Catamaran Mooring Bridle Ideas

[CaptRehab]

I had some thoughts on how I might increase the stretch and shock absorbing for my bridle. I choose a small enough diameter line to give me the maximum stretch while still having a breaking strength much greater than the anchor holding power. Of course the longer the bridle the more overall stretch you can get, but at some point your bridle is dragging along the bottom. I was thinking of a way to improve this by using rubber snubbers on a shorter bridle but I don't want the black rubber rubbing on my hulls and I don't want them hanging near the hook. I came up with the idea of increasing the line length by connecting them together at the center of the cross beam and locating the snubbers under the cross beam. The two ends of my crossbeam is where the bridle attachment points currently are, where they anchor to the stainless crossbeam to hull fitting.

[Tupaia]

Chafe and chafe - Harken rings are not really designed for this, "items requiring minimum fine tuning". You are not fine tuning but the snubbers will effectively be constantly fine tuning.


Far better to use 3 strand, one size smaller than the main rode, don't splice the ends, use bow cleats instead of fixed points. You can adjust length according to conditions.

[Sos]

Since it is all free running it will pull on one side and jam one of the snubbers against a padeye.
As Tupaia says, we connect each leg to a bow cleat, over a bow roller, so we can adjust to any length as needed.

[Tin Tin]

You could try a shockle
https://www.davisinstruments.com/product/shockles/

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by Tin Tin

You could try a shockle
https://www.davisinstruments.com/product/shockles/

Bridles on cats are relatively long and using 3 strand rope is easily able to cope with snatching forces. IMO snubbers just add unnecessary complication.

I have know of one owner that thought that a Dyneema bridle would be a good idea, extra strong. They were shaken from their berths.

[CaptRehab]

Originally Posted by Sos

Since it is all free running it will pull on one side and jam one of the snubbers against a padeye.
As Tupaia says, we connect each leg to a bow cleat, over a bow roller, so we can adjust to any length as needed.

The central padeye would be where the ends of the snubbers are connected to to prevent it from doing that. However chafe is still a problem. I do not have bow rollers on each hull but I do have cleats. That is probably the best idea. I would have to hang the extra line from the pulpit because the hulls are narrow and there are no lockers that far forward in the bows. How do you manage the bridle on your boat? Almost all the catamarans I checked out had a fixed bridle and was usually too short and the line to heavy to be as effective at shock absorption as it could be

[CaptRehab]

This is the current arrangement. The bridle is too long form most places I have anchored so far. If I attach the bridle to the cleats it will rub on the bows since the cleats are on the outer sides of the hulls.

[Sos]

The legs on our bridle are a lot longer. Our cleats are set back from the bow, in fact we have two each side.
Looking at your picture your could tie each leg off to the cleat on the end of the cross beam. The only problem you might have is with chafe over the bow? Maybe plastic tubing?

[CaptRehab]

Originally Posted by Sos

The legs on our bridle are a lot longer. Our cleats are set back from the bow, in fact we have two each side.
Looking at your picture your could tie each leg off to the cleat on the end of the cross beam. The only problem you might have is with chafe over the bow? Maybe plastic tubing?

These lines are 24' long (7.3 meters) How long are yours? When I anchor in 10' of water the bridle drags along the bottom

[44'cruisingcat]

I made my bridles overlength, then braided part of them. The braiding adds quite a lot of elasticity.

[Sos]

Don't know for sure but more like 10m. I adjust them to suit depth but also wind strength. If I know it's going to blow I let more out.

[Tupaia]

Mine are 12.5m long, 1.5 x beam. Like Sos we have 2 cleats on each bow. After the lines are cleated off we just leave the free ends on the tramp.

If the anchorage is deep and we are on rode rather than chain we use mooring lines and rolling hitches.

[Tusitala]

On our boat the bridle is lead through snatchblocks to give us a fairlead to the cleats. The bridle is 1-1/2 times boatlength, with marks at various equal distances on both legs. I anchor from the main anchor line, usually a bit short, and then attach the bridle to the anchor line and add scope until the bridle takes up. I preset the bridle for conditions. This setup makes it easy to adjust or to dump the bridle and get the anchor aboard in an emergency situation.

[singlespeed]

Not sure of your boat size, but the photo you provided would indicate the 24' length was prior to creating the eyes at either end. My boat is 42'x24' and I use a bridle with 18' of three strand on each leg, measured after all eyes are fashioned. Normally I loop the ends over the cleats, but if I am in very light wind conditions or in very shallow water, I pull the cleat ends off and cleat them off a shorter distance. If the wind picks up, simply take up all the slack on the anchor chain, drop the loop over the cleats and release the anchor chain again, so that the now loaded bridle is back to full length.

[CaptRehab]

Originally Posted by singlespeed

Not sure of your boat size, but the photo you provided would indicate the 24' length was prior to creating the eyes at either end. My boat is 42'x24' and I use a bridle with 18' of three strand on each leg, measured after all eyes are fashioned. Normally I loop the ends over the cleats, but if I am in very light wind conditions or in very shallow water, I pull the cleat ends off and cleat them off a shorter distance. If the wind picks up, simply take up all the slack on the anchor chain, drop the loop over the cleats and release the anchor chain again, so that the now loaded bridle is back to full length.

24' after I spliced in the thimbles. The boat is 44x22. Because the cleat are outboard If I use them to shorten the bridle it will rub on the deck and hull.