Cooper Island Boat Dance

Hey Y'all,

I was moored at Manchioneel Bay Friday night, on BoatyBall #12 (closest to the beach / dinghy dock). The boat wouldn't stay away from the ball. Must be opposing or at least variable wind and current in there. Noticed other boats having similar behavior - not swinging uniformly, mooring lines slack. At one point my starboard hull had sailed over the mooring line, putting the ball outboard the hull and catching the line behind the keel. So we had to untie and re-tie, with the shortest possible bridle. But the boat still wouldn't stay away from the ball, and there was some bumping in the night. A stern anchor could have fixed it, but nobody else had set one and I didn't want to not swing when everyone else was swinging randomly. Has anybody else experienced this? Is Manchioneel Bay known for its boat dance?

Thanks,
Randy

Yep

You often have opposing wind and current at Cooper. Different types of boats will react differently. Some will move with the current and some with the wind. Most will transition back and forth as one or the other increases or decreases in strength. If you are on a cat bring the Mooring pennant directly to one of the bow cleats. Tie it off with enough length for the ball to reach just past the middle of the boat. Run a dockline from the other side through the ring on the Mooring ball and center the ball with a slight amount of slack. This will do 3 things. You will trap the ball between the hulls so it won’t bang on the hulls keeping you up. It shortens your swinging circle as the Moorings are to close to each other at Cooper. Lastly it will keep the ring on the new boatyballs from gouging out the fiberglass in the bridgedeck and costing you repair money at the end of the charter. The last item references the new tall boatyballs that someone designed with not enough thought.
George

You’ll have that same experience where there are currents and the winds die down or in some cases when backwinded.
Tightening the pennant doesn’t help because the mooring balls have a certain amount of scope to make up for the tides and seas so your hull will still get the line caught along the keel.

Thanks George, that's what we did (all week). We were on a Bali 4.5 cat, and we always passed two dock lines through the mooring pennant - one from and back to each bow cleat - making a bridle separate from the anchor bridle. Even when we shortened the bridle so the pennant was right under the crossbeam, so a hull wouldn't sail over it any more, there was still enough slack in the mooring line for the ball to bump a hull (AFAIK it never bumped the nacelle).

Cheers,
Randy

SVG, if you re read George’s post, he is suggesting something a little different.

“Run a dockline from the other side through the ring on the Mooring ball...”

There were will be no slack in the pennant.

Many a morning woken up at Cooper Island with boats facing every which-way and awfully close to everyone else.

Thanks Warren - I missed that detail in George's post.

Cheers,
Randy

We use double bridles to the mooring line eye....with docklines

The boat is a jeanneau 36i monohull....

A couple of years back , we had the same problem at Cooper.

I like the idea of running the bridles thru the ring on top of the mooring.

Have a question....as to chafing of the dock line bridles...riding against that ring.

Are those metal rings on top of the mooring ball. We think they are, but not sure.

We may be doomed to the bloody line under the hull .program.

We do have short thick extra line with a strong snap shackle attached at one end, , need to check out the situation, but we might be
able to hook the snap shackle to the mooring ball ring, and tie a bowline to a bight, in the bitter end of that line, and run our bridles
thru the bowline and back to our bow cleats.

Some Idea will come thru......earplugs help.