How To Properly Tie to a Mooring Ball

In life, sometimes you get too much instruction, and sometimes you get too little. We find this is the case with moorings balls — boaters are more or less left on their own to figure it out. If they’re new, the results can be stressful. Cruisers on the ICW are often new, and even if you aren’t, there are variations on how to tie up safely to a mooring.

Here’s a quick primer on how to correctly tie up to a mooring ball.  

5 Steps To Grabbing a Mooring

Moorings are common on the US East Coast, especially in New England, where there are far more boats than marina slips. They’re also popular in Florida, where many municipalities have installed moorings in tricky places where anchorages became too crowded. They’re also used in the Florida Keys to protect the delicate corals and seagrasses from boat anchors.

There are folks who will tell you that moorings are for new boaters who lack faith in their ground tackle, but this is rubbish. Let’s look at St. Augustine, Florida, as one example. The holding ground is terrible, the tidal currents are strong, and cold fronts bring strong winds. Boats shift on their anchors with every tide change, meaning only a properly set two-anchor Bahamian mooring is adequate. Even with that, there are no safe places to anchor that offer protection from the wind.

Boats drag anchor here every year, trying to avoid the mooring field for one reason or another. With bridges all around and the heavily trafficked ICW right there, it’s a mess during strong cold fronts. Taking a mooring is a small price for the piece of mind that your boat will stay where you put it while wandering the town and sitting in the pub.

Boaters must realize, however, that taking a mooring is not without risk. Moorings fail, and boats do sometimes float free due to failures. The condition of the equipment you see can tell you a lot: Is the pendant covered in barnacles, or is the ball faded and half-sunk? Some boaters get in the water and inspect the gear themselves, which is a great policy if you’re unsure about a mooring’s health (important in The Bahamas). Generally, the municipal moorings in Florida are fine.

Here’s a list of major ICW mooring fields where you must use this technique.

• Beaufort, SC 
• Fernandina Beach, FL (Oasis Marina)
• St. Augustine 
• Titusville
• Vero Beach
• Jensen Beach
• Ft Lauderdale/Las Olas 
• Miami/Dinner Key
• Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary/Pennekamp State Park (Keys reefs)
• Marathon/Boot Key Harbor
• Key West/Garrison Bight

Here are five steps to picking up a mooring. Plenty of boaters do this differently, but this is the official technique as instructed by the Florida mooring fields. The technique has served us well and works on any kind of boat. It’s easy to set up and easy to release when it’s time to go (no matter the weather). 

1. Prepare your lines, boat hook, and binoculars

Step one is to prepare the boat for your arrival, just as you should before approaching any dock or marina. When you are safely outside the marina, away from other boats, and have the time to get things done, you can fiddle with lines, fenders, and whatever else you need. Don’t force yourself into a rushed, messy situation. Plan ahead and prepare during boring times when nothing is going on.

To be ready to pick up a mooring, you need to have two long dock lines, each cleated on opposite bow cleats. You also need your boat hook positioned so your bow-person can see and grab it when needed.

2. Figure out which one is your ball, and plan your approach

If you’re approaching a mooring field for the first time, you should do your homework and find a map of it online. Most marinas have it on their website, especially if they are a large facility with many moorings. The example photo here is from St. Augustine, Florida. 

The marina’s operation determines when you’ll be assigned your mooring. Some use a first-come/first-serve system and won’t tell you anything until you’re on final approach to the mooring field. Other places will let you make a reservation and give you the ball number right then and there over the phone. 

With a map and binoculars in hand, you can now attempt to figure out precisely where your ball is. Use the binoculars to locate ball numbers and orient yourself with the map. Pick out your ball from a distance and plan your approach.

As you approach the field, note how all the boats are pointing. Wind and current play differently on different boats, so both must be factored into your approach. Current always wins over wind for deep keel sailboats, while wind wins with broadsided powerboats and flat-bottomed catamarans. When the two are at odds, boats spin around their moorings willy-nilly. 

Find the boats most like yours and approach the ball from downwind or down-current, as those boats are oriented. If you can’t figure out which and the boats are all spinning, split the difference and come in at a 90-degree angle to both.

3. Carefully and slowly make your final approach

Approach your ball very slowly from downwind or down-current. As you approach, make your bail-out plan: If the bow falls off one way or another, know which way to steer safely away from other boats and any shoals.

Helms-person: Cut your power and plan to drift to a stop so that the ball is within easy boathook-grabbing distance of the bow-person. It’s far easier to give a burst of power to make up a few extra feet than to slow the boat down when you come in too fast. In other words, keep your use of reverse to a minimum.

Bow-person: Remember, the helms-person probably cannot see the ball when it is closer than a boat length. As you approach the ball, it’s your job to give directions to ensure they get the boat stopped close enough for you to pick up the pendant. 

To do this, keep an arm (or the boathook) pointed at the mooring. They’ll then know which way to steer. Secondly, verbally update them on the distance to the mooring in boat lengths. Accuracy isn’t as important as frequent updates. “3 boat lengths, 2 boat lengths, 1 boat length, 20 feet, 10 feet, 5 feet, stop!” ✋ (Also, be sure they can hear you. Speak over your shoulder or use a headset comm.)

4. Pick up the mooring pendant 

Do NOT stretch over the rail to grab the pendant; do NOT try to stop the boat by holding onto it. If the boat has too much momentum, the helms-person needs to come around and try again. Don’t go in the water due to their bad driving!

Once the boat is stopped close enough to the mooring, use the boathook to pick up the pendant. If you need to hold the pendant, you might want gloves, as some are slimy, gross, or even covered in skin-cutting barnacles.

Next, take the dock line attached to your side of the bow and feed the bitter end through the eye of the mooring pendant. You can drop the mooring pendant now while running your dock line back to the same cleat on the bow. You’re now temporarily attached to the mooring. You can let the boat sit on the one line while you get the other one ready.

If the wind is really howling, most boats will fall off the wind quickly. It can sometimes be difficult for the helms-person to see and correct this, so if the pendant slips out of your hands while trying to loop the line through, just let it go. Start over with another approach.

5. Tie it off securely and properly

Now that one line is secured on the pendant, the boat can be shut down. The helms-person can come forward to help if needed. 

The next job is to run the dock line from the other side of the bow around and through the mooring pendant so that both lines pass through the eye and back to their respective bow cleats. This sets up a two-point bridle from the mooring pendant to each side of the bow. 

Once this is done, you can adjust the length of your bridle by letting out (or taking in) the dock line from each cleat. Adjust the length as necessary to clear your bow. Ensure each line shares the load and that the boat is sitting naturally.

If you’re leaving the boat for an extended period or high winds are forecast, you can also add a third line that goes over a bow roller. This is a fail-safe, but it should be left loose to ensure the bridle continues to take the load. If the boat is in storage, adding chafing gear to each line at the pendant and where it passes through deck chocks or hawsepipes is a good idea.

NOTE: Each line must go from the bow cleat, through the pendant eye, and back to the SAME cleat. This prevents the line from chafing on the pendant's eye. If you run a line from one side of the boat to the other, the eye will slide back and forth and chafe through your line. St. Augustine provides instructions on attachement methods (PDF).