Stern to using midship cleats for 'bow replacement'

[Jamesuk]

Hi,

We just pulled into a town quay and were provided ground lines, but when I reached the bow the angle of the line was very tight and so had we been an 80ft yacht instead of 63 we probably would have had them going down at almost vertical from the cleat. Im used to ground lines being long and progressively hard to pull in. These were like I was pulling on the concrete/screw mooring block directly.

One chap on a boat next door suggested using the mid ship cleats. Any thoughts on tying up a boat with 30ft of yacht to the bo,w unattached. Or perhaps one on the mid ship and one at the bow?

Having only done this when not enough boats had ground lines (Sunsail) we would use mid ships cleats to act in principle as the same as this chap mentioned but on other yachts (springs) but nothing larger than a light 45footer we have 37 tonnes to consider. Having already made the dock mans pontoon ring look like an egg......

Cheers

Ps the proper way to have done it: ahh we have a problem ok we will come back in but this time drop the anchor then collect the lazy lines as back up.

 

[Hoolie]

We've done that, but our boat is shorter and lighter than yours. Surely it depends on what you have around you and if the weather is set fair. Dropping an anchor by a town quay may give more problems than taking a chance on mid-ship cleats ... ...

 

[Jamesuk]

We've done that, but our boat is shorter and lighter than yours. Surely it depends on what you have around you and if the weather is set fair. Dropping an anchor by a town quay may give more problems than taking a chance on mid-ship cleats ... ...

We have a concrete dock astern, a 40ft racy type of charter boat next door. Looking at all the moorng around then yes i do agree dropping an anchor would be a risk but i worked at Sunsail and I know what poor stern to moorings does to the back of boats!! Its not my boat so id rather drop the anchor with a nice fender makng it, and have a problem with it in the mornng but know its secure over night than the 'suggestion'.

We have dropped an anchor in Menorca (near Mahon) and brought up something to 5 metres below the waterline that can only be described as something left over from Nelsons era .

As i left the boat, the lazy lines are tight but a steep angle but not unlike an anchor chain at rest with a steady breeze. We then used the winches to pull the stern in to make it fixed better. The area is very well sheltered we were here in 2011 with a force 7 and the waves were that you would get at the top Of Southampton water ways (Marchwood) during a northerly gale.


Anyway cheers for the reply, at Sunsail i got the tshirt for all these ways but applied to a bigger yacht many principles go out the window that are learnt at sunsail.