Single handed mooring system

[claymore]

I thought I'd share this one with you
If trying to pick up a mooring buoy on your own run a line (non-floating) from the foredeck cleat out over the bow and then along the side of the boat to the stern fairlead and thence to the stern cleat so you have a length of line running down the side of the boat
Come alongside the desired mooring buoy and throw the line out over the bouy. It sinks below the buoy and as the boat starts to drift downwind/tide, the buoy ends up at the bow so you can do a proper job on it in your own time.


<hr width=100% size=1><font color=purple>regards
Claymore<font color=purple>
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[Mirelle]

Another suggestion

Mirelle is a "classic shaped" yot with overhanging bow and counter stern. The buoy would pop out of the rope, I'm sure.

Sailing in Hong Kong, in the 80's, I observed the heights, or depths, of mooring decadence when the buoy rope was held up for the boat by a lady in a sampan!

Assuming that few of us can afford the staff for that, these days, the quite common American practice of using a dan buoy as a pick up buoy, so you need not use a boathook, seems to have something to commend it.



<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[longjohnsadler]

How clever! Did you think this one up yourself?

On the other hand, too short and it won't work; too long and you might just catch the prop (unless you were a dead-eyed dick)? Just trying to think of all the angles.

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[Guest]

a good variation and worth remembering on the old throw a bight over the buoy trick ....

well done - its now in my handy-hints book !!

<hr width=100% size=1>Nigel ... and of course Yahoo groups :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gps-navigator/

 

[cameronke]

Nice one Claymore

Will try it out this weekend and report back.


Many thanks
Cameron

<hr width=100% size=1>Work to live, live to sail

 

[claymore]

Necessity being the master of invention - anyway - who are you calling a dead-eyed dick you skiver of family celebrations?

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Claymore<font color=purple>
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[claymore]

Re: Another suggestion

Was that at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club? I ran some courses for them in Hebe Haven and out by Repulse Bay in 1992. I remember all the Sampans in the corner by the main Yacht Club base

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Claymore<font color=purple>
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[longjohnsadler]

OK I admit the 'dead-eyed' part was probably not applicable.

And who am I to question the genesis of such a Handy Hint?

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[Mirelle]

The Humble Persons\' Sampan Association

(so called after a debate about whether the "Royal" should be dropped from the name in 1997 - Commodre wanted it dropped, membership rejected the proposal - compromise is that the "Royal" only appears in the Club's English name!)

Yes, precisely.

I was very struck by this when visiting the place in 1982 when a lawyer friend invited me for a sail on his boat in the evening series. Two years later I moved there, sailed a lot on the company's William Garden ketch, (complete with paid hand) and started to regard this as "the normal way of things"!

My proudest moment was when I took the boat out myself fior a quick once round the island; Ah Ming settled himself on the side deck with the racing pages and only looked up when his wife handed me the buoy rope!

Hong Kong being Hong Kong, their two children, brought up on the family sampan in the typhoon shelter, went to University in the USA. Another tale of the same typhoon shelter records that two English nuns lived there from 1941-45 unknown to the Japanese, since they never once set foot ashore!



<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[claymore]

Its time for me to make my Exodus from this thread - I never claimed it was my idea - did i? I merely passed it and having given it a whirl - probably around the time that prevailing climatic conditions were rendering the Artful Dodger not only peeing in the wind but also being covered in techniclour yawn. It does work and so thats why I passed it on - My name is Claymore - NOT Parahandy and so the thought never entered my head to slap some form of patent on the idea. Anyway - don't you have flowers to tend?

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Claymore<font color=purple>
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[AuntyRinum]

I've always used a variation on this. Thread a long bow line through the buoy ring while it's alongside the cockpit. Then attach the bowline to the stern. Once you've done that you are firmly attached to the buoy and the boat will slowly fall back until the buoy is at the bow. You can then sort it all out and tie up properly.

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[claymore]

Very similar solution - what if there's only a pick up buoy rather than a ring - do you go through that?

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Claymore<font color=purple>
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[AuntyRinum]

If you catch it with a boathook you'll find a ring somewhere!

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[claymore]

I think we are moving away from the system I described here - the idea is to dispense with the boathook and my question to you was if there is no mooring ring on the top of the mooring buoy but there is a strop with a pick up buoy on it - do you take your line and feed it through the pick up buoy handle then tie it off to your stern cleat?

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Claymore<font color=purple>
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[AuntyRinum]

Not if I didn't think it was strong enough. Whatever seems right at the time. This method's always worked for me, I suggest it for what it's worth. Not suggesting your method isn't ok. My way means that, if using a boathook, from the cockpit you are nearer to the water and it makes life easier - less height to haul the thing up than if you are on the bow and you can stay in control of the boat.

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[cameronke]

Hello again Claymore

Been thinking more on your original suggestion all day. My buoy (this year) doesnt have a ring and as I usually sail solo, has been quite challenging catching the buoy by attempting to get the boat hook under and catching the rope.

That is why I am so excited about this!

Have some thoughts on semi-automatic systems ("adding value" hopefully to your original suggestion!) and will get back to you all if the idea matures

Regards
Cameron

<hr width=100% size=1>Work to live, live to sail

 

[Tomsk]

I have occasionally taken my boat out single handed (flybridge mobo) and have a habit of bringing bowline along oneside (outside of forward rails / stanchions) to the rear of the flybridge to ease mooring on my marina pontoon (beam on), as this can be either release quickly and taken ashore after attaching a sternline. I can now see that it would work equally well when taking a swinging mooring which I have had to avoid in anything other than mill pond conditions!

Thanks Claymore!

<hr width=100% size=1>Tomsk -

Can I leave the planet please.. this one is broken!

 

[Mirelle]

Through eye in strop, not through pickup buoy

My mooring buoy has no eye on it, as a matter of policy - I don't trust steel rods through plastic buoys - although EYE, to name one well known specialist, say they prefer the strop to come from under the buoy with an eye on the top of the buoy to be grabbed in a hurry, case need, which seems like the best of both worlds.

I still fancy the American "dan buoy as pickup buoy" idea - anything wrong with it? Why do we never do that here?

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[claymore]

Re: Through eye in strop, not through pickup buoy

"I still fancy the American "dan buoy as pickup buoy" idea - anything wrong with it? Why do we never do that here? "
Thats the oddest thing - I helped put a boat back on a mooring a couple of weeks ago and they'd used this system - I thought then it was a good idea - is it common in the US?


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Claymore<font color=purple>
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[peterb]

The commonest type of mooring in Baltic waters is a stern buoy, to which you attach a long warp as you pass it on your way to securing your bow to a pontoon, bank, island or whatever. Most boats need to keep some way on to be able to maintain control, so you need to be able to secure to the buoy very quickly. If you're very quick and certain with your bowlines it can be done, but most boats either pass a slip or use a specially designed hook. (Incidentally, the system can only be used in non-tidal waters; that's why you don't see it in the UK.)

Swedish and Finnish chandlers keep several variants of this hook. The most common version has a shaft about a metre long made from stainless steel rod. On one end of the rod there is an eye for a warp; on the other is an elongated hook about 30cm long and about 10cm across. To engage the hook just reach down, catch the eye on the buoy, then let the warp run. The weight of the rod causes the shaft to drop so that the hook doesn't come undone. Once the bow is secure the tension on the warp keeps the hook secure. Some versions have a locking device, but most seem quite safe without.

I've never seen such a hook in the UK, but it does seem that it would be a simple way of single handed mooring. Run a warp forward from the bitter end in the cockpit through the stem head fitting, then back outside everything to the hook which is kept in the cockpit. Bring the cockpit alongside the buoy, hook on, then pull on the bitter end to pull the buoy up to the bow. It's a technique I've often used by tying the warp to the buoy, but an easily handled hook would be much simpler.

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