your welcome! both of my moorings are in places where I'm lucky to have them - the available space doesn't allow for long pennants
I will be getting my new painters next week and hopefully the weather will cooperate so that I can try this out before the season is over (starting to get colder on Lake Ontario).
BTW sad to see all the storm devastation happening to my southern neighbours. Stay safe!
I hope to have two mooring sites (the more sheltered one under negotiation) but they will be identical. My plan is:
Attached to the mooring ball will be two pennants (primary a few feet shorter than secondary to allow the secondary to be slack and hopefully eliminate chafe on the foredeck near the cleat) that have their bitter ends terminate in a large heavy duty clip. The clips will have colour coded and different height stick buoys attached.
The 216 will have two identical length, colour coded painters attached to the bow eye (primary) and port deck cleat (as it is the one closest to the bow) as secondary via a spliced loops in the end. These painters have sufficient length to reach the centre of the cockpit and have their “bitter” ends ending in spliced loops. (No metal on these painters). These painters will feed to the appropriate side for pickup and will always be outboard of the stays. I might bungy them to the aft cleat to keep them organized while under way.
To pick up the mooring I approach at an angle that will let me start a tack that will put me leeward, broadside and midships of the stick buoy for the primary (the secondary will also be within reach but will have the dinghy painter attached to it.) The boat should be moving forward at a speed that lets me manoeuvre yet will stall before overrunning the mooring. From the safety of the cockpit and close to all of the controls I simply reach out and grab the (primary) stick buoy, clip the loop of the “boat” painter on and drift backwards in irons until the now “full length” painter becomes tight to the buoy. I drop the main quickly so it doesn’t flog, connect secondary painter etc.
If I think I will miss the pickup I simply complete the tack and eventually come back around for another attempt. BTW I also have my outboard idling just in case things go wildly wrong!!! I can also grab the secondary mooring stick if I miss or drop the primary one.
On a side note lots of people are somewhat amazed or daunted by picking up a mooring, but in my opinion it’s easier than docking at a slip, which is a solid stationary object always in close quarters that leaves scars on both the boat and your ego if you mess up usually in front of an audience :> With mooring balls if you mess up you can just lie about what happened and claim that it was all part of the plan all without leaving a mark!!!! (perhaps NOT true in a crazy full mooring field on a long weekend)
BTW sad to see all the storm devastation happening to my southern neighbours. Stay safe!
I hope to have two mooring sites (the more sheltered one under negotiation) but they will be identical. My plan is:
Attached to the mooring ball will be two pennants (primary a few feet shorter than secondary to allow the secondary to be slack and hopefully eliminate chafe on the foredeck near the cleat) that have their bitter ends terminate in a large heavy duty clip. The clips will have colour coded and different height stick buoys attached.
The 216 will have two identical length, colour coded painters attached to the bow eye (primary) and port deck cleat (as it is the one closest to the bow) as secondary via a spliced loops in the end. These painters have sufficient length to reach the centre of the cockpit and have their “bitter” ends ending in spliced loops. (No metal on these painters). These painters will feed to the appropriate side for pickup and will always be outboard of the stays. I might bungy them to the aft cleat to keep them organized while under way.
To pick up the mooring I approach at an angle that will let me start a tack that will put me leeward, broadside and midships of the stick buoy for the primary (the secondary will also be within reach but will have the dinghy painter attached to it.) The boat should be moving forward at a speed that lets me manoeuvre yet will stall before overrunning the mooring. From the safety of the cockpit and close to all of the controls I simply reach out and grab the (primary) stick buoy, clip the loop of the “boat” painter on and drift backwards in irons until the now “full length” painter becomes tight to the buoy. I drop the main quickly so it doesn’t flog, connect secondary painter etc.
If I think I will miss the pickup I simply complete the tack and eventually come back around for another attempt. BTW I also have my outboard idling just in case things go wildly wrong!!! I can also grab the secondary mooring stick if I miss or drop the primary one.
On a side note lots of people are somewhat amazed or daunted by picking up a mooring, but in my opinion it’s easier than docking at a slip, which is a solid stationary object always in close quarters that leaves scars on both the boat and your ego if you mess up usually in front of an audience :> With mooring balls if you mess up you can just lie about what happened and claim that it was all part of the plan all without leaving a mark!!!! (perhaps NOT true in a crazy full mooring field on a long weekend)
So new setup is buoy, with two pennants, primary a few feet shorter than secondary, loose ends have large clips with a colour coded stick buoy attached to each. On the boat are two pennant lines, primary to boweye and secondary to forward cleat, their loose ends have large loops spliced in and color coded to match pennants and stick buoys. I bungee them to a aft cleat while sailing.
The secondary buoy clip is attached to a painter holding my dinghy. White boat fender in photo as I trailer launched today.
To pickup I just approach start a tack, grab the primary stick buoy, clip the loop of the boat pennant on and relax. As the boat drifts back I drop the mainsail, boathook the dinghy painter and clip on the secondary boat pennant.
Castoff is proving to be a little tricky as I have to pull the boat forward to unclip the boat painters from the buoy painters, if I have mainsail up it’s pretty easy for it to power up as the boat is pulled forward to unclip which can cause the boat to overrun the buoy. It’s easier to raise main at the mooring as your bow to wind but I might have to resort to either using just the jib or motor off and then raise the main. Small problem to solve anyway, as hookup is sooo much easier and safer than my other boat.
