CHAPTER 8
your fingers are away from the action. Secondly, you can bring the knot back aboard so that nobody has to lean precariously over the bow to undo it. Crew members with bad backs will be grateful for this.
If the boat seems likely to surge around on the buoy and you are in any doubt at all about the effectiveness of your fairlead, think ‘chafe’, and slide a length of armoured hose onto the rope where it passes over the bow, just as you would for towing (see page 58).
If chafe looks a potential issue, perhaps when the tide turns and blows against the wind, you may even choose to unshackle your chain cable from the anchor and take it to the ring on the buoy. Your troubles are now at an end, but anyone sleeping up forward on a wild night may have their repose disturbed by the rattling and snubbing. The same is true for chain mooring strops.
When it’s time to let go, shorten up the slip rope and ease away the main mooring before untying the bowline or unshackling the chain. If you’ve no slip, motor up slowly to relieve the load. The lasso Where there is no pickup and it proves impossible to grab the ring, the last resort for making initial contact with a buoy is to lasso it. Secure both ends of a rope to either side of the bow, leading the bight forward, outside everything. Experience and practice will show how long the bight should be on differing occasions, but deploying it is a knack worth developing. Take off all way with the bow over the buoy and drop the bight so that it sinks into the water beyond it. When it is well down, pull up the slack on one end. The bight will catch on the riser immediately below the buoy and stay there until you have secured in a more permanent manner. Never lie to a lasso. It is clearly less safe than other means of making fast; it is also unpopular with harbourmasters because it chafes the riser. To use the lasso as a matter of course when a better method of attaching to a buoy presents itself is unseamanlike. Compared with a boat hook and a pickup it will always be a hit-and-miss affair.
Wind against tide – traditional craft The bull rope Lying to a mooring with wind against tide causes chafe and noise on any boat as she ‘sails’ past the mooring and is brought up short by the strop. Boats with serious bowsprits have an inherent advantage in these circumstances because they can rig a bull rope as they might also do for anchoring (see page 82). In this context it
“The Lasso”
is secured to the buoy (usually with a long bowline) rather than to the bight of the anchor cable, then led back to the deck to hold the buoy clear, via a turning block or bullseye at the bowsprit end.
Bobstays and moorings The bull rope also helps to keep the mooring or anchor chain clear of the bowsprit’s bobstay, which will otherwise chafe and cause stress all round. However, in addition to enjoying the benefits of the bull rope, the classical ‘English cutter’ whose mast does not rely on headgear rigged to the bowsprit to hold it up can tension the bobstay with a wire tackle which can be eased off when anchored or moored. The bobstay is then triced up, taking it right out of the way. Securing between piles Piles generally have iron staples, or ‘horses’ on their inner sides, with a ring that can slide up and down to compensate for tide. When securing to these rings, the same rules apply as to mooring rings on buoys. A slip is useful, but should not be used overnight unless conditions are guaranteed to be quiet. When rigging the round turn and bowline, make the bowline as long as possible, because it is not unknown for the ring to jam at the bottom, especially when a number of boats are lying on the same piles. The skipper who called for two half hitches will then be left very embarrassed. Rafting on piles Arrange your lines as though rafting up in an alongside berth (see page 71). The pile ropes substitute for the shore lines. As in the dockside situation, hail before rafting, then come alongside. When all is stable, use the dinghy to run your pile lines.
MANUAL OF SEAMANSHIP | 85
Mooring
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