# Mooring advice needed



## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Hi everyone, I have always kept my boat in a marina but the rising cost has forced me out on a mooring at a public beach. I have purchased all my gear as follows:

-300 lbs American mushroom
-3/4" shackle for the mushroom to chain connection
-30' of 3/4" mooring chain 
-15' of 1/2" mooring chain attached via 5/8" shackle to the 3/4" chain
-3/4" swivel at the top under the mooring buoy attached to the 1/2" chain via 5/8" shackle
-18" inflatable mooring ball

All the hardware is good quality American made.

The question I have is, I am going to attach the boat to the mooring via 12' of 5/8" 3 strand line, I need some recommendations as to how I should rig this to the swivel.

Here are a few scenarios I have come up with, the best being to obtain a large 1 1/4" shackle that will allow 2 lines to ride next to one another without fighting each other (I will bind them together at the shackle to avoid chafe). The shackle seen in the last photo is 3/4". Is this a common method?

What do you guys think I should do?




























Also, let me come clean, I do not have a sailboat but a powerboat, however I have been reading this site for months now and know I can get the right answers here.

Here is a photo of my bow:










I am going to attach a line on each port and starboard cleat, but make one longer then the other to serve as a backup. Is this a good idea Recommendations would be great!


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

I just checked the price on an american 1 1/4" shackle- $99 bucks! China model is $45. 

Also found out my american made shackles are actually from canada, interesting!


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

One more thought- would I be better off hooking the mooring line to the bow eye? This would eliminate the need to even get on the bow when picking up the mooring since I could connect and disconnect from the cockpit. When not in use I could tie it off to a rear cleat or head to the bow to hang it neatly off the railing.

The downside would be that the mooring ball connection (under the ball) would be difficult to make unless I made a short 5' pennant to hook to.

The other thing is a snap would need to be employed to make the connection to the ball.


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## sailortjk1 (Dec 20, 2005)

First thought I had is I would ask a rigger if he could splice the thimble and eye directly to the swivel and eliminate the extra shackles. My opinion, the less parts you have the less chance of failure.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

That is certainly an idea- and it seems like it would work well. I do all my own splicing, so the only problem would be opening up the thimble to slide it into the swivel. 

Good idea, thanks.


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## fordo (Jul 3, 2006)

I would not hook it to the bow eye. The snap will be (by far) the weakest link. Also, as I understand your plan there would be a line from the bow eye back to the cockpit. At some point that line is bound to come loose and go over the side, possibly ending up in the prop. 

I would also have both pennants cleated with the same tension. this keep the boat from "sailing" back and forth on the mooring, preventing chafe. It is also a stronger system. 

I'm not sure from your pictures but if you don't have bow chocks you may want to add them to prevent chafe.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Thanks for the thoughts. Where would I put bow chocks on this boat? There isn't room to put them anywhere?


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Instead of using two separate lines I would highly recommend using a single line that is 25' long of octo-plait or 12-plait and use a locking brummel splice in the center of it. Using this bridle reduces the number of thimbles that need to be connected to the swivel and gives you the redundancy you are looking for.

I would also recommend getting about 10' of 2" tubular webbing, preferably spectra or dyneema if possible, and cutting it in half and putting a 5' long section over each side of the bridle as chafe protection. In the future, it might be worth considering moving the existing cleats inboard a bit and adding bow chocks to the foredeck along with stainless steel rub strakes to protect the fiberglass, as I've done.


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## tommays (Sep 9, 2008)

Down this way you have to have TWO lines from the ball to the boat and the swivel is allways a weak point 

I find as long as i use the boat once a week to 10 days the lines dont wind up to tight without a swivel 

And you will need some saftey wire on the shackles


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

I still don't see how chocks would do anything in this situation? It would not change anything?


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## tommays (Sep 9, 2008)

Even My J24 has bow chocks and without them the line will chew right through the gelcoat and deck in a matter of days


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Given the design of my bow, I just cant get bow chocks in there that would do any good, unless I am looking at it wrong.

One more vote for a bow eye hook up then? 

No chafe that way.


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## heinzir (Jul 25, 2000)

I vote for the bow eye for two reasons:
1) Chafe problems are virtually eliminated
2) The mooring pendant will be more horizontal, effectively increasing the "scope" of the mooring system.

Just be sure that your bow eye is securely fastened with robust backing blocks. It should be at least as strong as any mooring cleats.


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## Maine Sail (Jan 6, 2003)

A few thoughts:

1) How did you confirm your chain length? Most harbor masters around here will tell you specifically how much scope you can have for your moorings actual lat/lon location. Too much and you bump your neighbors. Too little and you drag.

2) Your bow cleats should be fine. Having had boats and family boats on moorings for over 40+ years, 15 of them in the open ocean not a harbor, I find I actually prefer edge mounted cleats.

They give you two lines to have to chafe through at each cleat when you fold the eye and if they are close enough to the edge and you have enough pendant scope you get little to no chafe with them. Our current boat has a beautiful cast stainless bow plate with integral chocks that are very, very smooth. I get MORE chafe with this set up than I did on my Catalina's with edge mounted cleats. The distance between the chock and cleat allows for stretch and rebound. This is what causes chafe, the movement. With edge mounted cleats you get little to no stretch and rebound effect thus minimizing chafe. You do however want to have a smooth lip or toe rail edge and or stainless half rounds to protect the gelcoat.

3) Swivels are the weak link and should be considerably over-sized. I use a 1" swivel on a 36 footer and it is replaced ever four or five years or sooner depending on wear. The best location for them is directly under the ball where you are placing it as it can more easily be inspected.

4) Be sure your 12' of pendant is enough. You do not want a sharp angle off the bow. Sharp angles cause more wear & tear than long low angles.

Even with the bow high in the air you still don't want a very steep angle.

















Proper length:








Too Short for a harbor with any exposure:









5) Have you considered Yale Polydyne pendants? They are amazingly tough, abrasion resistant and stretchy. In Falmouth they survive storms far better than three strand. Even with both having chafe protection. Mine have survived a number of Nor'Easters with no issues, including this one.

Nor' Easter Video

6) As for the connection to the swivel I use an over-sized CM load rated shackle. The pendants are then laces together with floats to keep them in the same orientation. The trick is to put one very close to the shackle to keep the pendants in tension against the underside of the ball so that can't droop, kink & tangle.

Two Yale Polydyne Pendants, one shackle:









7) Un-equal length pendants are a safer choice. With two equal length pendants you can have nearly equal wear. With one pendant longer than the other as a secondary or back up pendant it becomes the perfectly brand new pendant when the primary use pendant fails. Some boat will sail at anchor no matter what you do. My mooring guy services over 1000 moorings and uses un-equal length pendants. The have not lost a boat in years..

8) Lace on some floats to prevent ball tangles. Also if you have an anchor make sure it can not interfere with the pendants.

















9) Bow eyes can be a decent option IF and only IF it is robust enough in design. It can avoid chafe issues and pendant angle issues. Sadly though most are not designed or robust enough for shock loading. My neighbor pulled one out of a small O'Day..


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Maine Sail, thanks a lot for all the info. 

I can check my bow eye. I can tell you that I have loaded it pretty hard on the trailer and never had it move, but can certainly inspect the eye and backer plate.

If I do go with the bow hook, I would attach it to the pennant with a stainless shackle load rated. However, I am unsure how I could attach the pennant at the ball end easily. 

My boat is a 25' cuddy cabin cruiser at about 7000 lbs.


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## Liquorice (Nov 28, 2007)

<Also found out my american made shackles are actually from canada, interesting!>

- Even better then!!! 

Great post!
I keep my boat on a summer mooring and I'm always looking for good ideas.
I use a bow eye about 1/2 way up the stem; 2 x 3 strand nylon lines with snubbers; one longer than the other; I also use a slack "insurance line" through the top eye on the ball and to each cleat on either side of the bow. Never been needed but I sleep better.
Hadn't thought about the small floats - great idea!

sam


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

The best snap hook I could find.

It is a Wichard #2328 with a working load of 3175 lbs and a breaking strength of much more.

What do you guys think? The pin hole is large enough (.75") to fit a shackle pin through to attach it to a pennant.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Not a big fan of snap hooks for a mooring setup. The shock loads on a mooring pennant can be many times the working load. Also, stainless steel has a nasty habit of weakening without much warning and then snapping under a sudden load. Galvanized hardware will generally rust a bit before getting to the point where it will fail, and gives you at least some visible indication of a problem.

You still haven't said anything about the displacement/weight of your boat. Depending on what it is, may affect how well the gear you've posted is going to work. I use a 3/4" mooring pennant for my boat, and it only displaces about 4000 lbs.



CascoBay said:


> The best snap hook I could find.
> 
> It is a Wichard #2328 with a working load of 3175 lbs and a breaking strength of much more.
> 
> What do you guys think? The pin hole is large enough (.75") to fit a shackle pin through to attach it to a pennant.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

See post #15 above 

My boat is a 25' cuddy cabin cruiser at about 7000 lbs.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

How exposed is this public beach???


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

It is fairly exposed.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

I'd seriously consider going up to 3/4" Polydyne mooring pennants from Yale... rather than the 5/8" three-strand your thinking of. The three-strand has a breaking strength of 12000 lbs... or less than 2:1 compared to the weight of your boat. A 3/4" Polydyne pennant has a breaking strength of 23000 lbs... or a bit over 3:1 compared to the weight of the boat. With storm surge and wind, you could easily exceed the tensile strength of the 5/8" three-strand, especially if there's any chafe damage.

My boat is only 60% the weight of yours or so, and I'm in a very sheltered harbor, with a hurricane barrier to block 99% of the storm surge, and a fetch of less than two miles in the worst case scenario... and I'm using 3/4" polydyne pennants... but I like my boat to stay where I put her.  Of course, my boat has a good deal more windage than a 25' cuddy cabin cruiser... being 18' wide with a mast that sticks up almost 42' in the air...


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## CalypsoP35 (Jul 24, 2006)

I assume you've already checked with your harbormaster to make sure your mooring and tackle meets their requirements. Some harbors have very specific requirements as to everything from the color of the mooring ball to exact specifications as to what tackle can be used.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Thanks for the info, I may head up to 3/4" line.

I have the requirements for the mooring, and I have gone 2 sizes up on everything already, so I should be good to go there.


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## JimsCAL (May 23, 2007)

A couple of comments. (1) I used a single 1 inch pennant on my 7000 lb 30 footer. Much better for chafe than the 3/4 inch ones I used at first. 5/8 inch is dental floss IMO. (2) I prefer the swivel between the upper and lower chains. It doesn't work as much, wears less and is down in the mud most of the time so less corrosion. (3) Watch how you use shackles. If they can trun sideways you will be carrying the load on the threads and will lose substantial strength. A couple of your initial pictures showed shackles that could turn.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Well, I would assume that either the mooring would drag, or the cleats would rip out before 5/8" line would snap- but you never know.

Does anyone have any more info about the bow eye hookup? How would one attach to the bouy end?


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## heinzir (Jul 25, 2000)

CascoBay said:


> The best snap hook I could find.
> 
> It is a Wichard #2328 with a working load of 3175 lbs and a breaking strength of much more.
> 
> What do you guys think? The pin hole is large enough (.75") to fit a shackle pin through to attach it to a pennant.


The problem with snap hooks or carabiners is that they can open themselves if twisted a certain way against the bow eye. It happened to me; thank goodness I had a good back-up pendant going to a bow cleat. They do make locking snap hooks that have a barrel that screws up over the latch. I don't know what sizes they come in; check a mountaineering/climbing shop. Don't use aluminum. I tried that, too, and the stainless bow eye wore part way thru the softer aluminum in a very short time.

My boat is much smaller than yours (less than 3000lb fully loaded!) and not exposed to the waves yours will be but FWIW I use a 3/4" braided pendant attached to the bow eye with a 1/2" chain "quick link." I connect it to the bow eye from the dinghy. It is the last thing I do when I leave the boat and the first thing I release when preparing to go out. I use a 5/8" back up pendant/pick up line that cleats on the bow and secures the boat while the primary line is disconnected. The primary pendant secures to a swivel under the buoy with a regular shackle.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Thanks for the input. The whole reason for wanting to use the bow eye is so that I can leave it attached at all times. This will allow me to never have to leave the helm to attach to the mooring ball- I often am alone and the last thing I want to do is climb up on the bow and try to hook up to a pendant when the seas are choppy. 

Thats my goal anyway!


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## heinzir (Jul 25, 2000)

CascoBay said:


> Thanks for the input. The whole reason for wanting to use the bow eye is so that I can leave it attached at all times. This will allow me to never have to leave the helm to attach to the mooring ball- I often am alone and the last thing I want to do is climb up on the bow and try to hook up to a pendant when the seas are choppy.
> 
> Thats my goal anyway!


If I understand you correctly, you want to have a permanent line from the bow eye going back to the cockpit or helm station that you can snap on to the mooring buoy without going forward. In that case I would go ahead and use a strong snap hook or carabiner and snap it to the ring on top of the buoy or to a short pick up loop of line (kept from sinking with a small float) attached to the chain. This would be a *temporary* connection until you leave the boat and attach your *stronger and more secure* pendant from the dinghy.

But then again I'm only a small boat lake sailor with limited experience in bigger waters. I'm sure someone will point out the flaws in this plan.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Thats correct.

When leaving the mooring I could put the boat in gear, and come up next to the mooring ball, unclip, hook the pendant to my rear cleat and away I go.

At the end of the day I can pull up along side the ball, clip it on, and im done.

The idea is to avoid crawling up on the bow.


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## sailortjk1 (Dec 20, 2005)

Casco,
My experience is from the Midwest on the Great Lakes.
After reading a lot of this thread, it's apperant that we do things different around here so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I was on a mooring ball for over 25 years, we still attach to a mooring ball occasionally as a transient.

Besides everything else differnet, apparently so is the leaving and retrieving.

We don't clip the pendant to the swivel. The pendant is attached to the swivel and left attached all season with the thinbles and eye splice like I talked about very early in the discussion.
When we leave to sail, we have what is reffered to as a "Pick up Stick" or Pick up Bouy that we attach by passing a small line through the eyes of the pendant. That bouy or stick is dropped into the water when we leave. When we return its a very simple matter of grabbing the "Stick", lifting it out of the water and your pendant lines come up with it. Drop those on your cleats and you are done.
Again, our systems seem to be set up entirely differnt from what I can see form this thread. They are also very effective and never any problems. The system is laid out and set by the Chicago Harbor Masters. All we have to do is attach our pendants to the Top of the mooring ball. (this too seems different from what others do)

Photo of a Pick up Buoy


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

The mooring pickup bouys are popular here as well, but my biggest problem is that I would need to bring the boat up to it, and climb up to the bow before I drifted out of reach from it.

I cant grab it in the cockpit and then bring it forward because I have a full canvas enclosure and its very tough to pass a line forward when I am alone.


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## sailortjk1 (Dec 20, 2005)

CascoBay said:


> my biggest problem is that I would need to bring the boat up to it, and climb up to the bow before I drifted out of reach from it.


This is not very difficult to do.
I single handed a lot on and off.
A little practice and you will be fine.
Don't think too much about it, try it a few times in a gentle breeze and I am sure you will get the hang of it real quick.
You will have to judge the wind speed etc, come in with the bow pointed right into it, stop the boat with the bow right on top of tye pick up stick, and walk forward; simple.
After a while you learn how long she will sit before getting blown off in different conditions.
Really, its very simple to do.


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## sailortjk1 (Dec 20, 2005)

Is that your Boat?
No wonder...
yep, I agree. Pain in the ass, but I would think you would be have access to be able to walk through the wind shield.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

I can walk through the windshield but its just a pain to get to the bow. I just thought about the slime covered rope that I would be bringing everywhere if I left it hooked to the bow eye, perhaps I will just buy a 6' pickup bouy and moor as typically done.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Just went to Hamilton Marine and spoke with someone about the pendant situation. 

They advised not to use 2 pendants due to chafe issues under the ball and the problem of the pendants wrapping themselves. 

I understand there are solutions to these problems, but I trust their advice of a single 3/4" or 1" yale pendant, 20' in length. They flat out told me that with a Yale pendant there is really no need for redundancy of the lines.


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## Maine Sail (Jan 6, 2003)

CascoBay said:


> Just went to Hamilton Marine and spoke with someone about the pendant situation.
> 
> They advised not to use 2 pendants due to chafe issues under the ball and the problem of the pendants wrapping themselves.
> 
> I understand there are solutions to these problems, but I trust their advice of a single 3/4" or 1" yale pendant, 20' in length. They flat out told me that with a Yale pendant there is really no need for redundancy of the lines.


Who did you talk to at Hamilton? That is of course an option, and Yale Pendants are tough, but I have seen far to many single pendants chafe through in my life to do that on my own vessel.

If installed correctly, with unequal lengths, you still only have ONE pendant at a time. If installed they way I showed above with lacing and toggle floats it will NOT do what the salesman at Hamilton told you it will. Mine have been done this way now for over 12 years, never one tangle, wrap or chafing issue and I have survived many a Nor'Easter including the Patriots Day storm. I replace my pendants every three years and have never seen any chafe below the ball.

I would tend to agree with the sales person IF you are using equal length pendants. With unequal lengths the "new" or "reserve" pendant only ever gets used when the primary fails. You need tension and movement to cause chafe this won't happen with a properly installed dual pendant system with one lazy and one active.

The Yale pendants are tough but I have seen LOTS of boats on the rocks over the years and lots of chafe. You are mooring in a very exposed and rough anchorage. Depending on one cleat, one pendant etc. is a choice you'll need to make. My mooring installer, who actually does this for a living, installs dual pendants. They have not lost a boat in years and service over 1k moorings.

Personally I lace & toggle my own pendants and then hand it to my mooring guy to install.


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

I hear ya- your setup looks great. I was trying to get the right sized shackle to do this and asked for their opinion when they told me the single Yale was the way to go. I do not recall the guys name, but hes been there for years and is one of the nicest guy there.

I'm with you though, I don't want to worry about the boat.

By the way- who is your mooring guy? I am going to need to have my setup dropped in this spring and certified. Any idea what the going rate is for this to be done?


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## CascoBay (Dec 28, 2009)

Would a pendant breaking strength of 16,000 lbs be safe?


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## msg185 (Apr 29, 2010)

*float attachment*

Maine Sail, I was wondering how you attached the floats to your pendant line. Type of line and knots used? Thanks in advance.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

For what size/displacement boat??? If you're talking about the one shown in the photo in your previous post, no, probably not.



CascoBay said:


> Would a pendant breaking strength of 16,000 lbs be safe?


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