Single Handing

[rtbates]

Originally Posted by allsail68

While i read a number of docking tips, see very little written pertaining to picking up a mooring solo. I, for one, could use some insight here.

Thanks.

When I was on a mooring and single handing, I'd come up to the ball so that I KNEW which side I would pass it. As it floated pass the cockpit I would snag it with my boat hook and tying off at the stern. After all was settled I'd walk it forward. If your boat co-operates in reverse simply back down on it, being darn sure that nothing can wrap your prop.

[rtbates]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Notwithstanding his extensive experience, Brent’s advice is contrary to conventional wisdom (also the result of experience), which generally has most of us:
1. Maneuvering head to tide, current, or wind (whichever is greatest).
2. Anchoring/mooring from the bow.

Tom Neale offers a humourous look at the subject:
For More Boring Mooring ~ By Tom Neale ”... Generally the most successful skippers pick up the moorings by the stern. Their tool of choice seems to be the propeller. But this isn’t what you may be thinking. You don’t back up to the mooring. That wouldn’t be proper and would be far too easy. Anchoring by the stern usually involves a bow on approach. The idea is that the mooring ball is actually a target to help you line up. If you can hit that ball dead on, you’re much more likely to successfully catch the pennant with a propeller ...”
Goto: BoatUS.com - Tom Neale's Cruising For You

Other humourous articles by Tom:
BoatUS.com - Tom Neale's Cruising For You

Here's a little info on the subject. Imagine my shock when I saw my words quoted here. Seraph is my Cape Dory 25D. It does work, I assure you.

http://www.jordanseriesdrogue.com/D_14.htm

[Alan Wheeler]

If you spend 20 years doing the same thing over and over without success it might be time to change the approach.

The definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over whilst each time expecting a different result" :-)

I pick up a mooring by coming along side and hooking the float and then quickly passing a line through that has a loop at one end. In pass the other end of the line through the eye and let it all go again, EXCEPT for the end of the line. This I then tie off to a deck cleat and I can shut the engine down. I then have time to walk the line forward and get it over my spare bow roller and onto the capstan. This now means I can use the anchor winch to pull in the line and mooring rope and hook it over the fwd bollard. With the bow being darn near 7ft above the water, the boat displacment being 26T and the wind often blowwing strongly, this is the only way I or we can safely do the job.

[Brent Swain]

Conventional wisdom is so often anything but wise , which gives it a serious credibility problem.
Conventional wisdom once was that the world is flat ,the sun and plannets go around us ,etc etc.
If we all stuck doggedly to conventional wisdom we'd still be living in caves and wearing bearskins to keep out asses warm. Advocates of sticking to conventional wisdom are millstones around the neck of progress, always have been and always will be.
Ignore them with the contempt they deserve.
Brent

[S/V Elusive]

Alan, I have a slight variation on your method. I use a standard docking line and have one end secured around the midship cleat. After hooking the float I pass the other end of that secured line through the mooring loop and walk the end forward through the hawse pipe and tie it off to the forward cleat.

After I've taken care all the OTHER things. I just take the end off the midship cleat and take it forward (the mooring line is usually already pretty far forward) and run it through the same hawse pipe and winch the mooring line loop through the hawse pipe and secure it to one of my forward cleats. I leave the line through the mooring loop in case I need to make a bridle - attach the bridle and ease the line through the loop until the bridle is engaged - reverse when ready to leave.