# Leaving your dingy on a mooring while you're day sailing?



## mikeedmo (May 26, 2005)

*We have a mooring just south of the ocean inlet. We're seeing folks dingying out to their moored boats and leaving their dingy at the mooring. Any thoughts on what may be the best way to secure the dingy that won't interfere with picking up the mooring pendant when we return or should we not even do this? It'd be great to leave the dink at the mooring for a day sail!*


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## sailingfool (Apr 17, 2000)

mikeedmo said:


> *We have a mooring just south of the ocean inlet. We're seeing folks dingying out to their moored boats and leaving their dingy at the mooring. Any thoughts on what may be the best way to secure the dingy that won't interfere with picking up the mooring pendant when we return or should we not even do this? It'd be great to leave the dink at the mooring for a day sail!*


Tie it to the mooring ball with a bowline, then climb onto your bow. Tie it so it floats just next to your bow.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

It really depends on your boat... if the boat has too much freeboard to get aboard at the bow, you might want to leave a second painter in the dinghy that will allow you to tie the dinghy to the stern of your boat after tieing up to the mooring. 

If you do leave the dinghy on the mooring, make sure you've got a good outboard motor lock, or you may return from a daysail to find the dink's motor missing.


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## tdw (Oct 2, 2006)

WTF ? Why on earth would you climb on board at the bow ? Seems strange to me. We tie off to the stern when we arrive at the boat, unload our gear etc , get her ready to go out then walk the dinghy to the bow, tie it off to the mooring buoy which we then drop into the dinghy and cast off. Climbing onboard over the bow is impossible to difficult on anything much bigger than 30' and doable albeit difficult on smaller boats but why would you bother ? 

Oh yes , and you do need a good knot. Round turn and a couple of half hitches is asking for trouble particualrly if tied to one of those plastic mooring buoys. It will slip. Trust me on this . Bowline is good.


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## Faster (Sep 13, 2005)

A lightly loaded bowline is not the most secure knot around. Leaving a long tail and putting a half hitch or two behind the bowline would make me feel better about leaving the dinghy unattended.

Security issues aside, leaving the dinghy there is an obvious indication that the buoy is in use.

We don't really have mooring buoy fields here like you have on the East coast, but many parks do provide buoys... in that case it is not permitted to "reserve" your mooring with a dinghy.

I'd be tempted to leave it on a long enough painter(floating line, of course) that the dinghy ends up alongside the cockpit once you've snagged the buoy on your return.


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

I'll let you in on a secret "mikeedmo" ..... _it doesn't matter what knot you use !_ Use your dinghy to get out to the boat. Climb on to the boat. Pass up everything from the dinghy on to the boat. Stow it. Get the boat ready to go. Tie the dinghy to the mooring. Go sailing.

When you come back, get the boat close enough to the dinghy to reach it with a boathook. Pull the boat up to the dinghy and then ue the dinghy to pull the boat up to the mooring. Tie the boat up to the mooring. Load up the dinghy with your empties and your garbage. Climb aboard. Go home.


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## mikeedmo (May 26, 2005)

Excellent advice!! Many thanks.. we're off!!!


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## Mr. Chef (Oct 6, 2013)

Seems pretty basic. My question is to tie to the ball or to the loop at the end of the painter that we use to tie the boat. The painter for the dink on the end of the mooring line make for a wide swing. Plus it makes it hard to cleat the loop of the mooring line when the dink line is tied to the 'eye. As i write, it becomes clear, either tie to the ball directly so the mooring line is easy to retrieve and cleat, or tie to the mooring line, shortening up the dink painter so it doesn't take up the entire field while we are gone.


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## cthoops (Apr 30, 2012)

Mr. Chef said:


> Seems pretty basic. My question is to tie to the ball or to the loop at the end of the painter that we use to tie the boat. The painter for the dink on the end of the mooring line make for a wide swing. Plus it makes it hard to cleat the loop of the mooring line when the dink line is tied to the 'eye. As i write, it becomes clear, either tie to the ball directly so the mooring line is easy to retrieve and cleat, or tie to the mooring line, shortening up the dink painter so it doesn't take up the entire field while we are gone.


We tie our dink's painter to the eye of the mooring line with a bowline. The painter is long enough that there's plenty of slack when we pick up the mooring line, and if the dink is in the way it just gets nudged aside by the boat. We've never had any trouble putting the mooring line on the cleat when the painter is also tied to it.


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## BarryL (Aug 21, 2003)

Hey,

This is an old thread, but what the heck. I've had a boat on a mooring since 2004. 

I have two pendants, about 15' long, and a mooring pick up stick tied to the mooring ball with a line that is also about 15' long. The painter on my dink is about 10' long and I have a large brass spring clip at the end. I take my dink out to the boat, clip the painter to the rear pulpit, and then load my passengers and gear. When it's time to leave I walk the dink forward and clip it to the forward pulpit. Then I drop the pick up stick into the water, take one mooring pendant off the cleat, and I clip the dink painter to it. I then drop the eye of the mooring pendant over the pick up stick. I take the other pendant off the boat and drop that on top of the pick up stick too. Then i motor / sail / drift away from the mooring and have my fun.

When I return to my mooring. I coast upwind towards the pick up stick. If I do it correctly, I just walk forward, grab the stick, take one pendant off the pick up stick and place it on a bow cleat. Now i can take my time getting the other pendant, unclipping the dink painter, putting the pendant on the other bow cleat. taking the pick up stick out of the water, etc.

It's all very easy to do and I do it by myself just about every time. The only time it might get challenging is it the wind is up. Then I just need to be sure I get to the bow quickly, so I get one pendant on before the wind blows the bow off, etc.

Barry


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