Visitor's buoys

snowleopard

snowleopard

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Visitor\'s buoys

Last week's cruise saw us using a wide variety of visitor's buoys and not one was easy to pick up. We have 4 ft of freeboard so it's a long way down to reach the buoys and the variety of what harbourmasters put on them is amazing, not to mention frustrating. For example...

Fowey: just a ring on top of the buoy
St Mary's: a heavy chain with a big link on the end - dangling well below water level
Tresco: a thin short strop with a label saying 'do not use for mooring'
Helford: at last- a pickup buoy leading to a chain but the chain is formed into a loop and it needs to be hauled on deck with both hands to thread a line through it.

We've now bought one of those automatic ring threaders but it would only have helped at Fowey. The others would still have been a complete pain.

I've rigged my own mooring with a pickup buoy and a short length of line to the main rope strop which has an eye in the end - it's no trouble to pick up. So why can't visitor's buoys be made user friendly?
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

Came across some interesting ones in Croatia this year, (Northwest from Zadar) all new and standardised in several areas. One line through a pickup ring and another to be threaded through an eye under buoy, sometimes required dinghy to access that one. Harbormasters insisted on their correct use, and each buoy had a clear diagram attatched, Cost us around £8.00 a time for a 44ft er. One harbourmaster gave us a discount in exchange for a beer!
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

We've moored at all those places, this year alone. Some of them many times over the years. Ney, all of them most years, umpteen times. Our bows are I suspect, far higher than yours. so imposible, the boat hook dont reach the buoy.

No matter, lead the bow rope to the stern. or even bathing platform if necessary and thread it through. Back up the boat as crew leads rope forwards, dead easy.
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

One other method allows you to hook up fairly easily even if you only get within 10 feet of the bouy and haven't quite stopped.

It's (IMHO) misnamed lassooing, but basically you tie both ends of a rope to a bow cleat then coil up the rope . Split the coils in two - one in each hand - then when you get near enough to the bouy just chuck the coils with both hands wide apart. The rope forms a large circular loop which drops in the water wide around the buoy. The rope sinks under the bouy to the rope or chain beneath but can't slip off when the boat falls back because the bouy above prevents it.

Much easier to do than describe and if you happen to miss then you can haul in the loop and try again with no danger of getting anything caught round the prop. You can then haul the boat up to the buoy and tie up properly at your leisure.
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

The IMHO method is fine for initially getting onto the mooring buoy in the first place. But I would not recommend it for an overnight stay in tidal water.

Whilst moored just off the coast of Arran in West Scotland we woke up after a change of tide to find a local fisherman banging on our hull to warn us our "lassoo" had slipped off the buoy and we were drifting a mile offshore !
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

Good to see you in Scilly. I trust you made your feelings about the pick ups known to the harbourmaster or his staff, As I told you when you were here virtually all the visitors are moaning about them and there is no doubt that they are difficult to get at especially from larger boats with high freeboard.
In St Mary's all that is required is a short strop and proper pick up bouy from the end of the chain and the problem should be solved, shame the duchy can't shell out that little bit extra.
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

We use a boathook with a pull-off snaphook to pick up the ring-only types initially, then use a line threader to pass the main line (and a length of chain in exposed places) through which is then hauled in to slacken the snaphook line for removal. On 'easy' days we might just use the line threader alone.

The problem with strops being supplied, which I would prefer, is that there is no one size fits all. Either the strop diameter (especially with an antichafe tube) is too big to pass through fairleads or over bow rollers or the strop is too short to reach the foredeck cleats, ours for example are quite a way back to clear the anchor well. If it is long enough to reach cleats placed back like ours, on boats with the cleats right forward then the boat rides farther back, maybe too close to another mooring behind.

Yarmouth IOW outside buoys are a good example of the problems. These are fitted with strops but because these are attached to the top ring on the buoy they get twisted and tangled around underneath it in the tide making them impossible to pick up even though the HM guys go round periodically untangling them in normal hours. If you manage to pick up a strop in our case it will not reach the foredeck cleats via the bow roller so we have to have a line ready to add to the loop anyway, but also the antichafes are often split or missing too which could allow it to chafe on our bow mounted anchor in the other roller... My preference would be nice soft big buoys with NO top ring to chafe the boat or rattle incessantly and with a good length strop taken from below the buoy where it will not tangle around it. I suspect though in some crowded areas this would need the buoys to be spaced a little farther apart reducing numbers and therefore income.
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

Some thing I have found, is that if you put there loop on one of your forward cleats the boat tends to swing more, but if you put a warp from one front cleat though the loop and then secure it to the cleat on the other side, letting the rope from the buoy hang at your bow, you get much less swing , even in strong winds or tide, tis easy to do too. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

Don't know what's on the other end of my mooring chain but will be finding out soon - when we moored up last w/e the buoy went one way, the boat another and the chain to the bottom of the creek - the shacle joining it all together had let go!!

We changed over to threading a long warp from the bow through the buoy using the stern platform with reasonable success. It does worry me a bit because with our narrow hulls it brings the prop very close to the ground tackle. If the prop caught the riser we'd have a major problem.

The lasso method would work to hold us in place while rigging a proper bridle though we couldn't do it last week as all our warps float! We'll have to set aside a sinking rope for the job.

And finally - yes, we anchor when we can but so often these days all the best places are full of moorings so you either have to go elsewhere or pay for a buoy. Fair enough really as you can get twice as many boats in a given space with moorings as they need so much less space.
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

Quote: How about using your anchor??

It won't fit through top rings on most visitor bouys!! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

agree with comments re buoys in st marys. even when kind people leave the chain piled up ontop of the buoy it is still a struggle to get hold of the chain. the links are too small to grab easily with a boat hook so i resorted to leaning over the front of the boat and threading a rope through the chain. not easy when your ribs are pressing on the alloytoe rail.in addition the harbour master recommends a round turn so it takes even longer to tie up.
i must say i have never had a quiet night in st marys,.
always swell from somewhere.
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

Re: warps floating, I was going to add that I tend to soak the warp in a bucket of water whilst I'm making my way to the mooring as most wet ropes sink quickly, but thought that would make the method sound a bit complicated.

It's also a self-fixing problem as the rope gets nice and wet after the first throw so will be fine on the second attempt.
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

I posted, some time ago, instruction in explicit detail of a failsafe, foolproof method of picking up mooring bouys. It involved tying a line off at the bow cleat then leading it outside everything to a stern cleat then coming alongside the bouy and dropping the loop over. The boat then falls back and you end up being temporarily moored which gives you the breathing space to get into the dinghy if necessary and make a proper job of tying off.
LongJohnSadler became very unpleasant with me and accused me of plagiarism and all manner of scurrilous behaviour which is why I shall never utter another word on the matter
 
Re: Visitor\'s buoys

A bit of a blow plus a couple of knots of tide can make picking up my mooring single handed quite interesting. If conditions are difficult, I use a "poke it-pull it" type boathook (can't remember the proper name, but £30-odd at the boat show).

I attach the line to my gybe preventer. A poke passes the line through the ring on top of the buoy and once I get that back on board, Jissel's going nowhere. A casual stroll to the sharp end and I can pull the buoy up with less effort than grabbing it with the boat hook.
 
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