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Creaking ropes on a pontoon mooring


jetzi

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I don't really care for marinas so I don't expect to spend much time on short pontoons, really just looking for a temporary improvement so I can get some shuteye tonight! Won't buy a mudweight but I could go hunt for a rock or use my anchor (though it sounds like that's inadvisable for some reason.

 

I also just realised that part of the reason I "slept so badly" is because my clocks (automatically) went forward last night, so I got an hour less than I thought ?

 

I think a daylight savings nap might be in order today...

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17 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I would suggest a stout cardboard box or plastic crate with a long length of bent metal rod like an omega in it to form a loop at the top and filled with concrete. Any container large enough to hold about 10 to 20 Kg of concrete would do. It will probably be cheap enough to buoy the rope  when you leave the mooring so you don't have to retrieve the messy weight. Mind you if someone gets the buoyed rope around their prop your name will be mud.

Next door to me has made several with a lifting ring cast in concrete in a cut off plastic container., he leaves the plastic on them

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5 minutes ago, jetzi said:

I don't really care for marinas so I don't expect to spend much time on short pontoons, really just looking for a temporary improvement so I can get some shuteye tonight!

 

If the basin is empty, just tie across the end of three or four pontoons instead of inline with them. :D

 

  • Haha 1
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3 hours ago, LadyG said:

Washing up liquid, long term I'd be wary of cutting through the the ropes and would bind with plastic piping. I prefer a little bit of slack in my springs. Depends on wind, but you need more than one attachment point to the pontoon. 

 

A mate of mine who moored in South Dock on the Thames used washing up liquid to quieten his creaking fenders. It took his blacking off.

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2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I would suggest a stout cardboard box or plastic crate with a long length of bent metal rod like an omega in it to form a loop at the top and filled with concrete. Any container large enough to hold about 10 to 20 Kg of concrete would do. It will probably be cheap enough to buoy the rope  when you leave the mooring so you don't have to retrieve the messy weight. Mind you if someone gets the buoyed rope around their prop your name will be mud.

Fulbourne has a builders bucket filled with concrete with a length of old chain partly buried in the concrete, and a shackle attached to the end of the chain with a loop large enough to pass the mooring rope through.

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I have seen 1/2 inch rope used to form the eye in the concrete, bowline tied in rope knot end into small bucket fill with concrete leaving a half loop sticking out.  It is useful to have 2 mudweights, they act as portable ballast to correct the boats trim, in the OP situation drop them 10 foot apart at the bow would stop it swinging, one each end when moored up in an area where the locals think it is fun to untie you at midnight, they can also be deployed on the anchor warp/chain 20 foot from the anchor to reduce the amount of rope you need because they change the angle of pull nearer to the ground and if there is any waves it stops the boat snatching hard making the warp into an elasticated spring.

Edited by Detling
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31 minutes ago, Detling said:

I have seen 1/2 inch rope used to form the eye in the concrete, bowline tied in rope knot end into small bucket fill with concrete leaving a half loop sticking out.  It is useful to have 2 mudweights, they act as portable ballast to correct the boats trim, in the OP situation drop them 10 foot apart at the bow would stop it swinging, one each end when moored up in an area where the locals think it is fun to untie you at midnight, they can also be deployed on the anchor warp/chain 20 foot from the anchor to reduce the amount of rope you need because they change the angle of pull nearer to the ground and if there is any waves it stops the boat snatching hard making the warp into an elasticated spring.

When used on an anchor chain/rope it is usually referred to as a “Chum”; if no weights are to hand you can use a spare anchor, a bundle of anchor chain or any other suitable weight that’s to hamd.

 

Howard

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