Not every overnight stop has a dock. In many harbors, boats tie up to moorings: permanent anchors on the seabed, connected by chain to a floating buoy on the surface. Picking one up looks easy from the shore. In practice, it takes good boat handling, clear communication between the helm and the bow, and a bit of patience, especially in wind or current.
This article explains how a mooring works, how to approach one, how to pick it up and secure it, and how to leave cleanly.
How a mooring works
A typical mooring has several parts:
- The anchor on the bottom, often a heavy block, a mushroom anchor or a screw driven into the seabed.
- Chain running from the anchor up to the surface.
- The mooring buoy, a float that holds the top of the chain at the surface and marks the mooring.
- The pennant, a short line or lines, sometimes with a loop at the end and a small pickup float, that you bring aboard and attach to the boat's bow cleat.
Mooring setups vary a lot by harbor. Some buoys have a ring on top to tie your own line to, rather than a pennant. Some harbors use two-point moorings, tying both bow and stern. Ask the harbor master or check local guides for what to expect.
Before you pick one up
- Make sure it's available. Most moorings are privately owned or rented through a harbor master or club. Picking up someone else's mooring without permission is a quick way to get woken up at midnight.
- Check it suits your boat. Moorings are rated for boats of a certain size and weight. A mooring meant for a small boat may not hold a large one in a blow.
- Prepare the bow. Have a boat hook ready, and a line ready if you'll need to run your own through a ring.
- Agree on hand signals between the helm and the bow. The helmsperson usually can't see the buoy in the last few feet, because the bow hides it. The person at the bow needs to signal direction and distance: point toward the buoy, hold up fingers for boat lengths, and a clear signal for stop and for "got it."
Read the wind and current
Look at the boats already on moorings nearby. They'll all be pointing into whichever is having the bigger effect, the wind or the current. That's the direction you want to approach from: head into the same direction the moored boats are pointing.
Approaching this way has the same benefits as docking into the wind or current. The boat slows down naturally when you shift to neutral, you keep steering control, and once you have the pennant, the boat settles back in the same direction as everyone else.
The approach
- Line up downwind or down-current of the buoy, pointing toward it in the same direction as the moored boats.
- Approach slowly, using short bursts of forward to keep steerage. Aim to arrive with the boat almost stopped.
- Keep the buoy on one side of the bow. Aim to bring it alongside the bow on the side where your crew is waiting, not under the middle of the bow where you can't see it and might run over it.
- Follow the bow crew's signals in the last few boat lengths.
- Stop with the buoy beside the bow. A short burst of reverse if needed.
Picking up the pennant
- The bow crew reaches down with the boat hook and catches the pennant or the pickup float.
- They bring the loop of the pennant aboard and drop it over the bow cleat, or secure it as the mooring setup requires.
- They signal "got it" to the helm, and the helm shifts to neutral.
- The boat drifts back until it lies on the mooring, pointing into the wind or current.
The crew should never try to hold the boat on the mooring by hand. If the boat starts to drift away before the pennant is on the cleat, let go and try again. Holding a heavy boat against wind with a boat hook is how people get pulled overboard.
The biggest danger: the propeller
The pennant and pickup lines float on the surface, right where your bow is going. If the boat runs over them with the engine in gear, the line can wrap around the propeller, stalling the engine and leaving you tangled on the mooring, sometimes needing a diver to free you. That's why:
- Keep the buoy beside the bow, not under it.
- Shift to neutral once the buoy is near the boat.
- If you overshoot, don't reverse over the lines. Shift to neutral and let the boat drift clear, or steer away first.
If you miss
Missing a mooring is common, even for experienced boaters. Don't chase it. Let the boat drift clear, circle around downwind, and make a new approach. A second, slower approach is almost always more successful than a scramble at the first.
Leaving a mooring
- Start the engine and let it warm up.
- Motor gently forward to take the strain off the pennant.
- The bow crew lifts the pennant off the cleat and drops it clear of the boat, and signals the direction it fell.
- Shift to neutral or back gently away so the pennant stays clear of the propeller, then motor away from the buoy.
Practicing in The Boat Docker
The Boat Docker's Docks with Mooring Buoys scenario has no piers at all, just moored boats and mooring poles and buoys scattered across open water. Instead of tying up to a dock, you bring the boat alongside a pole or buoy and run a line to it. It's a good test of slow, precise maneuvering, with moored boats close by to avoid. Colliding with a moored boat costs 15 points.
Add wind and current to practice approaching from the right direction, and watch how the conditions push you off the buoy if you approach from the wrong side. See the Dock Configurations and Wind & Water training pages for setup.