Single handed pick up

Seakindly

Seakindly

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Am learning (slowly) the knack of single handing. Finally got a working tiller-pilot and can get on and orf me berth. The pilot means I can dash to the heads and make a brew. Next - picking up a mooring. I'm assuming you tootle slowly head to tide, pick it up with a boathook alongside the cockpit and then walk it forward to secure. Is there a better way? Can we do it? Yes we can! (Tips most welcome).:o
 
Seakindly said:
Am learning (slowly) the knack of single handing. Finally got a working tiller-pilot and can get on and orf me berth. The pilot means I can dash to the heads and make a brew. Next - picking up a mooring. I'm assuming you tootle slowly head to tide, pick it up with a boathook alongside the cockpit and then walk it forward to secure. Is there a better way? Can we do it? Yes we can! (Tips most welcome).:o
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Get yourself one of dem farncy hook/clip thingies n a boathook. That way you can snatch a buoy with no tails, and take your time putting the proper lines through the ring.

Get good at calculating the wind/tide approach vector so you get maximum time at a virtual standstill.

Don't rush, and prepare in loads of time.
 
Hi

I have a large carabiner type hook, on the end of a boat hook, this has a heavy line attached which I hook over the sampson post. I then bring the hook back to the cockpit, then attach to the boat hook.

Bring the boat alongside where you get a good view and its lowest. Hook on to the bouy and a couple of seconds astern.

Walk to bow and take in slack. Pull tight and slip a rope through the bouy and make fast. Remove hook. Easy Peasy. (does need a ring on bouy but I haven't had a problem yet)

Regards

Ian
 
Tiller Pilot on to use the Heads? Well if you are brave. Whenever I do that and get to the point of no return, the tiller pilot goes hard over and TG starts circling. Bit disconcerting if you are under sail. It appears to me that either I have something magnetic in my urine, the pilot has a mind of its own or there is someone shadowing me with a remote control (just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean you are not being followed).

Last time, had just finished collecting some data over the Ray Sand and thought that I would use the heads. The track below is the result! Hard a port started in with perfect correlation to flow (if you follow me):D:D

TillerPilot.jpg


As for picking up moorings, I have discovered that generally speaking that I was the problem. If I stopped TG head to wind or tide or combination, I have plenty of time to walk forward with the boathook and pick up the strops. Now in my dotage I try and see how many times a season I can stop by the buoy without using reverse. But before that - and its been 27 years practice so it ought to be right by now, I have used to caribineer hook that slides off the back of the boathook (very effective - bhut you need slack on the line to undo yourself again - something that caught me out at Stone in a bit of a nasty day), the pick up from the cockpit and even in extremis I have lassoed a buoy from the cockpit. The latter was rather comfortable.
 
Seakindly said:
... Finally got a working tiller-pilot and can get on and orf me berth. The pilot means I can dash to the heads and make a brew...
Click to expand...

That is impressive multitasking, but im not sure we could fit a stove in our loo, still if you can it must save a lot of time
 
One way is to make a large bowline in a line and hang it off a boat-hook so the the loop is open wide. Have the knot at the outer end and grip the loop in the hand holding the boat-hook handle. (Like a P on its side). Just hold the boat-hook out horizontally and drop the loop over the buoy. Then let the boat drop back until the line is taut (it helps to secure the other end of the line to a bow cleat, by the way!). If you make the loop large enough the knot can be brought inboard and untied after the regular buoy rope is secured.
 
Seakindly said:
Am learning (slowly) the knack of single handing. Finally got a working tiller-pilot and can get on and orf me berth. The pilot means I can dash to the heads and make a brew. Next - picking up a mooring. I'm assuming you tootle slowly head to tide, pick it up with a boathook alongside the cockpit and then walk it forward to secure. Is there a better way? Can we do it? Yes we can! (Tips most welcome).:o
Click to expand...

That's how I do it....

...if I've had time to prepare it, I sometimes run a mooring line from the foredeck (secured naturally :D) through the bow roller, and then back to the cockpit on the outside of all the stanchions..... that way you can approach mooring into tide or wind (whichever is greater) - take the cockpit end of the mooring line, slip the end of it through the eye of the buoy, turn off engine, and she'll just slide backwards along the mooring line - you can then secure at your leisure......
 
I'm with Roger, although I haven't done it for a couple of years, if I aimed the good ship at the mooring buoy and witha suitably low speed, one could take a relaxed amble 35 ft forward and retrieve strops. I started off approaching stern first, which also was pretty easy, but you do have to beware prop vs strops....
 
As part of the gear on The Kipper was a large stainless thingy a bit like half a paperclip, at least 2 feet long; it turned out that using it makes picking up a buoy an absolute doddle and if only stopping for lunch the weight of it keeps the line firmly on the buoy. For when the loop is tricky to get at I wish I'd discovered lassoing a buoy years ago - can't think why I never used to try it.
 
Bacon Butty Stop

Ah -the gear. Giant paperclips and the like. I think PBO did a comparison test a while ago. So many to choose from. Some look pretty complicated. I'm more interested in technique but any hook-end compliments and complaints welcome too.....I rather like the lassooing suggestions. Any more gadgets and I'll need a computersied storage system to find the things.
 
I have a 35 ft, lightish (5.5 ton) boat with fin & eliptic rudder, so she's affected more by wind than tide.

I have TWO long (3 or 4m) strops on the bouy. I stop her with the buoy on the leeward side of the bow, walk smartly to the bow, pick up one strop, haul in hard and make fast quickly (not necessarily neatly - ie direct to cleat) before the bow blows away from the buoy. The boat is now secure. Then take 2nd strop through fairlead/roller & make fast. Finally cast off first strop, route it properly & make it fast.

I never allow the buoy further aft than the first stanchion, as I risk all sorts of problems (sailing over it, getting tangled with keel/rudder etc etc)

Works well single-handed in all wind & tide situations (so far) :o
 
rudolph_hart said:
I have a 35 ft, lightish (5.5 ton) boat with fin & eliptic rudder, so she's affected more by wind than tide.

I have TWO long (3 or 4m) strops on the bouy. I stop her with the buoy on the leeward side of the bow, walk smartly to the bow, pick up.... :o
Click to expand...


I wish...I have a mud berth and would like all-states access. Mind you, have discovered ploughing into soft bank so much easier than gingerly coming alongside in a marina. I failed to decline an enthusiatic offer recently and ended up alongside the walkway between two pontoons. :o

If I had a mooring I'd fix it up and practice no end, but they come in several types and circumstances when you arrive somewhere......:eek:
 
Sailing singlehanded is not very different to sailing with a SWMBO who can occasionally do something very odd. Generally, we pick up the mooring somewhere around just abaft the shrouds, though the cockpit is common with singlers. My usual rule is to approach the mooring at the same angle as other boats are lying, especially in wind-against-tide conditions. This may not always be best but is a good rule-of-thumb to start with. In the most extreme conditions, with an impossibly strong wind, the emergency approach is downwind with the motor running slowly in reverse.
 
yes i do it exactly as you describe. my first boat was a 23 footer and it was a doddle just to walk the rope on the buoy forward as the boat fell away with the tide. i expected it to be much more difficult with the new bigger and heavier boat but suprisingly it's not.

just make sure you cleat the buoy rope off smartly before the full power of the tide pulls on the line. my buoy has two ropes so i catch the first one on any old how, then attach the second one properly to the other for'ward cleat, then reattach the first one.
 
ianfr said:
Hi

I have a large carabiner type hook, on the end of a boat hook, this has a heavy line attached which I hook over the sampson post. I then bring the hook back to the cockpit, then attach to the boat hook.

Bring the boat alongside where you get a good view and its lowest. Hook on to the bouy and a couple of seconds astern.

Walk to bow and take in slack. Pull tight and slip a rope through the bouy and make fast. Remove hook. Easy Peasy. (does need a ring on bouy but I haven't had a problem yet)

Regards

Ian
Click to expand...

Me too, except that I don't bother with the boat hook. Just a big carabiner.
 
rudolph_hart said:
I have a 35 ft, lightish (5.5 ton) boat with fin & eliptic rudder, so she's affected more by wind than tide.

I have TWO long (3 or 4m) strops on the bouy. I stop her with the buoy on the leeward side of the bow, walk smartly to the bow, pick up one strop, haul in hard and make fast quickly (not necessarily neatly - ie direct to cleat) before the bow blows away from the buoy. The boat is now secure. Then take 2nd strop through fairlead/roller & make fast. Finally cast off first strop, route it properly & make it fast.

I never allow the buoy further aft than the first stanchion, as I risk all sorts of problems (sailing over it, getting tangled with keel/rudder etc etc)

Works well single-handed in all wind & tide situations (so far) :o
Click to expand...

That's how I do it - usually works fine but occasionally I have to have one or two goes if it's windy or the top of a spring tide. Unless calm I hook one strop on the nearest cleat, get the other on board and then the first. On a couple of times when windy and the top of the tide I've had to winch a strop aboard with the genoa winch. When coming alongside a pontoon I use the centre cleat to secure the boat initially. On moorings with rings on top I use a 'Thread Thro' Hooking Thingy' which works well. Once I did use the lassoo method which again worked OK. Practice makes perfect.
 
I sail single handed quite often. The technique I use for picking up a mooring is to take a very long line and tie both ends onto the foredeck cleat. Then I pass the line through the bowroller and take the bight outside everything back to the cockpit.

I then motor up to the buoy in the same direction as all the other boats and bring the buoy alongside the cockpit. I take as large a bight as possible and throw this over the buoy, so that the line catches the chain just under the buoy. I then cut the engine and let the boat ride back so that the buoy moves towards the bow.

It is then just a matter of getting to the foredeck and take off the slack on the line. If it is a calm night, I leave the single line around the chain, but if a choppy night is expected, I might pull up the buoy onto the foredeck and pass a second line through the buoy's eye. I tend not to trust any lines that are attached to the buoy.

However, I only have a 21 feet boat, and the freeboard is not to high. I am not quite sure whether this technique is practical with large boats and high freeboards.

Ron(Gitane.)
 
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Technique varies for me depending on the mooring... if there is a pickup I just get it near the bow and hoick it on board with the hook...

If I need to run a line then I run one from the bow outside everything and get alongside and put it through... I avoid patented hair curlers and other simular devices as they tend to add complexity.... KISS...

IF the moorings a real problem and I cant get to the eye... then throw the line over and attatch a second at my leisure.


In fowey a couple of years ago I was by myself... came in and found a bouy and was tied up with beer in two minutes flat.... neighbor commented that he was dissapointed there wasnt more of a show.... he neednt have worried as ten minutes later another came in... 2 couples... on couple on bow with patented thing.... took them 15 minutes of dicking around before they were on.

Same trip on the Helford... which has huge balls with big heavy chain pickups.... wind against tide... blowing quite a bit... there was a row of 5 empty visitors and as I was blown past each one in turn I kept missing until finally in desperation as I went past the last one I thru the wheel hard over... she roundup around the bouy and ended up resting alongside upwind... being pushed on... and that gave me enough time to snag the pick up and wrestle it over the bow.... upside being I accidentally discovered a good way to do a pickup!
 
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