I'm on an emoticon roll so I my as well finish...
One of the most distressing images I've come across in Mediterranean ports are those yachts which, instead of simply slipping their leather-protected soft-eyed mooring lines "into the eyes and over" other mooring lines (
) on the relatively smooth cast-steel mooring bollards on the quay, prefer to use
chain on the bollards before connecting this to the soft-eyed mooring line. It is
not good practice putting chain through a soft eye. If you want to put
chain on the end of your mooring line, then specify a
solid thimble on the end, instead of a soft eye.
It's understandable when you
absolutely have to do something like that because there are
no bollards, perhaps only rings on the quay (I once used 4 x 4 inch timber in French Polynesia on a 55m - we didn't have any spare chain - work that out). But it really does
hurt rope being bent around such a
tight radius...so have some extra large shackles and thimbles available on the hopefully
rare occasions this sort of thing is required. If you regualarly have to use rings, then have thimbles permanently spliced into your mooring lines instead of soft eyes?!
Just to finish...please
don't use solid anodes or lead-shot and suchlike as weights in your monkey's fists. A golf-ball will do. As any experienced deckie who's been on long passages will tell you, it's not the weight in the monkey's fist that sends the heaving line over efficiently...it's
technique (think about wrist and arm action
). Plus it prevents unintended injuries to bystanders and port officials alike on the quay (you know how everyone likes to congregate when a superyacht ties up in a busy marina)...
I'm sure I've forgotten something but I'll have to get over a slight hangover first...?!
