Mooring (watercraft)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Mooring (oceanography).

A dockworker places a mooring line on a bollard.

A mooring refers to any permanent structure to which a vessel may be secured. Examples
include quays, wharfs, jetties, piers, anchor buoys, and mooring buoys. A ship is secured to a
mooring to forestall free movement of the ship on the water. An anchor mooring fixes a vessel's
position relative to a point on the bottom of a waterway without connecting the vessel to shore.
As a verb, mooring refers to the act of attaching a vessel to a mooring.[1]
The term probably stems from the Dutch verb meren (to moor), which has been used in English
since the end of the 15th century.

Contents

1 Permanent anchor mooring

o 1.1 Swing moorings
o 1.2 Pile moorings

2 Mooring to a shore fixture

o 2.1 Mediterranean mooring
o 2.2 Travelling mooring

o 2.3 Canal mooring

3 Mooring line materials

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

Permanent anchor mooring

Mooring line of Polish ship Fryderyk Chopin.

These moorings are used instead of temporary anchors because they have considerably more
holding power, cause less damage to the marine environment, and are convenient. They are also
occasionally used to hold floating docks in place. There are several kinds of moorings:

Swing moorings
Swing moorings also known as simple or single-point moorings, are the simplest and most
common kind of mooring. A swing mooring consists of a single anchor at the bottom of a
waterway with a rode (a rope, cable, or chain) running to a float on the surface. The float allows
a vessel to find the rode and connect to the anchor. These anchors are known as swing moorings
because a vessel attached to this kind of mooring swings in a circle when the direction of wind or
tide changes.
For a small boat (e.g. 22' / 6.7 m sailing yacht), this might consist of a heavy weight on the
seabed, a 12 mm or 14 mm rising chain attached to the "anchor", and a bridle made from 20 mm
nylon rope, steel cable, or a 16mm combination steel wire material. The heavy weight (anchor)
should be a dense material. Old rail wagon wheels are used in some places (e.g. Clontarf, Dublin,
Ireland) for this purpose. In some harbours (e.g. Dun Laoghaire, Ireland), very heavy chain (e.g.
old ship anchor chain) may be placed in a grid pattern on the sea bed to ensure orderly

positioning of moorings. Ropes (particularly for marker buoys and messenger lines) should be
"non floating" to reduce likelihood of a boat's prop being fouled by one.

Pile moorings
Pile moorings are poles driven into the bottom of the waterway with their tops above the water.
Vessels then tie mooring lines to two or four piles to fix their position between those piles. Pile
moorings are common in New Zealand but rare elsewhere.
While many mooring buoys are privately owned, some are available for public use. For example,
on the Great Barrier Reef off the Australian coast, a vast number of public moorings are set out
in popular areas where boats can moor. This is to avoid the massive damage that would be
caused by many vessels anchoring.
There are four basic types of permanent anchors used in moorings:[2]

Dor-Mor pyramid-shaped anchors used in mooring

Dead weights are the simplest type of anchor. They are generally made as a large
concrete block with a rode attached which resists movement with sheer weight; and, to a
small degree, by settling into the substrate. In New Zealand old railway wheels are
sometimes used. The advantages are that they are simple and cheap. A dead weight
mooring that drags in a storm still holds well in its new position. Such moorings are
better suited to rocky bottoms where other mooring systems do not hold well. The
disadvantages are that they are heavy, bulky, and awkward.

Mushroom anchors are the most common anchors and work best for softer seabeds such
as mud, sand, or silt. They are shaped like an upside-down mushroom which can be
easily buried in mud or silt. The advantage is that it has up to ten times the holdingpower-to-weight ratio compared to a dead weight mooring; disadvantages include high
cost, limited success on rocky or pebbly substrates, and the long time it takes to reach full
holding capacity.[3]

Pyramid anchors are pyramid-shaped anchors, also known as Dor-Mor anchors. They
work in the upside-down position with the apex pointing down at the bottom such that
when they are deployed, the weight of wider base pushes the pyramid down digging into

the floor. As the anchors are encountered with lateral pulls, the side edges or corners of
the pyramids will dig deeper under the floor, making them more stable.[4][5]

Screw-in moorings are a modern method. The anchor in a screw-in mooring is a shaft
with wide blades spiraling around it so that it can be screwed into the substrate. The
advantages include high holding-power-to-weight ratio and small size (and thus relative
cheapness). The disadvantage is that a diver is usually needed to install, inspect, and
maintain these moorings.

Multiple anchor mooring systems use two or more (often three) light weight temporarystyle anchors set in an equilateral arrangement and all chained to a common center from
which a conventional rode extends to a mooring buoy. The advantages are minimized
mass, ease of deployment, high holding-power-to-weight ratio, and availability of
temporary-style anchors.

Mooring to a shore fixture

Crew of Hong Kong's Star Ferry using a billhook to catch a hemp mooring rope
A vessel can be made fast to any variety of shore fixtures from trees and rocks to specially
constructed areas such as piers and quays. The word pier is used in the following explanation in a
generic sense.
Mooring is often accomplished using thick ropes called mooring lines or hawsers. The lines are
fixed to deck fittings on the vessel at one end and to fittings such as bollards, rings, and cleats on
the other end.
Mooring requires cooperation between people on a pier and on a vessel. Heavy mooring lines are
often passed from larger vessels to people on a mooring by smaller, weighted heaving lines.
Once a mooring line is attached to a bollard, it is pulled tight. Large ships generally tighten their
mooring lines using heavy machinery called mooring winches or capstans.

A sailor tosses a heaving line to pass a mooring line to a handler on shore

The heaviest cargo ships may require more than a dozen mooring lines. Small vessels can
generally be moored by four to six mooring lines.
Mooring lines are usually made from manila rope or a synthetic material such as nylon. Nylon is
easy to work with and lasts for years, but it is highly elastic. This elasticity has advantages and
disadvantages. The main advantage is that during an event, such as a high wind or the close
passing of another ship, stress can be spread across several lines. However, should a highly
stressed nylon line break, it may part catastrophically, causing snapback, which can fatally injure
bystanders. The effect of snapback is analogous to stretching a rubber band to its breaking point
between your hands and then suffering a stinging blow from its suddenly flexing broken ends.
Such a blow from a heavy mooring line carries much more force and can inflict severe injuries or
even sever limbs. Mooring lines made from materials such as Dyneema and Kevlar have much
less elasticity and are therefore much safer to use. However, such lines do not float on water and
they do tend to sink. In addition, they are relatively more expensive than other sorts of line.
Some ships use wire rope for one or more of their mooring lines. Wire rope is hard to handle and
maintain. There is also risk associated with using wire rope on a ship's stern in the vicinity of its
propeller.
Mooring lines and hawsers may also be made by combining wire rope and synthetic line. Such
lines are more elastic and easier to handle than wire rope, but they are not as elastic as pure
synthetic line. Special safety precautions must be followed when constructing a combination
mooring line.
A typical mooring scheme

Number
1

Name
Head line

Purpose
Keep forward part of the ship against the dock

Forward Breast Line

Keep close to pier

Forward Spring

Prevent from advancing

Aft Spring

Prevent from moving back

Aft Breast line

Keep close to pier

Stern line

Prevent forwards movement

The two-headed mooring bitt is a fitting often-used in mooring. The rope is hauled over the bitt,
pulling the vessel toward the bitt. In the second step, the rope is tied to the bitt, as shown. This tie
can be put and released very quickly. In quiet conditions, such as on a lake, one person can moor
a 260-tonne ship in just a few minutes.
Quick release mooring hooks provide an alternative method of securing the rope to the quay:
such a system "greatly reduces the need for port staff to handle heavy mooring ropes ... means
staff have to spend less time on exposed areas of the dock, and [reduces] the risk of back injuries
from heavy lifting".[6] The Oil Companies International Marine Forum recommend the use of
such hooks in oil and gas terminals.[7]
The basic rode system is a line, cable, or chain several times longer than the depth of the water
running from the anchor to the mooring buoy, the longer the rode is the shallower the angle of
force on the anchor (it has more scope). A shallower scope means more of the force is pulling
horizontally so that ploughing into the substrate adds holding power but also increases the
swinging circle of each mooring, so lowering the density of any given mooring field. By adding
weight to the bottom of the rode, such as the use of a length of heavy chain, the angle of force
can be dropped further. Unfortunately, this scrapes up the substrate in a circular area around the
anchor. A buoy can be added along the lower portion of rode to hold it off the bottom and avoid
this issue.

Mediterranean mooring

USS Orion (AS-18) "Med moored" with the stern tied to the pier and two anchors forward, in
La Maddalena, Sardinia.
Mediterranean mooring, also known as "med mooring" or "Tahitian mooring", is a technique for
mooring a vessel to pier. In a Mediterranean mooring the vessel sets a temporary anchor off the

pier and then approaches the pier at a perpendicular angle. The vessel then runs two lines to the
pier. Alternatively, simple moorings may be placed off the pier and vessels may tie to these
instead of setting a temporary anchor. The advantage of Mediterranean mooring is that many
more vessels can be connected to a fixed length of pier as they occupy only their width of pier
rather than their length. The disadvantages of Mediterranean mooring are that it is more likely to
result in collisions and that it is not practical in deep water or in regions with large tides.

Travelling mooring
A mooring used to secure a small boat (capable of being beached) at sea so that it is accessible at
all tides. Making a Travelling Mooring involves (1) the sinking of a heavy weight to which a
block (pulley wheel) is attached at a place where the sea is sufficiently deep at low tide, (2)
fitting a block / pulley wheel to a rock or secure point above the high tide mark, and (3) running
a heavy rope with marker buoy between these blocks.
Mooring involves (a) beaching the boat, (b) drawing in the mooring point on the line (where the
marker buoy is located), (c) attaching to the mooring line to the boat, and (d) then pulling the
boat out and away from the beach so that it can be accessed at all tides.

Canal mooring
A mooring used to secure a Narrowboat (capable of traversing narrow UK canals and narrow
locks) overnight, during off boat excursions or prolonged queuing for canal lock access. Water
height with minimal exceptions, remain constant (not-tidal); there is water height variance in
close proximity to locks.
Types of canal moorings are
Mooring pin (boat operator supplied) driven into the ground between the edge of the canal and
the Towpath with a mooring-line rope to the boat
Mooring hook (boat operator supplied) placed on the (permanent) canal-side rail with either
(boat operator supplied) rope or chain-and-rope to the boat
Mooring ring (permanent) affixed between the edge of the canal and the tow path, with (boat
operator supplied) rope to the boat.
Mooring Bollard (permanent) affixed canal-side on lock-approaches for the short-term mooring
of advancing boats and lock-side to assist in ascent and descent.
References
Canal River Trust[8] A picture of mooring pin, mooring hook, chain with rings and hammer here
[9]

Mooring line materials

Regular mooring lines

Sisal

Hemp

Steel wire

Polyethylene

Polypropylene

Polyester (e.g., used for deepsea mooring of offshore platforms)

Nylon

Chain

High-performance mooring lines

HMPE (floating)

Aramid (heat resistant) (including Kevlar)

See also

Berth
Nautical portal

Anchor

Anchorage (shipping)

Mooring mast - a structure designed to hold an airship or blimp securely in the open
when it is not in flight.

Sailing

References
1.

 Maloney, Elbert S.; Charles Frederic Chapman (1996). Chapman Piloting, Seamanship &
Small Boat Handling (62 ed.). Hearst Marine Books. ISBN 9780688148928.
"About Moorings". The Lake Life.
Jamestown Distributors. "Mooring Basics - How to Install a Permanent Mooring". How
Tos.
Leonard, Beth A. (January 2014). "Everyday Moorings". Seaworthy (BoatUS Marine
Insurance Program) (January 2014). Retrieved 24 August 2014.
US 5640920, issued 1997-06-24
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/business/local-business/let-s-go-six-figureinvestment-made-in-port-s-berths-1-5853755?WT.mc_id=Outbrain_text&obref=obinsite
http://www.strainstall.com/what-we-do/our-systems/jetty-and-berth-management/quickrelease-mooring-hooks/
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/141.pdf
1.

http://www.french-waterways.com/practicalities/mooring.html

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mooring (watercraft).

IACS Unified Requirement A: Mooring and Anchoring

Find moorings

"Docking The World's Great Liners" Popular Mechanics, May 1930, article on docking
large ships in the first half of the 20th century

ShipServ Pages Mooring Ropes

Video on Canal Mooring