Single Handed onto a Pontoon in Strong Wind

Not so radical! I have a fairly large cat which has very little keel effect so blows away very fast. I single hand her all the time and invariably back in. I rig a bow and stern rope aft and have a mooring hook which will catch a cleat on the end of a pole. with the engine backing me in I drop this hook over to tether the stern, chuck the bow rope over then go ashore and attach it to the bow cleat. I have then rigged the windlass with a pully to wind my bow in.... Where there is a will there is a way!
 
I think Yachting Monthly had an article on exactly this last month - a pontoon landing with strong wind off, with limited space fore and aft for run in.

They suggested that you reverse up to the pontoon and put a line - either from the nearest stern cleat in lighter winds, or a midship cleat (or perhaps your cockpit winches) in stronger winds. Then just motor ahead and you will be brought along side. Consider the effect of tide on whether you come in on port or starboard, and use a balanc of power and steering to keep the boat firmly alongside whilst you tie up.

We used this method to get on the pontoons last year at Wicor with strong offshore winds. - It works well and the boat does all the work.
 
Yeah fine assuming you have a damn great pontoon all to yourself. Try it when you are the middle catamaran out of three /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif I wish!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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Yeah fine assuming you have a damn great pontoon all to yourself. Try it when you are the middle catamaran out of three /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif I wish!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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Mike - this is the whole point of this technique. I had only just over a boats length to get into. This allows you to do it. You will need to work out the geometrics, however I appreciate that a beamy cat may make it somewhat tighter to acheive!!!
 
One of my joys of having a s.mooring also at Wicor' is that problems like mooring are usually much simplified.
Mind you, I would like to see YM trying to back up to a pontoon in most long keelers, especially mine.

The answer.....once you have various solutions to different mooring problems, is to have lots and lots of practice., but I bet most of us don't.
 
however I appreciate that a beamy cat may make it somewhat tighter to acheive!!!
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Er Yes! If I were to motor forward at all I would ram the boat in front. I have had monohulls for years but nothing (apart from possibly a Tesco shopping trolley with a wheel off) is a difficult to park as a wide cat with a single engine.
 
is to have lots and lots of practice., but I bet most of us don't.
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Speak for yourself! I have been fooking it up for over 40 years........ /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
Well I've bin fortunate to be practising for nearly 60 yrs and I see many a boat handling c'up before it actually happens.. Not to say it all goes right for me even now, because it doesn't! But I guess that most of my practicing came from playing in boats almost every day as a kid and working afloat for most of my years.
Having been lucky enough to have been brought up with boats and latterly yachts it seems I have a 6th sense for things at times.

e.g. I was standing alongside the Thames yesterday at Shiplake watching a young rowing crew getting ready to go afloat.
They put the boat in the water with an offshore wind......
They turned a few yards to get there oars and ...... can you guess it?
Their coxless 4 was already several yards offshore when they turned back, out of reach even with their long oars. I could see it all in my mind, way before it all went wrong.
Luckily a coaching launch some 500M away saw their plight and came to their rescue.
 
The trouble with getting things wrong at Bradwell, and some other East coast marinas, is that there are no proper cleats on the pontoons only those silly half hoops. This means it is not possible to quickly take a turn around a cleat to check the boat, with a turn or 2 you can hold the boat fairly easily even if it is still trying to motor away from you.
 
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Mind you, I would like to see YM trying to back up to a pontoon in most long keelers, especially mine.

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Scotty, most long keelers won't go where they are told to in reverse, however, you should be able to reverse straight into the wind as the bow weathercocks, so this is the one and only direction you should be able to rely on.... CRASHHHHH!!!!!

Like you, we are now on a swinger, so much, much easier.
 
Agree with DJE.

On many bigger modern boats stern-to is the way to go if singlehanded and windy. By the time you get from the wheel to amidships or forward there's a three foot gap. Get one stern line on (step right off the sugarscoop with it (two seconds from the wheel) and as soon as the line is made off windage on the mast will hold her quite steady, stern on. Sort it all out later, using winch or anchor windlass to pull the bow in at leisure.

I've been known to pick up mooring from the transom as well - the sort of boats (most new ones) that the bow blows off fast at low speeds usually handle nicely astern.
 
That was no problem for me at Bradwell, I never got into the marina! My problem with a night approach was losing the channel withies (years ago!) on a falling spring high at night. We thought we'd leave early next morning, but we had to wait a whole bank Hol Monday watching everyone else leave & hope we got free at HW Spring next day.

Of course we pretended it was all part of the plan.
 
While the centre cleat/chainplate technique works OK for me, its probably also wroth just accepting that there are certain conditions and certain berths when its nearly not possible to go directly onto a difficult berth that you're being blown off.

In F7+ I wouldn't consider trying to get onto the berth where I keep my boat single handed, and its challenging even with 2 people (tight space between 2 other boats fore and aft). So I just find a way to initially go alongside somewhere easier and pull her in the last few metres with the mooring lines. I have a few favourite ways, and usually there is a way to do that somehow.

So for me its sometimes a case of being aware of your own limitations especially single handed and trying to find a way to avoid the difficult situation rather than improved technique ... or maybe I'm just a crap boat handler /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Having someone already on the pontoon who knows what they are doing is always the easiest case (even easier than having crew).


Chris
 
JuSw

I sympathise with your problem. Our last boat was a twin keel Hunter Ranger 265. At low speed the short keels lost their grip and she used to blow sideways quite rapidly in a strong wind. Then when you go astern to get out into the fairway to have another go the bow would blow off alarmingly.

I never tried singlehanded berthing in the 265. Two up was exciting enough. I find that a fin keel 33 footer is much easier to handle but the loads in the lines are greater when you mess up!

I fully agree with the other comments about rigging up some attachment midships. A block on a line from the shroud attachment that would allow the block to lie near the toe rail could perhaps be used to lead the end of the stop line back to a winch or cleat in the cockpit.

It is very useful to use a light pole about 2 m long (I use a 25 mm aluminium tube with sealed ends but a boathook would be fine). You use this to hold out the stop line to lasso the end cleat on the pontoon without having to step off your boat until it is well secured. I usually lead the line with the lasso in the end through a block tied on top of the centre cleat then back to the sheet winch. I can then winch the boat in to the pontoon. The pole is tied with light cord to the stop rope near to the knot forming the lasso. To make the lasso, a bowline tied around the standing part works well and its grip can be adjusted to hold the lasso open but will pull up tight around the cleat when under tension. The pole can be tossed onto the pontoon out of the way once the cleat has been caught.

A development of this is to fit a length of pvc tubing on the line to form (and hold open) the loop.

The theory is all very well but I recon that most of us just do not get enough practice.
 
Thanks all for your comments / tips - I have a few ideas and I'm keen to have another go.

I like the idea of reversing but going backwards in Treble C always seems a very inexact science. It's either me or the boat, but she seems very difficult to steer in reverse and the bow blows off course very easily - this makes turning in narrow marina situations somewhat difficult.

Normally I moor on a swinging mooring so pontoons etc. are a rarity and I guess not practised enough.

Anyway - Thanks again

JuSw
 
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