4 minute read
Marine | Boatyard
from Ahoy! June 2022
by Koko Mueller
It is that time of year again when the Marine Office would like to remind members that the typhoon season will soon be upon us and mooring lines should be checked and replaced if they are in poor condition.
he area of sea bed that the mooring uses is rented from the HKSAR Marine Department. The Club owns the mooring equipment and rents this out to the member. The maintenance of the mooring equipment, insurance, sampan, pontoons etc. are all included in the cost of the mooring. The Club is only responsible for the concrete sinker, shackles, chain and the mooring buoy. The member must supply their own ropes and shackles to secure the boat to the mooring.
Advertisement
The Club leaves a single chain link for the member to attach their mooring equipment to. The blue arrow shows where the member should attach his shackle to. The shackle with the red arrow is the Club shackle and it is this shackle that holds the chain from slipping through the buoy. The Club shackle should not be undone by members.
Members should have hard eyes in their mooring ropes which means that a thimble should be spliced into the rope eye.
Please note that a bow shackle should be used as this will allow the hard eyes to sit together in the bow of the shackle. On boats with larger diameter mooring line the bow shackle pin size might be too large to fit through the eye of the chain so a second members shackle will then be required.
Mooring ropes should have a soft eye on the boat end with chaff protection. The rope should be a large a diameter as possible that fits through the boats fairleads and over the cleat. The rope must be three strand nylon rope as it is high stretch, which is required during typhoons when the boat is ranging port and starboard sailing on the mooring with the wind. Braid on braid is not suitable for mooring lines.
How long the mooring ropes should be depends on different factors including how high the bow of the boat is, what type of bow the boat has and how far the owner wants the buoy to be from the boat. Too short and it will be difficult to pick up and place the eyes on the cleats. Far too long and there is a chance that the boat will touch another boat on a close by mooring and in light winds the buoy will rub down the side of the boat.
In Causeway Bay the water depth has been increased to -4.3 metres at LAT after the works on the road and railway. This means that the mooring chain length has had to be increased. During the passage of typhoon Mangkhut we experienced a high water of 3.88 metres. Had this been on a spring tide the water level would have risen another 1 metre. Therefore due to the extra depth in the typhoon shelter plus the possibility of another large surge taking place at the same time as a spring tide the mooring chains have been increased to a length of 9 metres. A simplified diagram of the Causeway Bay and Aberdeen moorings is below. The dotted red line shows the anchor chain at low water on one mooring.
Although it is not tight the weight of the chain trying to drop down to the sea bed will keep the boat in position between the two sinkers. The MarDep ratio of the distance between the sinkers and the length of the boat is 1.3 for small boats and 1.5 for large boats. Members are responsible for the mooring lines to the buoys and the lines should be of a sufficient length to pull the buoy towards the boat to put strain on the mooring chain. If the lines are too tight then the buoys will touch the boat. If the lines are too slack then the boat will move about with the wind and tide on the mooring.
The mooring lines that were on the moorings at Causeway Bay were not supplied by the Club but were left on the moorings by the mooring contractor. As such some of the lines may be too long to tie the boat up correctly. Member should shorten their mooring rope if they are too long so that the boat fits the mooring correctly.
All members on Club moorings are requested to check their mooring lines before the onset of the typhoon season. Please remember that the Club’s insurance will not cover a members boat if the mooring line breaks or chaffs
Happy Mooring.
