a little amateur.
The lines can be pretty small stuff for ease of stowage.
 
>You can't carry enough rope!

There is a lot of truth in that.

The answer to the first post is it depends on the size of the boat (e.g distance from forward cleat to dock cleat plus turns, spring - length of boat plus turns), accomodating all forms of tieing up and weather.

For example:
Tied alongside you will need bow line, stern line, two springs.
Tied bows to a pontoon you will need two bow lines, one stern line and two springs.
Tied bows to a dock with a buoy aft two bow lines, one indeterminate length to the buoy.
Tied outside other boats bow line, stern line, two springs, two lines to shore of indeterminate length.

On the weather front, we're sitting in Portugal tied to a pontoon with strong winds blowing. All our lines are doubled up.

We carry two 30 M lines, two twenty M, four 15 M, two ten M and two five M.
 
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two lines to shore of indeterminate length. [/QUOTE said:
Ah, but that's my question :)

Did you walk into a Chandlers one day and order 'an indeterminate length of shoreline please' or does everybody just order 2 x 100 feet and put up with the excess 99% of the time, but are pleased to not have to join ropes the odd times it's needed?
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two lines to shore of indeterminate length. [/QUOTE said:
>Ah, but that's my question

Sorry that wasn't clear. In some instances you won't necessarily know the required lengths, especially if you are visiting somewhere new. Hence we carry more than one rope in a broad range of sizes.

If we arrive in a new place we tend to get the longer ropes out then change them to'fit'. I suppose the bottom line is no rope can be too long, only too short.
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aquaplane said:
I bought 33M of 12mm octoplat a couple of months ago and can't decide how to cut it up.
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I had a similar problem having bought a 70m length of 3-ply from a very nice lady forumite, no longer into sailing.

Thought about several options, and decided to keep it in one piece. I only use it for shore lines although it would also make a good anchor rode or drogue line.

Just keep the whole coil on the boat, feed out from each end to the shore as required, with the balance left on deck.

It's a bit of a spaghetti heap afterwards, but I have mastered the art of coiling around two dorade vents on the coach roof.
 
I keep 2 80m 3-ply 16mm in the bottom of the cockpit locker,which are held together with ty-wraps,just in case. They see light of day each year when I tidy up. You never know.
I have 2 30m spring lines, 2 20m spring lines, 4 10m breast lines.

This is mainly because I always rig the boat for mooring either side, as Marina staff have frequently given me duff info on which side to I will be parked.

Being the reason I have 14 fenders too, perhaps.:cool:
 
Onboard the beloved boat as seen below.

We had 6 60 feet lines for springs and bow stern lines but we also had two 90 feet lines of lines for special pontoons.

I lines were about an inch in width I seem to recall
 
Nuages said:
The rule of thumb has always been that warps should be one and a half times the boat length.
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Yes I agree the Hinckley yard in Portsmouth Rhode Island gave this advice also. but most of the time we used 4 of our 6 working lines for all disco docking precedures.
 
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We have enough on board to safely raft 5 boats out.

But I've come to the conclusion that no matter how long a shoreline is, they could always be a 1/2 a metre longer ;)

To get to the five boat length we have lines that 4 lines that will take us 3 boats out each, I prefer it this way (joining lines when necessary) so that when we are only 3 boat we don't have the same length again cluttering up the boat.

It might not be the prettiest sight with the joined ropes (from old sheets, but they do the job), but I'm not a pretty sight either!:D

Personally as long as the lines are doing the job they are intended to do they can looks as tatty as they want. Far better having them, than none at all
 
I have a few lines about 25m long and the rest around 10 to 15m, all around 14mm diameter. I then have the kedge anchor cable - approx 50m of 14mm 3 strand stuff. Used to use old sheets (& sometimes still do) but nice nylon does reduce the shock loading on others and my boat.
 
I firmly subscribe to the principle of 'one rope, one job' and a rule of thumb I was given years ago - can't remember who or where - is to carry a minimum of:

4 warps equivalent to boat LOA
2 warps of LOA x 1.5
2 warps of minimum LOA x 2

That's certainly worked for us, although the locker seems to have accumulated a bit more in the intervening years!
 
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