Moorings: How to avoid running over the dinghy?

[Laura Calderone]

Very interesting posts on moorings. Moving from a slip in a crowded marina to a mooring in a week or so. We'll be rowing a dinghy to the boat. It suddenly occurs to me that I have never picked up a mooring that has a dinghy attached! Any advice from the old salts on the list is greatly appreciated!



lcaldero@earthlink.net

[Don Carr]

One approach is to tie the dinghy directly to the mooring ball with about 8ft or so of line. In this manner the dink will generally ride off the ball allowing you some space to pick up your mooring lead.
You hopefully won't be moving very fast and as you approach have the bowman(person) gently push the dink aside with the boat hook. Then pick up the mooring as you normally would into the wind and against the current. This method generally works for me.



carrds@us.ibm.com

[Glenn Rountree]

Very interesting posts on moorings. Moving from a slip in a crowded marina to a mooring in a week or so. We'll be rowing a dinghy to the boat. It suddenly occurs to me that I have never picked up a mooring that has a dinghy attached! Any advice from the old salts on the list is greatly appreciated!

We had a mooring in Tortola for a while. What we did was to tie the dinghy short to the mooring, and made a mooring line fast to the ball AND ring, which we made float with swimming pool line floats, and put a ball float on the bitter end. The line generally streams back with wind and tide, and makes it easy to approach and pick up. Since the whole thing floats and is easily visible, it shouldn't get run over either. Probably a lot of trouble for most people, but I always had novices on the bow to catch the mooring line with the boathook.



rountree@rountree-inc.com

[wayne grenier]

One approach is to tie the dinghy directly to the mooring ball with about 8ft or so of line. In this manner the dink will generally ride off the ball allowing you some space to pick up your mooring lead.
You hopefully won't be moving very fast and as you approach have the bowman(person) gently push the dink aside with the boat hook. Then pick up the mooring as you normally would into the wind and against the current. This method generally works for me.

It's not running over the moorring when you come in that is likely to happen-its running over the mooring line and/or dinghy painter when you are taking off that can happen-hey-I do it about once every 10 years-so what can I say-very carefully walk the mooring line back to about amidships-which will turn you bow in the opposite direction-and we assume you have carefuly studied the surrounding boats and how they are swinging to pick the best direction you want to go in-and give the line a little toss over the side and do not put your motor in gear until you are sure you are clear-sailing off the mooring-assuming you have room-elimantes the problem of prop wrapping around line (or vice-versa)-last time I did it was quite exciting-somehow the boat even with mainsail up would not stay into the wind-as soon as I cast off I knew I was in trouble-we caught the line and took the dinghy-flipped it upside down-with the outboard on its stern and sucked it into the prop-now you are moored by you prop-not a good thing-if you pull it out the stern-no more boat-it took myself and the harbormaster the rest of the afternoon to get everything straight-putting the engine in reverse-(not running) is a good way to start gewtting the line off-it cannot be done from the boat-so a mask-snorkel and knife are required -but I've only done this fool thing once since I've owned the boat-so its a rare occurrence-allthough the harbormaster told me somebody does it once a week in the summer-have fun-the full keel design helps but you can still catch the line in the prop-coming in I put the engine in nuetral and drift up-so that elimantes the potential of wrapping the line around the prop-I leave 15-20' of painter between my mooring "loop" and the dinghy-its nothing you won't get quickly with practice I pull into slips so rarely that I look like a total idiot -so its whatever your used to



grenier@ma.ultranet.com

[Al Levesque]

... We'll be rowing a dinghy to the boat. It suddenly occurs to me that I have never picked up a mooring that has a dinghy attached!...

We also row out to our mooring. We tie the dinghy up close to the buoy so that it does not hit the bow. When we leave the mooring, we throw the pennants into the dinghy after the boat has swung to the direction we want and sail off.

Returning is a bit more difficult and depends on which adjacent moorings are occupied and how they lie. We sometimes approach the down wind position (about two boat lengths) on a beam reach with the sail sheeted in all the way to insure stalling. Other times, we sheet the sail in tight and short tack to kill speed until we reach the dinghy. We lift the pennants with a boat hook and fend the dinghy off at the same time. We always remove and stow the jib first.

Hope this helps.

Al



albertlevesque@cove.com

[Richard Formica]

Very interesting posts on moorings. Moving from a slip in a crowded marina to a mooring in a week or so. We'll be rowing a dinghy to the boat. It suddenly occurs to me that I have never picked up a mooring that has a dinghy attached! Any advice from the old salts on the list is greatly appreciated!

I have a six foot mast buoy on about 20 feet of line. I have this secured to the base of the mooring loop. When I leave the mooring I tie the dinghy paint to the mooring loop as well. At least on the Connecticut River, even it the wind is causes boats to lie at an angle to the current, the buoy and dinghy stream directly back with the current. We just creep up from down stream. My wife reaches over and grabs the mast (this is good for marital harmony because fumbling with the boat hook is eliminated) and hauls the mooring line onto the deck and slips it over the deck cleat.

Rich
CD36

[Serge Zimberoff]

We use a pick-up buoy. These have a small flag on a vertical post that comes up high enough so that one can let it just slide along the windward side of the boat till it can be grabbed.
The pick-up buoy lives aboard with a short mooring line attached to it. The sail boat mooring penant stays attached to the main buoy and the we hook the pick-up buoy line to the eye of the penant that was on the sail boat cleat. Then the pick-up bouy and all is tossed overboard when we are ready to leave the mooring.



serge@srtrop.com

[Dave]

I usually sail off of my mooring. I don't know if you have room to do this, but this is how i do it. I get all my lines ready just the way I like them. Then I bring the pram up along side and clip her to the penant line. Making sure again everything is set I raise the main and put on the other penant line to the pick up bouy. Getting back to the cockpit, I backwind the main(because the engine doesn't do crap), fall off and away I go.
Safety tip:
If you have seas and trying to put her on the mooring, always put the pick up bouy on the deck. I wouldn't put it back in the water!!! I did this mistake and when the boat was riding the waves we came down and the shaft of the pickup bouy hit me in the eye. NOT A GOOD EXPERIANCE!

Very interesting posts on moorings. Moving from a slip in a crowded marina to a mooring in a week or so. We'll be rowing a dinghy to the boat. It suddenly occurs to me that I have never picked up a mooring that has a dinghy attached! Any advice from the old salts on the list is greatly appreciated!

ddsailor25@ureach.com