Ep 16: Picking Up a Mooring Buoy 

Thank you for the comment Ted, I appreciate you taking the time to leave your feedback. This does makes some sense. I have tried both and for me I prefer the clean run to the opposite side and fairness of the lead from the front of the boat. Another one of my instructor friends also pointed out that he does a half turn around the ring and that helps eliminate chafe. The bottom line for me is to have some kind of backup as chafe is always a potential problem with dire consequences.

Very good point. I will be doing another video highlighting that point as well as a few others that have come up in comments. Thanks for the feedback.

Thank you for the very kind comment. I’m glad you found it useful.

Those are great points Bill. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I am planning to do a follow up video incorporating some of those ideas. I really like the idea of backing up to the buoy and certainly in windy conditions that would easiest with my boat. Very innovative of you to design lines with a length of chain. I bet you sleep well at night 😉

Great tip!

Yeah me too

Thanks for the comment 12345. It would be even easier if they had lighter floating rope pendants spliced to the eye of the mooring ball but they would have to be regularly maintained as they are subject to UV damage.

Hey Todd, Yes I am familiar with that system and you're right it is way better. Years ago when I had my own mooring buoy that's how I had it set up and yes, never had an issue with chafe ( still had two pendants just in case). Last year I spliced up some pendants for one of my students who was keeping her boat on a mooring buoy. Spliced eyes with thimbles and shackles for the buoy end and spliced eyes for the cleat. Infinitely better. The system you see in the video is how all the mooring buoys in our provincial marine parks are set up.

@@CarpeDiemSailingMagazine Washington state marine parks have something similar to what you show. We don't have marine parks here, but all the rental moorings I have encountered here are set up as I described. Have you ever considered shackling a proper pendant onto one of those moorings? A zip tie would be adequate in place of seizing wire on the shackle for a single night. Also if I had an anchor roller setup like yours I would want two lines as well. That is one poorly designed anchor roller/bow setup. That said, if my boat will be on the mooring for a bad (>60 knots) storm from the bad direction (east in my home harbor), I do shackle an additional pendant to the chain below the mooring buoy.

I’m glad you enjoyed the video Bryan. I just use my regular mooring lines. My bow line is longer than my stern line. Probably 20’ or so. Then they double back. So I would say 10-15’ when doubled back

Interesting thought! That would make life easier. I'll think about it. Thanks for the comment.

Not exactly sure what you're talking about? Where in the video is it? Is it in this video?

Hi Stephen. Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the comment. In my opinion I would prefer to leave the lazy line loose enough that it will not chafe at all... and on the subject of lazy lines in my first mooring buoy video I demonstrated the line going from one side of the boat , through the ring and back to the other side of the boat. I was fairly widely criticized for that and the issue was chafing. After having tried both ways I personally prefer the line on opposite sides of the boat as the load is centred and the boat rides better to the wind.

@@CarpeDiemSailingMagazine Cool thanks! That makes total sense then with the lazy line and there is definitely logic to wanting to keep one of your lines 100% isolated from chafing. Re: lines going to opposite sides...I've also seen others recommending the other approach in terms of running your lines back to the same side. It strikes me as though the most important consideration with all of this is to just make sure that you *have two lines* although I understand the logic of potentially minimizing chafe by keeping each line isolated to its own side as well. One thing that I *could* imagine happening might be someone (or even lots of people!) running a single line from one side to the other and then believing that they established redundancy, when, in fact that were not the case at all...and in fact maybe they even weakened the system by exposing it to more chafe? I'm totally new to this and have only moored a boat literally one time! At any rate...thank you again for all of this info, I am going to get out and practice all of this stuff my next time on the water!

That's a great question. I find the chain, especially if its jammed in the buoy really heavy to hold onto, so I only had a short amount of time to thread one line (with more preparation and forethought I might have been able to thread both at the same time). I have had many comments for this video with lots of questions and suggestions so I will be doing another video this simmer to incorporate those. Thanks for taking the tine to comment, I appreciate the support.

@@CarpeDiemSailingMagazine it just looked back breaking and I felt it. 😀

You got it Alfy 😊

So true 😉

Yes. That comment has been made. It’s been my preference to run one and keep things simple rather than fuss with two lines at once but it’s a good thought l. I’ll be doing a follow up video with that in mind. Also leading the lines back to the cleat on the same side. Thanks for the comment.

@@CarpeDiemSailingMagazine BTW, great channel. I am pasting your links to my novice sailing friends

@@ronniecaptain Thank you very much. Much more to come. Raising and Lowering Sails, Tacking, Gybing, Crew Overboard Drills, Gear etc.

Thank you