First time mooring help

[Bluestu41]

Morning all!
I have the opportunity to moor my rib for the next 4 weeks at my local estuary.
It’s my first time mooring up and will be on a swinging mooring.
What’s the best knot to use to attach to the mooring chain and do I need to leave the battery on so that the bilge pump works?

Any other tips?

Thanks

[gpsguru]

Originally Posted by Bluestu41

Morning all!
I have the opportunity to moor my rib for the next 4 weeks at my local estuary.
It’s my first time mooring up and will be on a swinging mooring.
What’s the best knot to use to attach to the mooring chain and do I need to leave the battery on so that the bilge pump works?

Any other tips?

Thanks

Your mooring rope (18 - 24mm) should have a spliced loop and you join to the mooring buoy with a wire locked shackle. The mooring buoy is shackled to the mooring chain. If you are mooring for a longer period then fit a safety rope ( smaller dia) in case the main mooring line ever suffers chaffing. You need to fit a pickup buoy on the mooring rope.

[beamishken]

What size/type of boat?

[Bluestu41]

5.5m rib

[beamishken]

Originally Posted by Bluestu41

5.5m rib

We have a coastal swing mooring for our hard boat which is 8.5t we have 2x 20mm 3 strand lines looped to the main 24mm riser & lead one to each deck cleat as no central attachment point, its been on several seasons now & still in good nick. When we are using the boat we leave our 5.4m rib on the mooring & tie the painter via a bowline to one of the mooring lines from the hard boat & just drop the second line. The painter on the rib is spliced to the central bow eye & is 14mm 3 strand never had a problem with chafing & its amply strong enough. Sometimes depends on how the mooring is configured as to the best way to approach how you tie to it

[cdbxyz]

I have my 5.85 on a swinging mooring for most of August. We clip to the bow D-ring directly to the riser chain with a Wichard forged snap hook https://marine.wichard.com/en/stainl...ooks/part-2482 and suitable shackle to attach it to the chain.

We also have a pick up boy spliced to the riser chain a few links down, which is long enough (~2m) to act as a backup to the chain/snap hook should that fail - it comes over the bow loosely and cleats off on the foredeck.

Simple and effective. From talking to our local moorings chap (he does 100s a year) - try to avoid separate pick up buoys, multiple strops etc when it's not that big a boat - the friction in the system goes through the roof and then things fail at a far higher rate.

We leave the boat turned off but with the bilge pump on a bypass so it clears any rainwater.

Depending on where the mooring is - pay attention to tide depths and wind/swell as low spring tides/swell can be bad.

[beamishken]

Personally Id rather trust a knot than a snap hook, it only needs the rope to flick the wrong way & the snap hook will jump out of whatever its hooked too. If you must use a caribiner then a spring locking gate is probably the best option I wouldnt trust a simple spring gate hook with my boat
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305025156...mis&media=COPY

[cdbxyz]

There is no load on the pickup buoy rope in my system so nothing to knock or twist on the snap hook. It’s left loose as a backup. The primary is a direct clip to the chain. I’ll take a photo next time I’m down.

There is no perfect system, but I’d rather have a properly load rated snap hook than a carabiner that relies on closure for strength. The ones you’ve linked to will be ruined in 3 months of saltwater exposure.

If the snap hook were to somehow break or pop off, then the backup in my system is more than sufficient.

[beamishken]

Originally Posted by cdbxyz

There is no load on the pickup buoy rope in my system so nothing to knock or twist on the snap hook. It’s left loose as a backup. The primary is a direct clip to the chain. I’ll take a photo next time I’m down.

There is no perfect system, but I’d rather have a properly load rated snap hook than a carabiner that relies on closure for strength. The ones you’ve linked to will be ruined in 3 months of saltwater exposure.

If the snap hook were to somehow break or pop off, then the backup in my system is more than sufficient.

That one I linked was just an example of a locking gate clip which helps them not to jump out but the one you linked will jump out in a heartbeat if the boat starts dancing about & gets any slack in the line, seen it loads of times. A well executed knot or a moused shackle would be far safer than that clip you linked
The guy only wants it for 4 weeks in any case

[cdbxyz]

Each to their own. This has done fine for us for 10+ years on a variety of boats and is used for a lot of boats around here. It has never jumped off and has been out in pretty wild wind and waves.

The clip jumping around is not a problem - being directly onto the chain provides plenty of downward pressure and damping and the clip is heavily sprung so would require some significant interference from an external factor to unhook.

I guess we can agree to disagree

[Ferryman]

Bowline and yes!

[Easedalenovice]

We keep one of our boats on a swing mooring and it is considerably more faff than launching each time. The other day we used this boat and I accidentally left the hat cam running. It is quite a long video but it shows the faff very well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j0UR3k3nok&t=10s