When chartering, we spend a lot of time on guest moorings. Best and easiest technique is to take your stoutest dock line, cleat it to one bow cleat, down through the thimble on the mooring and back to the other now cleat. When you're ready to go, just unclear one side and pull it through the thimble. I would never attach a dock or mooring line to your pulpit - not designed for those kinds of forces!

Some people carry devices to help pick up the mooring moe easily and safely than with a boat hook. The Happy Hooker is one of them. It should go without saying that serious cruisers should have a long and very stout boat hook; best if it floats.

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Food for thought here. The first time we ever moored we did a single line as mentioned above. But as I watched our boat swing in the current I could see the thimble sliding back and forth on our one line. Not liking that we now when ever moore we use 2 lines. Each starting and endingt on the same cleat. Some mooring lines we have picked up do not have thimbles so eventually it would saw through.

Oh one other thing. Set your anchor alarm also when on a mooring. A good friend of ours had theirs break and took ball and all as their boat washed up on iron rocks In a storm with then on it. That is a whole different story. If I ever use a mooring I ALWAYS dive on it and check the chain and gear.

Robert, you are correct. The windlass is not designed for those type of loads. You could easily bend the windlass shaft. I agree with Randy. One line, going from one cleat, thru the mooring pennant, to the other cleat, is NOT the way to go. Your line will chafe through (don't ask how I know this!). Much better to use two lines: one line to and from each cleat.

[QUOTE=TomSoko;22157]One line, going from one cleat, thru the mooring pennant, to the other cleat, is NOT the way to go. Your line will chafe through (don't ask how I know this!).[/QUOTE]
Hmmm. Cuttyhunk, Tom?

Nah. They have smooth thimbles. A line squall at Noank Shipyard did me in back in the early 80's.

Tom
I used to pick up a mooring at the Northport YC on Long Island when I lived in Connecticut. I did what you suggested, two lines to two cleats. Their moorings are checked at the beginning of Summer and I never had any problems there. My Club in Bridgeport had a mooring in Port Jefferson Long Island which the City pulled up every year and put it back in if it was in good condition. Never had a problem there either. They charged for this service.

I am driving up to Connecticut next week and will be stopping at Noank for Lobster. Actually I'll have a hot dog and my wife and kids will have the lobsters because I usually don't eat sea food. I read in todays paper that there was a 25 million gallon leak from the Stamford, Connecticut sewerage treatment plant over the last two days into Long Island Sound. Because of the strong tides I believe that will float West into New York and out the East River into the Atlantic Ocean. If I took a leak into a bucket and threw it overboard I would face a fine of up to 10K. Based on that I guess Stamford is facing a 350 billion dollar fine.

Mike,
Welcome back to NE! I suppose your stop will be Abbott's in Noank. I've had many a meal there. We used to keep our Grampian 26, and then our C30, in the Noank Shipyard mooring field in front of Abbotts. I can still vividly remember on warm summer nights the sounds drifting into the forward hatch, "Twenty Seven, number Two Seven" from Abbott's PA system!

It's amazing how governments don't get into trouble for doing the same things that us taxpayers might do. A number of years ago, multiple millions of gallons of raw sewerage overflowed from the Wethersfield sewerage system into Wethersfield Cove on the CT River. Lots of finger pointing, but nothing was ever done, nobody was fined. Simply amazing. I was told that within a few weeks the water quality was back to normal.

Yes, and it happens up here too. The City of Kingston publishes on their website their bypass numbers for the part of their system that does not have separate storm and sanitary sewers. 127,000 cubic metres so far in 2014, that number is 10 times what it was for all of 2012. Yet at the same breath the Ontario MOE is going to "crack down" on boaters. Canadian governments are always cracking down on something or other that citizens are doing. I'm sure that if every boat on the north shore dumped their holding tank at once it wouldn't even come close to what Kingston bypasses every time it rains. And that's just one city. Massive hypocrisy and typical of government to act like they're doing something while they are failing to do anything about the bigger problem.

Has anyone used a mooring pulpit line, attached from the end of mooring line, run over the bow pulpit roll (anchor stored) into the anchor locker and attached to the anchor cleat? 

When chartering in the BVI a few years ago, they demanded their boats be tied to moorings with two lines (one to each cleat); as this is the preferred method and safest according to "The Moorings"...

There is only one place on Lake Erie that I can think of which has mooring balls and that is Put In Bay.   The moorings have a metal ring which can only be raised up a few feet.   I have always taken 2 lines through it, one port to starboard cleat and one starboard to port cleat.   I've never seen any chafe, but now can see that it is better to take the line back to the same cleat.   Thanks, Guys!