Sunday 16th March 2025
0000 hrs
Lat: 50° 24.33'
N
Long: 004° 12.32'
W
The Mooring
1200 hrs
On a bright sunny Sunday morning I popped down to the boatyard as some packages had arrived! The largest was a new set of mooring strops from Jimmy Green's in Beer. The smallest was a pack of four drawing board clips, my solution to charts flying off the chart table in a seaway.
Given the number of boats that had come off their moorings over the winter, it has been quite a windy one, I decided to move up from 18mm to 20mm strops. The quality of the work from Jimmy Green is outstanding.
Arrived at the sailing club and did my new exercise routine, pumped up the dinghy, and fetched the outboard motor from the shed more exercising, starting it for the first time in eighteen months. Actually, it started after a few pulls which secretly I was quite pleased about.
The visit was timed to coincide with low water springs in order to change the mooring strops. With the tide ebbing I started with the down river strops as they were slack. The first issue was undoing the shackles and much to my surprise it was not as difficult as I anticipated, due to the greasing the threads.
Being careful not to drop the pin or shackle into the water I removed the old strop and replaced it with the new one then worked my way back to the boat and tied onto the new strop. With both new strops on I nipped up the shackle and locked it with a zip tie.
An addition to the strops this year is adding some pipe lagging made of closed cell foam in order that they float and to discourage the growth of aquatic life, mussels in particular and a protective plastic tubing to stop chafing.
Back onboard it was time to adjust the length of strop - I had ordered them a metre shorter, but still think they are too long. With the foredeck all set it was time for coffee and wait for the tide to turn.
Sat in the cockpit with coffee in hand I watched the tide move up river. A line of foam and bubbles moving up stream with larger ripples behind that line.
With the upriver strops loose it was time to change them. Same process, but with a much stronger tide running under the dinghy. Still not 100% happy with the length of the strops, but will adjust them over the next few weeks.
1700 hrs
Time to close the boat up and get back to shore, deflate the dinghy exercise and head home.
There had been quite a few boats returning from a sail, what was really nice to see. I still need to get the sails bent on before I let go the lines.