x-no-archive:yes
"JimB" wrote:
Don W wrote in message
news
Rosalie,
I think this is a good subject to explore in more detail. Our
boat is
in a marina with floating docks, so this is something we've
never had
to deal with. How _do_ you tie up to a fixed dock with an
extreme
tidal range?
There are several quaysides with an 8 metre (25 ft?) tidal range
around French Brittany and the British Channel islands.
Moor alongside a ladder! Use that with a temporary spring line
while you sort out your ropes. Otherwise have a ladder aboard, or
learn to fly, or trust the guys ashore to tie good knots.
Use bow and stern ropes plus fore and aft springs. Tie off at the
quay, and make any adjustments at the boat end of the warp. Make
sure the boat end can be adjusted when it's under strain.
Each rope should be at least twice as long as the range of tide.
From top to bottom tide the rope then has to accommodate 10% of
stretch. Do this by allowing 10% slack at high tide, or by using
nylon rope with 2 or 3% slack. Have a griping board between the
vessel and quay, and rig light lines to ensure the slack in your
mooring lines doesn't lift your fenders or the griping board as
the tide falls.
JimB
Yacht Rapaz, sadly for sale, to help pay for that lovely Greek
seaside house we've just bought.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jim.bae...cification.htm
jim(dot)baerselman(at)ntlworld(dot)com
Thanks Jim - I knew someone would be able to explain this better than
I could. What is a griping board in American English?
When we are moving from marina to marina on a daily basis, we have
been told by a dock person that we should give the dock person the
looped end of the line so that they could just drop it over the cleat
or piling and wouldn't have to tie it off.
But coming into an unknown (or even a known) transient slip, Bob
usually has lines rigged on all four corners and in the middle (with
additional lines on the pin rail and accessible - I can NOT understand
these people who come into a slip and after they get INTO the slip,
they go diving into lockers after the lines like they've never tied up
in a slip before and didn't realize that they'd need lines), and
usually he puts the loop end on a cleat in the boat and gives the free
(bitter?) end to the dock person. That's so that we know the line is
attached to something on the boat, and that the boat person handling
the lines (me) won't have to let go of the line due to excess pressure
from wind and/or current.
So it's 6 of 1 half a dozen of the other.
In any case, when we get more or less secured to the dock, Bob adjusts
the lines so that they loop around the pilings and return to the boat
so we have control of both ends of the line. That way, we can cast
off again without getting off the boat to untie the line, plus the
lines can be adjusted from the boat if necessary.
In the case of cleats on the dock (which is often the case with
floating docks), just before we leave, Bob loops the line off the
cleat and gives me both ends so that when we are ready to go I can
(hopefully) flip it off the cleat.
At our home slip, we have the loop end on the dock, and chafe
protection on the line where it goes through the chock or whatever so
that I know where to cleat it off in the boat.
In our home slip, with only about 2 feet of tide, we normally have at
least 10 lines rigged.
2 on the bow
2 bow spring lines to amidships
2 stern lines
2 stern spring lines to amidships
2 breast lines
and then we may add additional longer spring lines. When we cast off,
we loop the lines on the pilings or throw them onto the dock in an
order that depends on where the wind is coming from (usually some of
the lines will be slack so we release them first).
At a transient slip, Bob watches the current after we come in (have
learned this the hard way) and depending on the tide state, he
projects which way the current will be going when we will be leaving.
If there is a LOT of current (like for instance the Ft. Pierce
municipal marina) we will AFAP leave at slack tide. Sometimes we have
to wait and leave at high tide anyway (like Hilton Head) in order to
get out of the marina.
Then depending on which lines have the most strain and other factors
(like is there a shoal right in front of us so we have to back up and
turn before we can head out), he fixes the lines so that I can cast
them off (I'm not very good at flipping lines) - and he has now
learned to give me explicit instructions about everything that is
supposed to happen before I leave the cockpit as he cannot assume that
I will know what he intends and both of us are a bit deaf so yelling
instructions over the engine is NOT a viable option - and then we do
whatever he has programmed and cast off.
grandma Rosalie
http://www12.virtualtourist.com/m/4a9c6/