Med Mooring - Bow or Stern

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

. . . Sure some find it totally invasive to be so close to real people, but hey, they are looking not looking.

Maybe, maybe not, depends if you are the one in the cockpit with only your swimsuit bottoms on or she is in the cockpit in only her swimsuit bottom. . .

[125Miles]

There is one huge drawback for me. When I have to dock stern exposed to open water the wake or small waves would get under the hull and resonate with the boat motion creating a lot of splash and sound like someone banging hull with sledge hammer. Turn around and the problem goes away. Its probably different from boat to boat. I have scoop shaped stern raising about 10 inch above water witch is creating this effect.

[osirissail]

A boat's hull shape and underwater configuration, like type of rudder, draft, etc. and the conditions at the seawall or dock will pretty much suggest going stern-to or bow-to. So it is nice if your boat is set up to use both.
- - A lot of marinas with "med-moor" are also using sunken lines from anchors/mooring screws set out from the dock/seawall. They then run a light, thin line to the dock/seawall that is lifted after you are in position to bring the mooring painter/lead to the surface where you can attach it to your outward end of the boat.

[simonmd]

It's worth pointing out that the majority of decent Med' marinas these days have 'lazy lines' (localy known as 'slime lines'!) running from the quayside to a fixed point in the water to tie the other end of the boat to, so it doesn't matter whether you go bow or stern to.

As for the pros / cons apart from that,
Pros,
it's far easier to go into your berth bow to.
you get a nice private rear cockpit
don't have to worry about dingy, etc, blocking access to the quay

Cons,
The bow of most boats is much higher than the stern, so any passerelle will be a steeper angle
Can be pain if you have shopping, etc. to carry stuff round the sides to the rear cockpit
Not as easy to tie up when short handed
It's very rare for any boats to have a central rear cleat to attach the 'slime line' to, can result in the boat being pulled to one side
If a monohull, fixing a passerelle to the bow can be tricky and also hard to remove and stow after leaving

Having said all that, as you have a cat', you should have no problem. I see many large cat's mooring bow to as its easier for them.

[jackdale]

When I sailed in Turkey (85, 86, and 88) we went bow-to unless we were loading or unloading. Used a fisherman as a stern anchor.

[simonmd]

Did he mind? Did you have to feed him? How long could he stay in the water?

[jackdale]

[Charlie]

This would not apply to a Cat with two engines but we have a boat with a real strong prop wash pull to Starboard. (Left handed prop) It is really hard to back it in a straight line. For this reason we found it hard to back into a spot. I think most boats that are able to back easily have sail drives. I liked having the boat bow in because it did protect my rudder. In the places we went there were often two slime lines so we would tie it criss cross to each side sometimes. If you only have one the angle of the stern can be adjusted by changing the angle of the two bow lines. To help know where your bow is try to Identify the length of the boat you are going in next to so that you can figure whether you should line up your stern. Should it be inside or outside of the boat next door. Med Mooring is a good link on how to Med moor. I took a pipe cutter to my bow pulpit and cut off the top bar. It makes it much easier to board the boat. I am in process of making some plugs that will fit into both the cutoff piece of pulpit and the remaining piece so that I can attach the pulpit when not in moored. Another thing I would like to do is to cut a piece of Starboard for the bottom tube so that there is something easy to step onto and off of.

[Palarran]

Thank you all for the excellent information. I'm going with Osirisail's suggestion of doing both. The sockets for the pin are hard to find so it looks like I'll have to get them fabricated.

Are the lazylines typically strong enough for a boat of Palarran's size?

Would a Delta be a better stern anchor then a Fortress? I already have a very large Fortress FX-85 as my secondary/emergency anchor. It would be difficult to use this one as the chain and rode is big and long.

I had read a story about a rat dropping through a hatch onto someone sleeping. Are rats a problem in Greece? If that happened to my wife it would be the end of the trip for her. I think that's the reason you suspend the ramp.

[osirissail]

Rats are a problem anywhere and everywhere there is garbage or garbage containers left about with garbage in them. Raising the ramp/passerole doesn't even slow the rats down as they run the dock lines more times than not.
- - If you happen to notice boats with cut open liter soda bottles or flat disks attached to their docklines, you can bet there is a rat problem. I made rat stops by cutting shinny plastic throwaway dinner plates and then taping them to the dock lines. The one liter soda bottles also work although you need to only cut of the very bottom of the bottle so that there is a significant distance of glassy smooth bottle that the rat cannot get over.
- - Next line of defense is to put steel mesh grilles over all exterior vents like engine compartment vents and other cowls. Rats can cut "chicken wire" so I use the 1/2" x 1" steel shelving material and cut out the needed pattern then screw it to the hull.
- - Don't forget that rats are good swimmers so you need to protect the anchor rode.
- - But the best defense is not to tie up to places where garbage is left out and open for long periods of time. This is especially a problem if there are restaurants and tavernas near where you are.

[sdowney717]

Rats can also jump
Rats & Mice Extermination | Rats and Mice Control | Rats & Mice Treatment

I can imagine seeing rats jumping across from boat to boat.
running and jumping in packs of rats.

Rat Abilites:

Rats can also climb vertical and jump up to 4 feet high.
Dropping from a height of 50 feet doesn’t kill or seriously injure rats.
Rats can fit through openings that are as small as 1/2 inch in diameter.
Rats constantly gnaw anything softer than their teeth, including lead sheeting, cinder blocks, wood, plastic, and aluminum sheeting.
Many types of rats are agile climbers and can shimmy the outside of three-inch diameter pipes or any size pipe within three inches of a wall.
They are also capable of climbing the inside of vertical pipes that are 1 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter.
Excellent balance allows rats to scale brick or other rough walls that offer footholds and to travel along power lines.
Some types of rats can burrow to a depth of four feet.

[Multihull]

In my experience they are mostly oversized to accommodate also larger vessels and therefore sometimes difficult to attach. Experience form France and Croatia.

Originally Posted by Palarran

Are the lazylines typically strong enough for a boat of Palarran's size?

[Palarran]

After thinking about this, I think it would make sense for me to go bow to when there are lazy lines available and stern to when relying on an anchor.

Daddle had made a comment about the difficulty of protecting the bow's with fenders. Does anyone have a trick to this? Are there specific fenders designed for folding around the bows?

[swagman]

Originally Posted by Palarran

I built a new gangway using a motorcycle ramp. It's really nice but I haven't finished the installation as I need to put a fitting on my stern to accept a pin. I've been thinking that instead, it would actually be much easier to mount the ramp to my forward crossbeam (boat is a catamaran) and use the spinnaker halyard to keep it suspended. At the stern, I really don't have any way to keep the ramp suspended (rat's?).

Have any of you Med moored by going bow forward? What would be the drawbacks? The one I can see is if a surge throws the boat forward, it's really going to crush the hull's. A positive would be that my cockpit would face out and be more private. Any opinions?

Yes, a good idea to plan for both, but many town walls will recommend you go in bows first due to underwater rubble maybe damaging rudder etc.

You mention finding tube fittings difficult. Try googling Italian firm Osculati who sell several variants in plastic and cast metals.

You also asked about bow protection. Google Plastimo for fenders designed to fit around plumb bows.

Enjoy

JOHN

[x-ray]

As a sailor who learned sailing and did so for many years in Germany and the Netherlands, where bow to is 95 % of your berthing, and now having a boat in
Turkey, where stern-to is 95 % of our berthing, I can only say, I like stern-to
more.
Despite the fact, that climbing up the bow with all your shopping isn-t all to pleasant, I like, and you probably will, the social aspect of being part of the
place you are in.
You will get used to handling your boat reversing in.

The lazy-line or whatever you call it, is actually called mooring-line, and yes,
they are strong enough, cause charter boats become bigger and bigger in the med.
The everage size for a charter boat is now at around 40 ft., but 50-60 ft. and big
catamarans are not uncommon anymore. But it is not polite to take more than one
mooring line for a mono, two for a catamaran will be o.k.