Yachting Monthly - November 2015

PRACTICAL SEAMANSHIP

Duncan Wells is principal of Westview Sailing, author of Stress-free Sailing and creator of LiveSavers (livesavers.co.uk)

22 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com NOVEMBER 2015

In an extract from

his book Stress-Free

Sailing, RYA instructor

Duncan Wells has

a novel solution to

avoid that sinking,

shivering feeling

How to cope with short,

wobbly fi nger pontoons

PHOTOS: DUNCAN WELLS UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE

H

ave you ever stepped

onto a fi nger pontoon,

with mooring line in

hand, only to fi nd the

fi nger dipping to the

waterline under your weight and

shivering beneath your feet as

you attempt to balance? Securing

the boat comes a poor second

to staying dry and the berthing

manoeuvre soon goes wrong.

You’ll fi nd this sort of skinny,

half-length fi nger pontoon in

some British marinas, but they’re

very common in France, where

they tend to be shorter, narrower

and less buoyant than ours.

The obvious solution to this

problem is to stay on the boat.

If there’s a T-cleat on the fi nger,

load one end of a mooring line

ABOVE: Lasso the end of a short

fi nger to avoid having to jump

off the boat onto what often

feels like a stomach-churning

fairground ride

RIGHT: The midships cleat is aft

of the pontoon T-cleat, so you

couldn’t motor against it using a

bow spring without driving the

bow into the pontoon

Here, you stay alongside and ease her into position by motoring

against a bow spring rigged round a midships cleat onto the pontoon

on a cockpit winch you can reach

from the wheel, run the line

forward round the midships cleat,

then aft outside the stanchions,

over the lifelines, into the cockpit

and tie a bowline in the end. As

you approach, stop the boat, step

onto the sidedeck and drop the

bowline over the T-cleat. Click the

engine into ahead, put the helm

over to drive the stern into the

fi nger and ease the line around

the winch until you’re as far into

the berth as you want to be.

Then, still in gear, step gingerly

off the boat and secure stern,

bow and springs at your ease.

Unhelpful cleats

However, as you can see in these

photos, often the fi nger is so

short, and the T-cleat so far along

it, that the boat’s midships cleat is

still aft of the pontoon cleat when

the boat is as far into the berth

as she needs to be. This means

you’ve nothing to drive against

to hold the boat in place. If your

bow is well fendered, you could

nudge it onto the pontoon and

drive against that but getting the

bow fender at the perfect height

isn’t easy in an unfamiliar marina.

If your boat is small enough that

your midships cleat is forward

Pontoon T-cleat

Midships

cleat

PHOTO: COLIN WORK