Swinging Moorings

[Grehan]

We've cast ourselves adrift from the watery car park, its pontoons, electricity, fences, keycodes, security bods, showers, shop and disco nites (sic). Goodbye umbilical cord.
Easter will see us heading for new territory - The Swinging Mooring. Hello big wide world. [well, Poole - North end, anyway]

Looking forward to slightly greater separation from noisy humanity, lower costs, etc but we've also got some fears regarding security and the actual practicalities of loading/unloading/tenders/etc. Our "point of access" (where we leave the car) is a small car park with an adjacent pier. Discreet and hidden, but public nonetheless.

Tips, wrinkles and guidance - on all aspects - would be gratefully received.
What d'you do? Don't do? Techniques? Recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

 

[romany123]

Be sure you have a good stable dingy,its amazing how much you end up lugging to the boat. as I have mentiond elswere on this site we are lucky we have davits and find it easy to get the dingy stowed away in under a minute.the upside is that you will have a room with a veiw, we love it,also we have a great community spirit out on the river and have as many parties as we did when we where in the marina.(wear a lifejacket is my tip of the day)....good luck to you Im sure you will have fun. Security is another matter we seem (touch wood) to be ok where we are but I have taken the precaution of having a small solar flashing light
fitted in the cockpit ,its just like a car alarm flasher. Weather it would deter a burglar I dont know, still it makes me feel better
Hope that helps


Dave

 

[claymore]

Get a decent dinghy to ferry all your crew, food and baggage and leave it padlocked to the mooring when you are away sailing so that you don't come back to someone sat on the mooring.It needs to look undesirable then it won't get stolen! If the mooring is in a strong tide think about when you will be rowing out to it. Make sure that the mooring is rated strong enough for your boat and have a look at the pick-up arrangement. I have made 2 hefty strops with eyes spliced in which drop over my equally hefty mooring cleats which saves so much messing about when arriving at or leaving the mooring. The next point is really based on my greatest personal failing. Make sure that you have an absolutely bomb proof system that deals with the car and boat keys. Its a complete ball-ache to row in the 3rd hour of a massive spring flood or ebb and arrive at the boat or the jetty and then realise that the keys you need are not with you.
Things have got so bad with me that I'm thinking of going for a bit of body piercing!
regards
John S

 

[JeremyF]

I think the half-way house of deep-water moorings with a water taxi service is a good compromise. There's still lots of financial benefits, but you don't have to mess around with dinghies to get out to the boat. Expect to pay £1100 for 31' in Gosport.

We are with Gosport Boat Yard. Good moorings, but a strange attitude to customer care. For example, they refuse to carry VHF because customers might call them and try and rearrange disembarkation times! So, if you get back earlier or later you have to find one of the taxi's.

All in all, its not a bad compromise

Jeremy Flynn

www.yacht-goldeneye.co.uk
New pics 11.02.02

 

[bedouin]

We were also with Gosport Boatyard last year, and in Langstone the year before.

No doubt that the ferry service to/from the boat makes life a lot easier; however it does have its down-sides. In particular there is always the danger of getting back after the last ferry - which means you usually waste a couple of hours every day making sure that you don't, similarly it is difficult to get down to the boat late on a Friday.

Still it's much more civilised than having to use your own dinghy (plus outboard...) I haven't yet tried a swinging mooring where I could keep the tender in a dinghy park - that might offer the best of both worlds

 

[richardknight]

This will be our fourth year on a swinging mooring in Poole Harbour, and the 3rd year in the same position - across the channel opposite'ish to Moriconium Quay. As Dave mentions, a decent dingy is well worth investing in..... your kit may look farily meagre in the car, but get it in the dingy and it takes over! Ofcourse if you get a launch service with the mooring, no problems!

We've not had any problems with theft as yet, we also don't have the flashest boat either mind you - a 1978 Moody 30. We close the curtains, remove everything not fixed down from the cockpit and store below, and keep a sturdy lock on the hatch. We, like many other boats do have electronics kit in sight which someone could have ago at I guess, but to date no one has. And if they do, well, that's what the insurance is for. To allay your fears, since we've been at Poole I'm not aware of anyone we know having lost anything from their boat whilst afloat. No doubt it happens, but personally I'm more nervous about the house being burgled whilst sailing!

The view, and peace and quiet more than make up for the perceived dangers. You can find us and a bunch of other people who sail out of Poole at:

http://www.psf.f2s.com

Richard

 

[Guest]

I've kept my boat off of Lake Pier for the last few years with no problems at all as far as security is concerned, It can be difficult getting on to the mooring when the tide is pushing through very quickly, the water skiers can be a pain in the back side and a lot of the ski boats ignore the speed limit through the moorings, the beach by the car park turns to mud at low water which is best avoided.

Oh and it can howl a gail through there as well so make sure you put all your kit in water proof bags as we've had 4 to 5 inches of water in our 320 inflatable by the time we,ve got ashore.

The gulls will give you plenty of cleaning to do and the royal marines will scare you witless with their landing craft as they cant see anything close by so be carefull in the dinghy.

DONT leave your car in the car park at night as it WILL be broken into, put it out on the main road once you've finished unloading.

On a brighter note the place at sunrise or sun down is FANTASTIC, the people there are friendly and will also keep an eye on your boat when you are not around, even us stinker potters !

If you want anymore info or a chat e mail Mr.Max@fsmail.net

happy sailing

Ian

 

[Guest]

Richard

Are you with Harry Price or Lake Pier ? or is there someone else letting these moorings ?

Ian

 

[Guest]

Re:No:2

something I forgot, dont moor directly opposite the jetty the kids (and some adults) fish off of it and the 3 oz leads and large hooks will be a constant problem, I've been onto the poor blokes yacht half a dozen times to free off lines and leads that were wrapped around his rails/stanchions and hooked into his canopy.

best avoided !!

 

[longjohnsilver]

Agree with all you say John, I've had a flexible stainless strop made up and padlock this to the engine and other end to mooring. It would take some determined tea leaf to cut through that lot!

BTW thought that all you lecherers had body piercings, isn't it a pre-requisite of the job? ;-))

 

[richardknight]

Our mooring is with Lake Yard although we've no relationship with them aside from that. We also have a couple of friends who have mooring with them too.

Richard

 

[Guest]

Make up a daft word

I know just what you mean about the downhill progression.

I made up a daft word to try and remember things when I left the mooring. In my case it's HEGS :-

(H)atches (E)lectrics (G)as (S)eacocks. It has worked well for a few years now . For some reason I never leave the car keys aboard though.

A great tip I got off this board was to leave the boat ignition keys hooked over the water inlet seacock.

I remember reading about a Nobel Prize science winner of some note who kept locking his car with the keys left in the ignition when we had cars with door 'sticks'. Did it all the time !

Also, they say, never trust a scientist to walk your dog for you. Will probably lose himself and the dog.

 

[claymore]

Only in our willies but I thought the nipple was a better place to hang my keys from.

 

[romany123]

Bet they do key rings to.

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Dave

 

[jeanette]

I too have just arranged a mooring off the pier; thanks for putting up this post. Look out for me at Easter - Gaia is the yellow one and in London at the moment - I am hoping that the weather is kind for the delivery cruise.

It's my first full season as a boat owner and I'm looking forward to my first experiences with the mud, the tide, the English Channel, the manual windlass (I must be mad) .... a friendly ear for the latest disaster story is always welcome in exchange for a beer or two.






Jeanette

 

[Marty]

The local boat yard at Hamworthy operate a launch service and have parking it may be an idea to enquire about membership.
They also have moorings

 

[Grehan]

Swinging - thanks +

Thanks to all who've posted - there's some good stuff for us to learn from.
Very very grateful.

Some points by way of response . . . .
1) Yup, we're gonna be moored by Lake Pier (Harry Price - seems like a nice bloke, nice family too)
We were already worried about leaving the car in car park, so now we definitely won't.
And we'll watch out for flying fishing tackle.
"Grehan" is a Southerly 115. We'll look out for you Gaia/Jeanette and we're intending to move Grehan round at Easter too. We did the Thames Estuary last May and the scratches are even now being removed from the hull underside (oops!). Send us a message via YBW.
We're 'joining' PSF (thanks Richard) and Jeanette should look at the PSF site http://www.psf.f2s.com

Mr Max - when I can get my a**se in gear I'll eMail you. Thanks.

2) Dorset Lake Yard looks good and we've heard some good things.
They don't have any moorings (for our size 11.5m) available for this coming season. All existing mooring-holders having renewed (which is a good sign I guess).
We're joining the Dorset Yard Club.

3) No body piercings, except involuntary ones. Nothing below the belt, how dare you!

Fair Winds
Grehan

PS please don't take this as an end-piece. Love to see some more good advice posted on this subject, Poole or otherwise.

 

[richardknight]

Hi Jeannette - definately do pop by the www.psf.f2s.com if you fancy getting to know a few people around the area.

By the by, we always leave our car in the car park at Lake Yard and have never had, or heard of any trouble at all. The whole yard is also surrounded by high fencing, some nasty spiky wire, and rather large, sturdy and locked gates. It could be that someone was referring to the public car park about 1/4 mile away. Maybe that's called Lake Pier too...?

Richard

 

[Grehan]

Yes Richard, Lake Pier is by the small public car park, the other side of "the Marines" from Dorset Lake.

TTFN

 

[LadyInBed]

Re: mooring off the pier

I hope this doesn’t mean that all the spare moorings have now been taken up, as I often use a ‘free’ mooring there when either waiting for water to go up to Wareham, or for an early start jump off point.
Re the Pier, I dried out off the Poole side of the pier back end of last year for an end of season scrub. Ok if not strong S/SW winds.
Buoys around that area can be a bit unfriendly in wind against tide situations, as the boat tends to drive up and overtake the mooring buoy, which can leave some nasty scuffs on the hull.