Elastic Mooring Pendants

[klem]

Does anyone have any real-world experience using either a Hazellett pendant or the Big-E mooring pendant from boatmoorings.com?

As we have discussed many times, having stretch in your pendants is critical to deal with the dynamic motion of the boat on its mooring. In my case, my mooring is in a place where it is pretty exposed from the north and there is ~1 mile of fetch from the east and west. There are certainly moorings out there in much more exposed spots but it still gets bad enough here to make me worried when I watch the bow diving under waves. Making it worse for me is that the boat sits in a deep hole and it means that the scope needs to be short or it runs aground. I have never had a problem but it would be nice to dampen some of the shock loading. For reference, my chain is 3/4" short link and 1/2" long link and it is attached to a 700lb pyramid.

The decision is between an elastic pendant and a set of Yale ones. The reason that I am looking at the elastic ones is that I don't have room for long enough conventional pendants to get a lot of stretch.

Real world observations of things like boat motion, degradation in elasticity over time, chafe, UV resistance, etc would be appreciated.

[Doubleender]

Very interested too! I've been looking at the Hazlett for years but the price is a little steep.

Brian

[twistedtree]

Yes, I have two Hazellets and love them. One is 10 ton, and the other is 35 ton. As you say, they don't have the harsh shock that a chain does when it hits it's limit. They also hold the boat in a much tighter radius than a chain.

Klem, drop me a private message - we are neighbors. My moorings are in Gloucester Harbor.

[twistedtree]

I don't remember exactly, but they are perhaps 50% more $$ than a chain mooring. Mine are on helix screws which are also a bit more expensive than a concrete block, but it's nice not to worry about dragging.

But with a chain mooring you can expect to replace some or all of the chain every 5 years or so, sometimes less, and material and labor costs add up quickly. The Hazellet needs to be inspected like any mooring, but there is no chain to replace so I'd say the breakeven point is after the first chain replacement and after that the Hazellet is less expensive.

[klem]

Thanks for the real world observation. Have your ever seen a situation where their elasticity will cause the boat to move around even more, almost like a harmonic?

PM sent.

[twistedtree]

Originally Posted by klem

Have your ever seen a situation where their elasticity will cause the boat to move around even more, almost like a harmonic?

PM sent.

No, I haven't seen that, but it's an interesting question. I would think the force of the elastic would be no different than the force of a suspended chain (provided of course that the chain doesn't go taught) and behave much the same, but that's a completely non-expert view.

[Doubleender]

Twisted Tree in it's normal state (reg wind) does the bow of the boat stay pretty much directly over the mooring?
In other words I have a mooring that is shallow if the boat pulls back to far and with a long painter it can be a problem at a very low tide. Seems like the Hazlett might be an answer to that and the fact the swing room is also decreased. I also have a helix.

Thanks for your insight!

Brian

[twistedtree]

The Hazellet gets rigged with a 1:1 scope at max tide. That suggests the bouy would be directly over the anchor at max tide and calm weather. But the pennant will add scope, as will lower water levels, plus of course the length of your boat. When the weather kicks up, the elastic of course stretches.

In contrast, or local mooring regulations require 2.5:1 scope for chain moorings.

Check the Hazellet web site. They have a spreadsheet that will calculate the swing radius given water depth and boat length/displacement. My swing radius is 90' compared to 120' on chain, so that's a 25% reduction.