Stern too Mooring warp chafe - Greece

[little_roundtop]

I fully agree with Jim's last comment here. I'm currently wintering on the island of Crete; the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the entire Mediterranean. There is only one good marina here and three other ports with pontoons and lazy lines (though one is unsafe in strong northerlies and the other two are mostly full of local boats - normal stuff in Greece).

Anchor down and stern-to a concrete quay is the norm in Greece. My view on leaving a stern-to berth in a hurry though is that if I am so afraid for the safety of my boat that I need to leave that quickly I'd just dump my lines on the quay and go. Yes they are expensive but they're a sight cheaper than the cost of the boat!

In 7 years cruising in Greece and Turkey I've never had to leave a stern-to quay in that much of a hurry. As Jim mentioned, the locals generally know if unsafe weather is coming and they will let you know that you should leave now. If you ask them nicely they will also tell you where to go to be safe in the expected weather.

 

[MapisM]

Greece is different!
...

I see, thanks for your explanations.
I guess I'll stick to my current boating grounds for another decade or so, thank you!
We just had a sustained F8 SE (which is the worst direction in my marina, the only one which builds up some waves) wind, for most of last night and this morning.
We still slept nicely, and spent the morning onboard, checking emails and making phone calls!

 

[Caladh]

...nice that you able to afford your marina space in Italy !

 

[Chris_Robb]

I absolutely didn't, and can only renew my apologies: that definitely wasn't the idea.
You know, even if my English grammar is not too bad (I hope), it's still a foreign language for myself, and this makes it difficult to anticipate whether a comment, as you say, will "read well" or not.

That said, I'm a bit puzzled.
Both yourself and jimbaerselman are now talking of anchoring, which is not what you normally do within a marina/harbour.
Indeed I had to pull the hook and move elsewhere, sometimes in the middle of the night, due to poor weather forecasts. I can remember of a couple of times when it was also somewhat scary, with the boat (mind, all the 35 tons of her!) jumping up and down more than one meter, spray all over the bow, and 50m or so of chain to recover.
But I wasn't tied stern to, just anchored in some bays. So, the only problem was to pull the anchor.
I can't think of any Med marina, among those I've visited, where if worse comes to worst it would be better to move in the middle of the chaos.
Otoh, maybe that's the case in Greece, I don't know - hence my question.

Anyhow, at the end of the day, even if I can see the rationale behind your suggestion, I would rather stick to my usual setup - chains, as others mentioned. If and when I would actually experience the conditions you mention - hopefully never, fingers crossed - I can always leave lines, springs and chains behind me, and return to pick them up afterwards...

Hi - no offence taken, but it just shows you how easy it is the be taken the wrong way on these forums!!!!

In term of anchoring, as Jim says, its using your own anchor stern too. So you have lots of potential risks, - bad holding (I avoid) the boat next door badly anchored etc etc, so I feel that it is necessary always to have an exit plan, hopefully never needed.

I must say, I always feel much safer free swinging on an anchor.

 

[ccscott49]

To be honest in Greece (ionian islands) we tend to anchor out everywhere, prefering that to the melee in nice ports. I have a nice big rib in davits, so use that to go to town, dont need water, make my own and dont need leccy either, so anchoring out is the way to go for us. With just the two of us and 57' its the way to go.

 

[MapisM]

...nice that you able to afford your marina space in Italy !

Well, yes of course, but you'd be surprised by the cost range you can find around here for marina spaces.
There are a few which are even less expensive than mine, but also others which are as much as 10 times dearer!

 

[MapisM]

I always feel much safer free swinging on an anchor.

+2 (I also agree with ccscott on his other views).
No experience of Greece yet, but that's what I did 90% of the time during my Croatian years.

 

[KellysEye]

>Alternatively, just thread a 30cm length of plastic pipe over each mooring line

That's what we do if you mean plastic water pipe. We also drill two holes at each end of the pipe, run nylon cord through the holes and tie the cord round the rope - it stops the pipe slipping. We do the same for all warps coming in through fairleads.