Using moorings other than your own

[capnsensible]

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Just watch it in the future mate. I know some bad people in Gib.

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[cpedw]

Well last summer, a well known Knighted round the world sailor was on a 50 odd ft boat and went to pick up a mooring near Oban. On the way to the inadequate mooring, he had passed a large, vacant anchorage. And a nice marina.

 

[PabloPicasso]

Yes, I'm a bit grumpy on

1. All moorings should be maintained to their design weight/size or removed.
2. All moorings should be clearly marked to their design weight/size
3. All moorings should be clearly marked with owner/managers details / contacts
4. I'm very happy to pay to use a mooring and/or be allocated one that is suitable. All mooring fields should include these.
5.
6. All traditional anchoring spots should....

"should" is a dangerous word! Should and ought to are the source of many problems.

 

[Stemar]

"should" is a dangerous word! Should and ought to are the source of many problems.

Ain't that the truth! As Covid slowed down, and I was able to get back to my boat, I was shocked to see how little metal was left on the mooring pennant chain. Since there were supply problems with the chain, I changed it for rope PDQ. Twin 18mm polysteel lines won't let go in a hurry!

 

[Bristolfashion]

I'm a bit sensitive - we were leaving the boat (to help someone out) for 10 days & lent a mooring "just serviced & in great nick". After I'd pulled the whole thing up on the deck, I took it round to the bloke in a wheelbarrow! I was relaxed, but the bloke I was helping out said a few choice words!

We had to leave the boat on anchor - it was fine.

 

[Ink]

Strikes me that the type of people that moan about someone using their mooring are the same sort that don't tell the marina when their away because they don't want anyone to use "their" berth.

That's not the same thing at all. You don't 'own' a marina berth.

Many people do own their own moorings, paying to have them made, laid and maintained, as I do.

I pay my dues to the Crown Estates through my local sailing club, but make no mistake, the mooring is mine.

I have paid to have the damage to my mooring rectified when powerboats try to pick up my mooring stern first because they dont own a boat hook long enough.

I have had to ask sailing schools not to lassoo my mooring as part of their rediculous mooring training, and have had to wake up a skipper of a boat sitting on my mooring at 05:30 when we had to get home in an emergency.

The mooring is quite clearly marked 'Private' and with the boat's name.

I have tried to keep our of this debate, but frankly, unless the mooring is marked as for visitors I would always use my anchor.

I know there will be those who say I'm being childish, but hey, as they say in Glasgow, it's ma ba'.

Regards
Ink

 

[TwoFish]

I have had to ask sailing schools not to lassoo my mooring as part of their rediculous mooring training,

Forgive my ignorance. I'm new(ish) both here and to big boat stuff, so I'm learning. I'm getting the impression that lassoing buoys is not entirely approved of. I'm slightly disappointed to learn that after honing my lassoing skills on my Day Skipper course. Why is it bad?

 

[Graham376]

Forgive my ignorance. I'm new(ish) both here and to big boat stuff, so I'm learning. I'm getting the impression that lassoing buoys is not entirely approved of. I'm slightly disappointed to learn that after honing my lassoing skills on my Day Skipper course. Why is it bad?

Lassoing a buoy at slack water with little wind is generally OK but to do it with tide running or strong winds puts strain on the buoy it isn't designed for.

 

[Quandary]

I started my sailing in Ireland many decades ago, there were no marinas just harbours full of moorings, if you visited you picked up a free mooring or were very careful to buoy your anchor, the latter was more likely to cause hidden damage than borrowing for a night. It was universally accepted that moorings were to be shared. If I came back late at night and someone was on my mooring, unless I was leaving the boat I stuck ours on another until morning. In practice the home Clubs usually welcomed visitors and when you went ashore you were advised about how long you were free to stay and which moorings were vacant for the time you intended to stay. It was one of the things sailing clubs took pride in and encouraged the members to understand
I am not sure where the selfishness has come from or when, but attitudes of one sailor to another seemed to be changing a lot now, perhaps it is the advent of the expensive private marina berth that has done it. Or perhaps the change now is that so few belong to a club.

 

[Ink]

Forgive my ignorance. I'm new(ish) both here and to big boat stuff, so I'm learning. I'm getting the impression that lassoing buoys is not entirely approved of. I'm slightly disappointed to learn that after honing my lassoing skills on my Day Skipper course. Why is it bad?

My mooring buoy is the big inflated balloon type in pvc with a pvc eye for the riser to attach to. Rubbing at this eye with a loop of rope does damage to the eye.

Watching boats sitting using this method in a bit of a chop really annoys me.

Learn to pick up a mooring they way it was designed to be picked up - via the pennant.

Thanks
Ink

 

[TwoFish]

Thanks for explanation Ink. Is it the (more than a minute or two) sitting on a lassoed mooring that's the issue, or the initial pick-up, or both?

I should make it clear that the RYA schooling did major on hooking the mooring buoy eye / pennant / pickup buoy, but lassoing was in there too and without any cautions. Perhaps it stuck in the memory as it was more fun.

 

[Ink]

I started my sailing in Ireland many decades ago, there were no marinas just harbours full of moorings, if you visited you picked up a free mooring or were very careful to buoy your anchor, the latter was more likely to cause hidden damage than borrowing for a night. It was universally accepted that moorings were to be shared. If I came back late at night and someone was on my mooring, unless I was leaving the boat I stuck ours on another until morning. In practice the home Clubs usually welcomed visitors and when you went ashore you were advised about how long you were free to stay and which moorings were vacant for the time you intended to stay. It was one of the things sailing clubs took pride in and encouraged the members to understand
I am not sure where the selfishness has come from or when, but attitudes of one sailor to another seemed to be changing a lot now, perhaps it is the advent of the expensive private marina berth that has done it. Or perhaps the change now is that so few belong to a club.

Understood.

But when a boat from the marina round the corner expects to be able to pick up a mooring of their choosing without any come back that is surely wrong.

My mooring is for my use I don't expect to be given free rein in the local marina.

Things have changed. I also remember sailing from the sixties. Where I started there was no 'club' moorings. There was no manned club. Visitors picked up a mooring at their own risk, usually with a horrible spiky junk wire. Most anchored, there was plenty space and options. Water was from the tap on the shore. Half day closing was Wednesday.

Nowadays things have changed. Boats are much, much bigger. I don't think that seamanship has improved with the level of technology available. Anchoring is to too many a black art evidenced by the clean anchors and lack of gouging of perfect gelcoat at the bow.

Yachtsmen, and I now hesitate to use such terms, but that is the age you refer back to, now expect to travel between pontoons at the very least. You just have to look at a flotilla charging along at wide open throttle to get the last mooring or berth.

Sadly, yes, sailing as a sport is not the same.

Ink

 

[Ink]

Thanks for explanation Ink. Is it the (more than a minute or two) sitting on a lassoed mooring that's the issue, or the initial pick-up, or both?

I should make it clear that the RYA schooling did major on hooking the mooring buoy eye / pennant / pickup buoy, but lassoing was in there too and without any cautions. Perhaps it stuck in the memory as it was more fun.

I understand the RYS teach this option for when everything else goes wrong.

When you are in the situation where everything has gone tits up in my opinion the last thing you want to do is to be hanging on to a mooring boy thinking what to do next. Only a matter of time before problems really start.

Also, sailing schools will quite happily use the same mooring buoy for practice. Say you get two goes each and there are six of you on board. It doesn't do any good to someone else's boy that they then have to rely on, especially if they don't know what's been happening to it. And if course the training yacht will then hang off the buoy so lunch can be eaten.

Sorry for the rant.

Ink

 

[dunedin]

Nowadays things have changed. Boats are much, much bigger. I don't think that seamanship has improved with the level of technology available.

Sadly I would agree with that. I watched an over large boat arrive late in Loch Ranza to discover all the visitor moorings occupied. Rather than anchor in the anchorage area, it went inshore amongst the locals moorings (which on that row are mainly RIBs and small lightweight motor cruisers).
It picked up a mooring then decided to “strength test”, like some have occasionally suggested - 45+ footer hit reverse and shot across the bay towing the unfortunately locals private RIB mooring about 150m out of location. Then dropped it and departed. Sadly I couldn’t see any boat name and not responding on VHF 16.
It does tend to be the bigger boats, which should have good anchoring gear, which tend to be the mooring bullies.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Maybe you haven't realised that UK situation doesn't apply elsewhere, although the morals of using someone else's property does. Our sailing club kicks off unauthorised users on our behalf.

Sadly the not so good king Henry vii of England and Wales wanted to raise money so he decided that he as king owned between HT mark and LW mark and could charge people to use it. Similar monetisation occurred in deeper waters.

Water access is very restricted in England compared with some other nations

 

[Corribee Boy]

Worth mentioning that a buoy damaged by lassoing can sink, dropping all the chain to the bottom, leading to hours of fun with a grapnel hook or the need to bribe a tame scuba diver with expensive bottles.

Foam-filled buoys are better in this respect.

 

[Ink]

Worth mentioning that a buoy damaged by lassoing can sink, dropping all the chain to the bottom, leading to hours of fun with a grapnel hook or the need to bribe a tame scuba diver with expensive bottles.

Foam-filled buoys are better in this respect.

Better the buoys are not lassoed in the first place, not least that foam filled buoys can do damage to the gelcoat, hence why soft inflateable buoys are preferred by many.

Ink

 

[zoidberg]

I'm not the 'well known Knighted round the world sailor' alluded to in #62, but I, too, arrived in Oban Bay under sail some years ago, in a Rival 34 after several days working north with a broken engine. It was still blowing a bit, so we picked up the first spare mooring off the Sailing Club that looked 'man enough' ( I'd phoned the Hon Sec ahead and been told to pick one up and we'd sort out the next day ). then ate and turned in. It continued to blow through the night.

Early the next morning, we'd made arrangements with a friend to shift to his mooring further back, behind a string of club boats, so we prepared to drop the rather hefty mooring pendant - which was a laid hawser as thick as my forearm - by untying the cord I'd used to hold the hawser loop closed around our bitts. The whole hawser crumbled in my hands like tobacco in a wet cigarette.


As for 'What happened next'..... no, we didn't.

 

[Robert Wilson]

I expect you uttered some choice expletives, aligned to sewerage..........

 

[Beneteau381]

Valid point, but made provocatively!
I use others club moorings, normally in Poole harbour if I return late evening / miss tide to go up river / weather not conducive to anchor in Studland. I've also borrowed mooring buoys that I can see have been in recent use up river in L’Aber Wrac’h and other Brittany rivers where there is no room to anchor.

The racing fraternity started using my boat as a handy tie up. It was the last one on the pile moorings at Pwllheli. Due to the dredging cock up, the channel had got shallower and so after their racing and wrong time of the tide to get in to the marina for their post race piss up they thought it ok to tie on to mine and disappear. A seriously scraped toe tail and bent stanchion by one of them, with nary a note or apology, got my attention so I got theirs! They never did it again!