Grabbing a mooring ball

Watching someone pick up a mooring ball has always been a source of amusement while sitting at anchor with an afternoon cocktail in hand.

- ERIC SANFORD

When they do it quickly and efficiently, it is a thing of beauty. When they screw it up, it can go from entertaining to perilous in an instant. Doing it well is indeed an art — an art that is learned and practiced, not something that happens accidentally.

Securing a mooring ball from the bow of a small boat (less than 30 feet) with the bow rising no more than 6 feet off the water is generally easy (assuming the captain and mate are practiced or at least have discussed their plan). The biggest problems can arise when the mooring ball is not rigged as expected.

Most balls have a 3- to 5-inch metal ring at the top. Sometimes this ring is fixed to the ball; other times it is affixed to a chain that is fed through the center of the ball. This second situation is the easiest since you can grab the ring with a boat hook, pull it up to the boat, thread your bridle through the ring and drop it back down. If the ring is fixed to the ball, you’ll need to lean down over the bow (usually with some potential comedian holding your feet) and try to thread the mooring line through the ring. This is not easy, and often times leads to emphatic profanities and unscheduled swims.

If your boat is longer than 30 feet, chances are that your bow is simply too far off the water to reasonably grab the ring, whether it is on a running chain or directly attached to the ball. Many times I have seen someone hanging off the bow with a 10-foot boat hook, trying to grab the ring and haul it up so they can thread the bridle through, only to discover too late that it is attached to the ball. Bye-bye boat hook (or occasionally an even louder splash is heard).

Devising a system Since our boat is 57 feet long, grabbing a ball from the bow is not a realistic option; so, we have devised a much easier technique.