mooring pendant

[gettinthere]

Trying to figure out a pendant setup for cruising.
It seems to me the pendants sold by the chandleries are for a permanent setup that you leave on your ball while you go sailing and pick up on return.

We're cruising and will need to hook up to a variety of setups. I have the mooring grabber on a boat hook for initial grab.

I'm thinking of a way to rig a line from one cleat, thru the ring and up to the other cleat so I can easily free myself when departing, all from the boat. Some balls I've seen have no pendant, only the ring.

Ideas? What's common practice on guest moorings.
We're cruising Fl & Bahamas to Maine.

 

[Alan]

I always use my dock line to thread through a mooring other than my own. This way all the sea critters and vegetable growth stay off my boat. As you say, when departing just releasing one end of the dock line that clears you from the mooring and you're off. For a 'lunch' hook up I just drop the dock line around the mooring ball if it's not blowing too hard and in that case you don't even need a grabber.

 

[gettinthere]

Allen
How do you get the dock line down to the ring from the pulpit? Mine is about 4' off the water.

How do you prevent chafe in the line at the steel ring?

 

[Sailm8]

I have used Alan's method and I have looped a dock line through the eye on the pendant. I try not to use a ball without a pendant. The one time I did, I dropped two loops over the ball (separate lines) and cleated them to the boat. Had to go in the water the retrieve. Not recommended. Too many barnacles and crap to get cut on but any port in a storm.

In any case try to examine the mooring for chafe if you can. Public ones take a lot of abuse and are only serviced once or twice a year.

 

[Alan]

great question! It took me a few different tries to get this right. I use a 1" nylon pennant on my own mooring that is about 20'. It has an eye splice at the end. Then I attached (2) 5/8" 6' spectra lines to that eye that are eye spliced at each end using a luggage tag knot. These lines are not permanently spliced to the large nylon pennant so I can remove them at the end of the season. The nylon pennant supplies the needed shock loading while the spectra gives the chafe protection that is needed at the boat cleats. Because the spectra lines are held in place at the nylon pennant eye splice there is no movement and therefore no chafe at that end. Spectra makes an EXTREMELY durable and chafe resistant line but it's down side is that it has no stretch, that's what the nylon is used for.