Swing Mooring Problem

[Pearcey]

My 31 foot Moody lives on a swing Mooring but it currently regularly makes contact with the mooring buoy on tide changes causing damage to the hull. I have noticed a few owners have the Mooring Buoy completely out of the water therefore leaving nothing for the boat to come into contact but I don't know how to do this - does anyone know how to set it up. Currently we use a float that is attached to the chain under the buoy but the buoy then floats around and comes in contact with the boat. Help please!

[UNCIVILIZED]

Often in order to stop the boat from bumping the mooring ball it helps to rig up a 2nd line to the ball’s top, with some unique mod’s to this line. The 2nd line’s only purpose is to stop the bumping, not to act as a legitimate 2ndary connection to the mooring. Though, properly done, it may work as such.

Basically you’re making the line connected to the top of the ball rigid. Doing so by running it through a 10’ long piece of PVC pipe, after heavily chafe protecting the line where the PVC wants to rub on it.

When I used this setup, I used some spare plastic hose on the ends of the line for chafe protection. After which I ran the line through my bow roller, connecting it to a cleat with the chafe protection sleeve just in front of the cleat. So that there wasn’t much room for the PVC pipe to slide forward or backward on the line at either end. Nor any slack in the line/loose line at all.

This connection, with it’s heavy chafe protection, did the job well enough that I trusted it to secure my light displacement trimaran (2.5t) to the mooring ball, were my primary line to the ball’s underside to fail. And it was worth the effort, especially as I lived aboard & bumping the ball could be maddening. Just watch for any chafe on either connecting line once this 2nd one is installed.

Also, on the line connected to the chain on the ball’s underside, I used a short chain leader to connect the primary mooring pendant to. So that the mooring pendant was rarely immersed. With the chain lead’s purpose being to prevent any chafing on the rope mooring pendant down near the ball, & the mooring's chain.

PS: You can lift many mooring balls out of the water by using the bail on top of them, & lifting them up via a halyard. But I'm not certain where you'd hang the ball after this? As it would still be connected to the primary mooring chain underneath.

[paulajayne]

How to avoid chafe on swinging moorings - Yachting Monthly

HTH

[Sandero]

There are a series of problems I have observed related to "permanent" moorings in some harbors. The surface when there is a large tidal range with a decent amount of current reversing 2x per day.... under very light to no wind conditions and with wakes caused by boats moving through the mooring field. In this particular one Northport... there are all manner of mooring rigs... bottom of ball, top of ball... single and double pendants... looped lines and hook lines to bow eyes. Most double lines show twist.. some very severe. And these seem to rarely untwist which seems counter intuitive.... but it may relate to the prevailing wind and the current direction from the tides driving the rotation direction. I haven't surveyed this but I'd bet they all twist the same hand.

Chains usually extend to the too of the buoy for those with top attachment. Regardless twist can lead to the pendants wrapping around the chain at the bottom of the ball. To defeat this manner pendants have foam pipe insulation to keep the lines floating and not sinking and wrapping around the ball when the wind or current is not strong enough to push the boat away from the mooring.

One strategy might be to employ something to stiffen the lines at the ball for several feet. This would prevent the line from wrapping perhaps. But there is little to prevent the boat from being pushed toward the mooring in light to no wind with current or wakes. This could be a length of plastic turbing or a fiberglass batten laced onto the mooring lines which can be tied together for a shirt distance from the ball. As the boat yaws one of the two lines will be in tension and the other slack. If the boat does not yaw (most do somewhat at least) and it lies to wind both lines will be under tension.

The mooring acts as a more or less fixed point in the water and the boat is subject to wind, current and wakes and dances around the mooring... causing twists and wraps.

Chafe of the lines on various parts of the bow, chocks, anchor is the main cause of boats breaking free and resulting in damage. Yawing promotes chafe. To defeat this you can use chafe gear or connect to a bow eye with a strong hook so there is nothing to chafe on. Smallish power boats often have a bow eye. Sailboats don't.

Shiva had a very heavy bow eye and snap hook with a mooring compensator and survived Sandy. But she also had a second standard looser loop pendant line. The very heavy bow eye assembly was destroyed from swinging and yawing.. and the safety line took over. Sandy's winds were strong enough to break the bow eye, and drag the boat 750 feet in a largely empty mooring field with the broken bow eye as the only damage. Several boats chafed through their pendants. Not a steep price to pay to save the boat.

[zeehag]

some folks in our mooring field used pool noodles and t shirts on the plastic mooring buoys we were attached to. as our mooring balls were plastic, there was minimal boat damages--only scuffing hulls. t shirts prevented this, and pool noodles around the areas contacting your boat also work. one tenant used small fenders on the mooring ball, attached the fenders to the loop on top of ball. i used lines wrapped around that loop to prevent it from gouging my ericson in san diego. that ss loop was a danger in some stormy chop

[JPA Cate]

Pearcey,

Here's a trick I read on CF: buy a large size children's pool donut, or a truck tire inner tube and put lines on it so you can lower it in a controlled fashion......right over the top of your mooring ball. It is now a fender for your hull. Voila! If you go with the truck tire inner tube, you'll have to figure out what to do about the filling valve, might have to lash it flat, and place a seizing over it. You could even sew old t-shirts around it so it would be fabric that contacts the boat's hull.

A.

Ann

[Chenega]

What about a soft inflatable ball? I've used one for years for this very reason - and no damage..!




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[barnakiel]

I have seen one owner slide a length of stiff hose over the line. Then it was impossible to come too close to the buoy. I do not know how he fixed the hose onboard but it looked as if he were fishing and the bouy was his oversize float.

b.

[SV DestinyAscen]

Loop two fenders to your line, one at each end of the mooring ball - you just need to be careful when departing else you'll watch your fenders float away...