Storm Prep: Slip or mooring ball?

[tn3sport]

This is my marina after Hurricane Matthew hit in 2016. Not sure how many were lost. I've heard 15 to 25 were sank as they were tied to their slips.


In case the image doesn't show up, here's the link: https://www.google.com/search?q=conc...gk5vrFdbSf-zM:

About 100 meters away is a mooring field. I wonder how these boats would of faired tied to a mooring ball as opposed to being tied to a slip (floating dock)

Is there a preference when a storm approaches and you are unable to get the boat hauled out? There's plenty of mooring balls available. Seems like letting the boat spin bow first into the wind on a mooring ball might have a better chance. (Assuming said mooring ball holds...If it doesn't hold I guess your vessel becomes a battering ram for other vessels. From what I hear, most sinkings were due to being ramped by rogue vessels during the hurricane. Some sank due to being tied to floating docks that over-lifted their pilings.)

Just wondering given those two options: Mooring ball or floating dock slip. Which has the best chance of survival?

[rwidman]

Well, even on a mooring there's the danger of other boats or debris hitting your boat. A marina near me was totally destroyed by Matthew. Docks floated away or broke up . Some of the boats left in the water ended up on a nearby airport runway.

Other marinas not far away suffered minor damage. Nobody can predict the exact track of a hurricane or how it would damage boats or property. Sometimes boats stored on land are damaged and boats left in the water are not. So, there's no predicting if a mooring ball is safer than a slip.

[Moody46CC]

Awful lot of variables. Boats can and do break lose from moorings and slips. Any fetch will have a major effect, so if either the slip or the mooring is adversely affected by fetch, that should give you a lot of thought as to which is the correct call. You have not said what the displacement of your boat is, and that could have a major effect if the moorings are anchored by weights, e.g., concrete slabs or engine blocks. A mooring that is screwed or augured in to the seabed holds pretty well, as does a concrete floating dock with really tall pilings so it can't ride high enough in a storm surge to go over the pilings. If those factors are equal, then the weak link will be the lines to the mooring or dock. You should have a chain to the mooring with a big snubber and a back up with some slack would not be bad. You will not be able to go out to the boat on the mooring once things hit the fan. On a floating dock or slip, double your lines. Nylon lines with lots of chafe gear. These can be adjusted in a storm from the dock but once the wind rises, you won't be able to do this.

[Taichungman]

If I only had those two choices I would choose that the mooring ball. But I don't like either one.

I had to dodge hurricane Elena in '85 when I was living on my boat (a cat) in the Gulf of Mexico and chose to run up a creek off the ICW and tie to land.
That would be my first choice if available.

Other than that the next would be to anchor in the best protected place you could where there was little fetch and away from other boats.

[Vasco]

I left my boat on a mooring ball in the Bahamas once when I had to fly home. Besides the two lines to the mooring ball I unshackled one anchor and took the chain down to the engine block that the ball was attached to. I dived down and shackled the chain to the block and cleated the chain off on deck. The weight was on the two lines but if the lines chafed through or the ball broke away hopefully I would stay secured to the engine block. This is what I would do in a hurricane if the choice were a slip or mooring ball.

[thomm225]

During Hurricane Ivan (Cat 3-4) in Pensacola there were many boats anchored in Bayou Grande which is quite protected.

The problem though was that when the surge of 14' plus came thru at about 0300 it lifted the floating docks at the navy base above it's pilings.

The floating dock and what boats that were left attached to it then came thru like I gigantic bowling ball and destroyed or carried away with it all the anchored boats

https://www.google.com/search?q=hurr...I-dlv0TKrYDvM:

Navy base where the floating dock had been:

https://www.google.com/search?q=hurr...Jk-zTyK45y8QM:

[Tom_F]

My yacht club has a couple of floating docks, but they are for temporary transient use only (pump out, loading/unloading, short-term maintenance, etc.) only. All boats are stored either on a mooring or, with some of the smaller boats and some on the hard for the season, in the yard on trailers or jackstands. The fleet was severely damaged by Katrina back in 2012 as many moorings pulled loose or lines chafed through. Those boats then became battering rams and damaged and cut loose the boats further inland in the mooring field. All of the boats on the hard were destroyed. We also lost the floating docks. Surprisingly, none of the boats on moorings with helix-style anchors (the ones drilled into bedrock) were lost due to the moorings failing, only due to other boats - at least according to the guys who maintain the mooring field. Based on the damage at surrounding marinas and our mooring field, I would stay on a helix-style mooring with plenty of extra lines and chafe protection unless I could get far enough upriver to be out of the tidal surge, which is not an option for me.

[Suijin]

The US Naval Academy has a lot of boats in the water, in slips, and maintains "hurricane holes" all the way up the Severn river, with a few mooring balls in every protected cove and creek. They'll move a majority of their boats to them if a storm threatens, and most of their slips are fairly well protected to begin with.

I think part of the calculation is how well protected the mooring field is and where the surge/swell is going to be coming from. Also, unless the mooring fields are well maintained you're sort of playing Russian roulette.

[jmschmidt]

Hurricane Ewa, Hawaii, 1982, my boat (Newport 21) was leased to the commander of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base. He took it out in the middle of Pearl Harbor and put it on a Navy mooring. Not a scratch.

Like it’s been said here, lots of variables, but if you have access to one of these moorings take it.

[vlathom]

Just an update regarding what Suijin reported about the Naval Academy's mooring balls in the Severn, Annapolis, Md. Irony of ironies, this summer the mooring balls started failing and are mostly gone. As of today, the Academy has not replaced them. Not sure what they will do in case of a storm.

[roverhi]

Went through the tail end of two tropical storms, one on a mooring and the other in a slip with fixed docks. Both were open to NNE at the NavalAir Station Norfolk. The problem on the mooring was chafe on the pendants. Yes that's plural, don't expect to have a boat after the storm passes if you've got one line to the mooring ball. The pendants stretched so much that the commercial chafing gear was pulled through the chocks. Got worried about chafe so wanted to unmake the lines and pull them back in so the chafing gear could do it's job. Bad idea!! The strain on the line was so great it nearly got wrenched from my hands and pulled through the chock. The fact that I had two lines to the mooring buoy was the only thing that saved me. Even with the other line, the boat was veering so badly and the wind so strong I was barely able to hold on to the line that I'd undone. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, there was a short lull in the winds and I was able to pull the line back and reposition the chafing gear in the chock and make it fast. The boat only had one mooring cleat at the bow so would have had to undone the one that I'd just recleated to uncleat the other pendant. Decided to leave it as was rather than chance losing both lines and boat be driven up on the jetty. Went on deck in the morning after the winds abated to find the unchafe guarded 3 strand down to one badly chewed up strand. Fortunately the one that I was able to reposition the chafing on was still okay.

Second time was tied up at the fixed piers with a sailboat on the other side of the finger pier. The boats got rocking so much in the middle of the night that the masts would occasionally bang together. Really unnerving to hear the clang of the masts colliding and the shivering of the boat under the blows. Freaked me out so much I decided to bailout and find shelter ashore. Not a possibility as things turned out. The storm surge was so high the docks were at least 2' under water. Couldn't see the docks to jump off the boat and the boat was rocking so violently was afraid to sit and put my feet over the side to try and feel for the dock. Probably a good thing as I don't really know how far under water the docks were just that they weren't uncovering in 2' or so waves washing into the slips. Might have been so deep that I could have been swept off them by the waves.

Of course all the above was at 0 dark thirty in an inky black night. Why doesn't crap happen in the daylight when you can see. Lesson learned, make the boat as secure as you can, get off, head several hours inland and stay with friends or rent a motel room. Get as far away from water as you can. Worry about the boat but don't chance losing your life.

[bvisailing32]

Seems like other boats are the main problem. Moorings or docks.

Some are near derildcts, and have not been tended to in years. And just how has the mooring itself been maintained. Dock lines are dried out and stiff , and no proper cleat hitches.

Decks covered in sea gull guano, roller furling inhibitor all chaffed and taters, halywards not tied off, sail covers all faded out and ripped. Just some big clues that those vessels are going to break free or drag down.

Same problem exists for boats tied up in slips, and also the tidal surge raising floating docks over the pilings.

I think we would do every thing that we could, and then get off the boat and drive off and along way to sunshine, a friends home, or a motel or hotel, and bring the dark rum.

We cannot control mother nature or other peoples boats. Too dangerous to be on board, or try to fend off sevral thousand pounds of sail or motor vessel.

When it is all over, and the battering ram boats are lifted off, and docks repaired, you can fine you have lucked out, or call the insurance company, but you and your loved ones have been safe.

[Steadman Uhlich]

PETER O,

Thanks for writing such a well written, vivid, description of your experience.

[danielamartindm]

Ultimately, if your mooring holds and no other ships break away and crash into you, a mooring's the way to go. Hurricanes are full of contingencies.

[skipmac]

I rode out Matthew on my boat on a mooring on the St Johns River. Thursday evening when I got to the boat there were 22 boats in the mooring field. Saturday morning there were 9.

of the 13 that were gone at least three drug the moorings that, in spite of assurances from the marina, turned out to be quite undersized. The rest chaffed through their lines. Most were on single lines, no one showed up to do anything at all to secure the boats.

The mooring field was like bumper cars at the fair. If I hadn't been on board to fend off I would have lost the boat.

No more moorings for me. I would trust my own ground tackle much better.

If not on my own anchor then on the hard.