Mooring Mediterranean Style

One of the things that first struck me with a challenge when we got up here in the Med was the way they park the boats in at marinas and onto Quays.

Unlike NZ, they look to jam as many boats into an area as possible and so there are no fingers such as NZ to glide into and tie up along side.

It takes a bit of practice and especially in a cross wind, and to top it off and make it harder for myself, (and Shelly!) I opted not to have a Bow thruster on the boat. A 13.5 meter boat that’s 1.5 meters high out of the water tends to attract a bit of wind and you get one chance at it.

The first sequence of events once approaching the Marina is to try and raise someone on the VHF, which I am beginning to realize they have some sort of affliction to. Probably 80 % of the time, no one has answered for various reasons from-“the Office isn’t open, its siesta time” to “My Brothers got my hand held and he’s coming back later sometime”

Anyway, once the boat is prepared,  you usually motor in to a Marina and either someone from the marina staff or an obliging Boatie that’s already in there will help you with the berthage, hopefully.

Once you have found the gap you have to back your 4.38 meter wide boat into, which is usually smaller than the boat, you have to verify where the wind is coming from and decide which way to attack it.

There are mainly two styles of Moorings-Anchors out or Front Mooring lines that you have to pick up.

The first one is a matter of dropping your anchor, roughly four times the length of your boat DIRECTLY out from your berthage and paying this out while reversing back to the dock and rear lines attached to the boat .

I emphasize directly as you see boats coming in at all sorts of angles and laying their anchors over the top of others resulting in a bloody headache when you go to leave. This is something you have to watch when you are sitting in a Mooring and a new boat arrives to go next to you, sometimes it pays to get up the front and indicate to them where your anchor is.

The second, and most common I have found so far is the Front mooring line format.

You have to have your boat ready, that means rear safety lines down, rear mooring lines on the cleats and ready to chuck ashore and someone, in our case, poor old Shelly ready with the boat hook to pick up the Front lines. They are usually covered in Mud, Barnacles or a bloody Mussel farm attached, so gloves are a must!

These front mooring lines are attached to a large mooring in the water out in front of the Berthage with lines trailing back to the Jetty.

Once you have backed into the gap and stopped just prior to the Jetty, trying not to demolish the neighbouring boats on the way in, The windward front line(always the windward, made that mistake once)  from the Jetty has to be picked up and carried hand over hand to the front of the boat, whilst pulling all the slack out of the line to get the front line to the Mooring tight to the front Cleat on the boat. This isn’t always easy when you have another boat sitting 3 thousands of an inch beside you with fenders to contend with as well.

This has to be done pretty quick so the wind doesn’t grab the front of the boat and start pushing the front down wind. So you have to contend with a heavy slimy line covered in Barnacles, the wind and a Skipper yelling at you to hurry up while he is at the helm struggling with the rear lines and chatting to the person ashore. Meanwhile the front of the boat is sailing off because the Skipper didn’t want a Bow Thruster!

Anyone feeling sorry for Shelly yet?

Note: these lines are some of the cleanest we have come across!

                                 Front Mooring Lines attached with trailing line back to the Dock

 At the stern of the boat, the Rear lines have to be thrown ashore once you have established a desired gap way from the dock. A lot of boats, especially charter boats have big fenders over the stern as well as they just keep going until the dock stops them!

The rear lines, once again windward one first, are looped through the Dock ring and passed back to the person on the back of the boat and these have to be tied off on both rear points. Once you have your Windward line attached, it pays to motor forward and helm to wind. This helps hold the Bow into the wind while the Bowlines are being attached. The Stern Lee Line can now be attached.

                 Permanents have 'shock absorbers' on their rear lines for Ferry Wash etc

You always have to have a certain gap between the stern and the dock and this depends on the length of your Boarding plank or ‘Passerelle’

          Your gang plank should have wheels fitted to help ride the moving boat

It takes a bit of practice, and Thank God we have Fenders as I’ve made them work for their money believe me. We got 6 with the boat and were advised to get another 2 so we had 4 aside, sometimes you could do with 24!

But we have managed to get through so far with out any Insurance claims so must be doing something half right .

But it's something that has to be taken into consideration when cruising the Med and also making sure you have enough Beer in the Fridge after you are in, as you’ll feel like you’ve earnt it by then, especially when its just yourself and the Wife on board.

…At this stage I express my gratitude to my ever suffering wife who has to handle the front lines, considering she’s had no experience with berthing boats any where let alone up here. She’s had to learn fast.

Any way, Cheers!