Mooring line around the mast

[capt jgw]

A deck stepped mast should never face any forces except compression. You'll shear the step bolts or tear the mast butt off the step. A keel stepped mast can withstand a lot of side force, although it is possible to damage the blocking at deck level. That goes for towing as well. I used to do a lot of training with the USCG, and one of their guys once suggested I fasten their tow line to my mast. I tore him a new one for that. That practice dates back to wooden ship days when the keel stepped mast was the strongest part of the ship.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I'd not kedge or use the mast.. I'd take lines across the empty slip from bow and stern cleats and hold her off the finger that way.. and notify the marina staff/office about what I'd done.
They are then aware that if they rent out the slip the lines need releasing by the assistant before the new boat enters.. its a pretty common practice with slips that are empty long term.. once another boat moves in problem solved.

I agree completely.

I went through hurricane force winds earlier this year in this situation, by doing what Boatman suggests. I brought lines from across the other berth (WITH THE KNOWLEDGE AND CONSENT OF THE MARINA MANAGEMENT) to winches. I used the winches to haul the boat off the pontoon and make all of the dock lines quite taut.

This worked well to prevent the boat from heeling in her berth, which can wreak havoc in a storm.

Make sure and hang fenders or buckets or something from the lines you take across, to be sure that someone doesn't run into them. And be sure to agree precisely with the marina management, what you are doing.


Don't bugger your mast and rigging, with forces they weren't designed to take Why would you even consider using the mast, if you have midships cleats, winches, etc.?

[Cadence]

I don't like the idea if lateral stress on your mast base and ultimately on you cabin top. JMHO

[TrentePieds]

If your home slip is on the weather side of a permanent pontoon, then affix "sausage-type" fenders HORIZONTALLY along the cover board or the bull-rail on the pontoon. Having them dangle from your boat's rail will cause precisely the problems you describe.

if the bounce gets really bad, then fit snubbers on your breast lines. I also like a coupla "Scotsmen" - great big tear-drop-shaped fenders intended for commercial service - twixt the pontoon and my hull. The are so big that they can't be pulled under the pontoon.

My slip is along a rotting wooden pontoon that had only eyebolts to which to attach the mooring lines. The wood is bungey and the eyebolts so corroded that the threads are all gone. TrentePieds decided that that wasn't good enuff and decided to go to sea on her own in search of something better. She only got so far as the boat behind her. Lost a bit of rub-rail but that was all.

Marina owner is intransigent. The remedy was to mount proper horn cleats on HIS dock. Just cheap galvanized 8-inchers, but they do the job admirably. If you do it, locate them so your breast lives are square to the pontoon, and your spring lines come to separate cleats mounted adjacent to each other, with just enuff room twixt them to work them comfortably. These cleats are mounted "sort of midships". On the pontoon, of course.

Your boat - and your crew - will thank you for it.

TrentePieds

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by becrux

Why not talk to the mgmt about switching to the other slip?

Ding, ding, ding. Winning suggestion. No cost fix! I tend to avoid slips that the predominant wind has the boat pinned to the pier. Hard on the fenders. So much easier to just rely on wind and docklines to hold boat in position.

[kellyp08]

Agree with Zee. She knows her ca-ca.

[K100Fran]

Originally Posted by zeehag

i faced patricia beam to. i had my lines onto 8 affixment points--i broke a cleat on windward side relegating only 4 points remaining for 215 mph steady winds. my boat was knocked down onto my dockfinger breaking my boarding ladder irrepairably--it could not even be found. use pilings and all the cleats you have . use heavy lines. use one line for each affixment point. it is too late to change slips once the weather comes. yup. i know this one.
i think retrospectively i could maybe have prevented the knockdown by trebling my lines at the bow--i only had 2. one to cleat then midships from bow-- i should have made that one 2 lines, one to either side of the dock i was affixed to, so when cleat broke the backup on other side of windward dock would take the load.
extra fenders on leeward side... keep boat off dock.
if you have the option after this storm, move boat to a slip wherein your bow is pointing into wind.
donot use mast except as a backup reinforced as the tugging and yanking and jerking cause damages no matter how the mast is stepped.

Wow. I've been on a ship with gusts at 106knots. I can't fathom the power of almost double that! Can't imagine there is enough prep you can do to protect yourself from that.

[Don C L]

not to flog a dead horse, but as the owner of a boat with a deck stepped mast... don't pull on it.

[JPA Cate]

I goofed, big time. I apologize to all. My first mistake was to misunderstand how the OP was going to use his mast. I assumed (yes, I know it makes an a** of me ), that he was taking a line from around the base of the mast, using nylon 3 strand stretchy dock line (I don't really even know what he uses, sigh) and I also assumed that using stretchy line, the attachment at the mast base would be okay. Finally, I didn't "get it" that he was talking about using his main halyard to heel the boat. Big oopses on my part. Sorry.

I think Boatie, Dockhead, Suijun, and Zeehag and all the rest of you all are all correct: I didn't understand, and I am apologizing for having offered bad advice.

Take dock lines across to the other side, use proper spring lines and fenders, too, and notify the marina management.

Ann

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

I goofed, big time. I apologize to all. My first mistake was to misunderstand how the OP was going to use his mast. I assumed (yes, I know it makes an a** of me ), that he was taking a line from around the base of the mast, using nylon 3 strand stretchy dock line (I don't really even know what he uses, sigh) and I also assumed that using stretchy line, the attachment at the mast base would be okay. Finally, I didn't "get it" that he was talking about using his main halyard to heel the boat. Big oopses on my part. Sorry.

I think Boatie, Dockhead, Suijun, and Zeehag and all the rest of you all are all correct: I didn't understand, and I am apologizing for having offered bad advice.

Take dock lines across to the other side, use proper spring lines and fenders, too, and notify the marina management.

Ann

Nothing could make an a** out of you, Ann

No harm done, and what if you were actually right?

[tinkrman69]

You don't describe your slip very well. You don't have pilings on the windward side? Only a place to tie on the finger pier/lea side? If you have Pilings betwixt the slips then use them. If they are only fore and aft then run a line from one to the other or the dock or seawall, pull it tight and then attach a line to it amidships to hold yourself off the finger pier. No infringement on anyone else.

[barnakiel]

I never tie anything to the BASE of a deck stepped mast. It is OK to tie stuff to the top BUT ... possibly not when the boat is bouncing around. imho. I mean rigging does not like 'shaking loads'.

b.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

I never tie anything to the BASE of a deck stepped mast. It is OK to tie stuff to the top BUT ... possibly not when the boat is bouncing around. imho. I mean rigging does not like 'shaking loads'.

b.

Tying anything, anywhere on the mast is usually a no no/Bad Juju, unless done with fair leads, & very much in the short term. Such as to help to pull the boat off of a shoal. And even then it's easy to mangle things, or weaken them without knowing that you've done so. Something I've seen more than once or twice. Including on my Dad's boat. Which, I didn't ask, & just fixed it.

But tying things around a mast's circumference is out. Base, top, keel stepped, or deck stepped. Solid mast, hollow, wood, CF, or Al. Think of the mast as a big beer can with the weight of the boat atop it. Which is pretty much the case. So that with any damage to it from sideways point loads, fugly, catestrophic events can & will ensue.

I didn't much get into the above earlier, as to me it's stuff that's part of one's basic sailing knowledge. But referenced all of it in broad strokes. So yep, an assumptive goof on my part.
Call it info learned about spars at an early age, due to an outside of the ordinary childhood.

[knockabout]

what ever works and is acceptable to marina management / usually only use the mast as a bollard as a last resort / if there is no chance of the mast hooking up on a neighbours mast loosen off your lines so she is not working hard against the pontoon and let her swing in the squall / uncomfortable but much less strain on most things

[Jack Hattingh]

Thanks for all the suggestions, a lot has been learnt from these. Jack