Short handed pontoon mooring – without grief

With only two persons on board, mooring alongside our berth is made easy by adding an extra mooring line and repositioning a fender. All we do is……. position a fender on the bow so it does not hit the pontoon, if the bow springs in, and use a fixed-length bow-spring to prevent our bow hitting the pontoon. When we come in to our berth we drop the bow-spring loop over the center pontoon cleat and tie up the stern line. If the the wind is blowing the bow off the pontoon we use forward engine power to spring the bow onto the pontoon.

Details………

First we make a fixed-spring……
With the boat alongside, we take an extra mooring line with a loop at one end and attach the loop to the boat’s bow cleat. we make sure the fixed-spring is as long as your normal lines. We tie a bowline to make another loop to fit over the pontoon center cleat. We make the loop large enough to fit over the center cleat (but not too large, else it may jump off the cleat), we position the loop so that the line stops the boat’s bow from hitting the pontoon when the rope stretches under load caused by forward motion of the boat.

Continue reading →