How to pick up fore and aft moorings

Fancy going to Polperro next weekend?’ I asked my partner Chris on New Year’s Day. ‘We’ve finally got some high pressure coming in.’ I needed to visit Polperro as part of my research for the next edition of the Shell Channel Pilot, but the autumnal Atlantic batterings had been relentless.

‘Sure,’ he replied, ‘I need to try out my new winter sailing outfit.’ Having been instructed to visit the chandlery for his first set of foulies, Chris had, instead, been to the eclectic army surplus store in Plymouth, Bogey Knights, and returned with a two-piece flotation suit made from 3mm neoprene. ‘It only cost £70,’ he declared proudly.

It wasn’t quite what I’d envisaged. On a small-scale chart Polperro barely registers, it’s just a wrinkle in the coastline. The tiny fishing harbour lies at the mouth of the River Pol, its houses clinging limpet-like to the steep sided valley. Many of the streets are too narrow for cars – tourists are obliged to park out of town and approach on foot. Arriving by boat isn’t much easier: it’s an unwelcoming rocky coastline which is totally exposed to onshore weather.

The inhospitable geography made it an excellent base for smuggling in the 18th and 19th centuries. Frustrated customs officers were forever pursuing casks of gin and crates of tea as they disappeared into the folds of the coast. Smuggling was so rife that the local schoolteacher, fed up with trying to teach maths to a bunch of reprobate sailors, started a bank to launder the villagers’ spoils instead.

These days, visitors arriving by boat receive a much warmer welcome than the revenue officers once had, but the harbour is still a daunting place to enter. The imposing slab of Peak Rock, with its underwater extension, The Ranneys, guards the western side of the entrance, and there are rocky outcrops on the eastern side as well.

The main channel between the two rows is used by local fishing vessels and there isn’t room to swing to the moorings

The Polca, a 1m rock, sits right in the middle of the approach, although with a generous rise of tide and no swell, it doesn’t present a hazard. The inner harbour dries completely. Visitors can come alongside the eastern wall with the permission of the harbourmaster, but more often they pick up one of the pairs of trots outside the harbour in 1.5-2m. The fore and aft moorings are only a couple of boat lengths from the rocks on either side, which leaves little room for error on the boat-handling front.

We slipped lines late morning from Sutton Harbour, and with a light, offshore breeze made the passage across Whitsand Bay and past Looe Island. I was quite daunted by the cold – it takes its toll and makes line-handling difficult.

Chris was looking snug, and smug, in his flotation suit. We arrived with just enough daylight left to make an approach and sort ourselves out. Knowing how tight it was inside, we set up our lines half a mile out, so that we could focus on getting in. There was a gentle north-westerly breeze, not enough to pressurise the manoeuvre, but it was enough to make the eastern side of the inlet a lee shore.

From seaward, Polperro remains almost invisible until a cleft in the cliffs opens up at the last minute

Approach options

We weighed up the options for the approach, each with their advantages and disadvantages.

Secure to the downwind buoy, pay the line out and motor forwards to secure to the upwind buoy

1: Secure to the downwind buoy on the way past, pay the line out and motor forwards to secure to the upwind buoy. This method is often used for pile moorings: slide past the leeward buoy, securing to it whilst you go, and maintain way to reach the upwind buoy. This could work well if you have a long enough line to pay out and a single rudder which can maintain steerage at low speed. On a twin rudder vessel, if you lose the bow you won’t be able to recover easily.

Lasso the upwind buoy, then drop back to the downwind buoy

2: Lasso the upwind buoy then drop back to the downwind buoy. This approach would have worked well if the wind had been in perfect alignment with the buoys. In a cross wind, it would be tricky to bring the stern sideways towards the second buoy since there’s no water flowing over the rudder in reverse gear. Taking one end of the line to the windward quarter could help counter the drift to leeward, but you’d need an even longer line.

Reverse to the upwind buoy, then motor forwards to the downwind buoy

3: Reverse to the upwind buoy, then motor forwards to the downwind buoy. Since the pivot point moves aft in reverse, most boats will naturally feather the wind in astern. On a boat with a single rudder, once you’ve picked up the windward buoy, you’d then be able to power forwards with steerage towards the leeward buoy.

It would work well if you have a sugar scoop to stand on, although you need to watch out for lines in the water getting around the prop. However, in a strong cross wind there is a risk that as you pay out the line, you can’t counter the windage.

Secure to one of the buoys and use the dinghy to run the line to the second one

4: Secure to one of the buoys and use the dinghy to run the line to the second one. In a confined space, the method with the least risk is to secure to one of the buoys, usually the windward one, and run your second line out in the dinghy. It doesn’t particularly matter whether you approach stern or bow-first.

You can then centre the boat between the buoys without the risk of drifting to leeward. It’s the slowest solution, but the most controlled one. If you’re going to need the dinghy inflated anyway, then there’s not much to lose with this slow but steady approach.

5: Come back during the summer and hope that someone else has got there first to raft alongside, or alternatively, dry out alongside the quay in the inner harbour – if there’s space.

The main channel between the two rows is used by local fishing vessels and there isn’t room to swing to the moorings

The best laid plans

Not knowing just how far apart the buoys were, we set up for an Option 1 approach, intending to lasso the stern line and continue on to the windward buoy. However, it soon became apparent that the stern line wasn’t long enough for the job. By this point, though, we were committed to the approach.

As always, what seems like plenty of space on the chart, felt very tight in reality. The granite sides of the inlet add a dramatic backdrop to the proceedings. It was too late to reverse out, so we continued on to the second buoy and did a tight, starboard-hand turn around it using the port prop kick to keep it within touching distance.

We lassoed it using a line from the starboard quarter and shortened up whilst we launched the dinghy and rowed out the bow line. Finally, we set two, heavy duty lines at each end and centred up, just in time to enjoy the spectacular setting with the last of the light.

I was feeling quite cold by this point and looking forward to sitting in front of the fire at the Blue Peter pub, but Chris was looking flustered in his immersion suit.

‘I don’t think it’s very breathable,’ he said, looking a little dismayed.

‘Goretex wasn’t invented when that was made,’ I replied.

‘At least I can float myself to the pub when you’re being mean. Are you coming or what?’

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