Catamaran Mooring Bridle Ideas

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by billknny

I think you are trying to solve a problem you are inventing. We anchor on a bridle all the time, it's a monohull, but still the same. Our bridle has 30 foot legs so anytime we are in less than about 23 feet of water (which is the vast majority of the time), the bridle drags along the bottom.

Why are you so concerned about that? If you were anchored on a combined chain/line rode you'd have line dragging all the time.

True, sometimes our bridle comes up muddy. We wash it off.

It is theoretically possible that one leg of the bridle could get chafed through on some underwater nasty bit. There is another leg that works fine. Is is even less likely that BOTH legs of the bridle could chafe through, then the chain stop holds us, and we wake up from the jerking and noise.

You are setting a boundary condition ("Bridle can not touch the bottom") that is impossible to meet with a properly configured bridle. You are proposing adding far more complexity--which always adds risk.

Keep
It
Simple
Sailor

I have to disagree, monohulls tend to use a bridle to prevent shock loading on what is normally an all chain setup. If the bridle fails nothing really happens because everything is at "the bow". Catamarans relay on a bridle to centre them into the wind and stop them sailing around the anchorage. In many cases the anchor is not even deployed from the front but from the apron 3 or 4 metres back from the "bows".

Catamarans can also anchor in very shallow water, we are often anchored in 6 feet of water or less with the board and rudders up we draw 2 feet, when we would adjust the bridle to keep it just above the bottom.

Catamarans typically have only 30-50m of chain so if you are anchored in water deep enough to warrant a chain / line rode (not uncommon) but surrounded by coral not just the bridle but the line could be cut through in seconds.

It is easy to prevent this by attaching a float (or fender) on the line at a distance from the chain less than the depth sufficient to allow the float to lift the end of the chain off the bottom and protect the rode from damage.

[mikereed100]

We have fastened 2 heavy u-bolts to the bows about a foot down from the deck. We attach the bridle ends to these u-bolts with heavy soft shackles. This has the advantage of lowering the height off the water a bit and eliminating chafe. The downside is that the bridles cannot be adjusted for shallow water, although this has not been a big issue. On passage we swap the bridle arms out for our sea anchor bridle.

[admiralslater]

Outremer 45 (old) . My bridles are full width of boat and 3 strand they live on the bow cleat and go over the front beam and up through the bow roller where I tie them off . To deploy i use a dyneema loop as a prussic loop and attach both sides of the bridal with a soft shackle. I let out full lenght of bridal every time . If I need shock absorbing I attach my plaited dock line to the bridle and cleat as far aft as I need . With this system my shock absorber can be about 60 feet long . I can also let out scope with out needing to retrieve the bridle hook