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How come almost all powerboats have bow eyes to attach a mooring line to, yet sailboats often times do not have these bow eyes? If a sailboat has 2 mooring pennant lines its usually one to each bow cleat. I grew up on powerboats so I'm just used to having one line to the deck cleat and one line to the bow eye.
I have seen them on larger sailboats to use for an anchor snubber line. Seems like a good idea to me, but you need to drill two holes in the bow. The loads on a larger boat could get pretty high so it would have to be appropriately reinforced.
How come almost all powerboats have bow eyes to attach a mooring line to, yet sailboats often times do not have these bow eyes? If a sailboat has 2 mooring pennant lines its usually one to each bow cleat. I grew up on powerboats so I'm just used to having one line to the deck cleat and one line to the bow eye.
How would you detach it in strong winds or rough conditions? Hang over the bow with both hands on the line? Bad idea. If you are trying to hook up in those conditions you're likely to be holding the mooring ball while the ship leaves you unless you have opposing large toes. You would have no leverage - being forced to use only your arm muscles instead of the larger leg and back muscles..
I hook up my primary mooring pennant to the bow eye as the last thing I do when leaving in the dinghy. Detaching it is the first thing I do (from the dinghy) when arriving at the boat. (It's 1" dia. line -- is that strong enough for a 2500 lb 23' boat?) Never any problems with chafe!
The boat is still held securely by the backup mooring line/pickup line (5/8") that goes through a chock to a cleat on deck.
Snubbers are commonly used with all chain rodes to absorb some of the shock and insulate the boat from noise. The way I do it, for short term anchorages anyway, is loop a dock line (usually my bow line that I lazily left attached on deck) to a bow cleat or bow eye if I had one , tie a bowline through a chainhook, hook it to the chain and pay out more rode until the dock line-cum-snubber takes the load. To release it I just crank in the chain until the hook comes back. In an emergency I guess I loose the dock line.. oh well... In the context of this discussion you would leave the snubber attached while cruising.
A proper snubber should have the chain hook spliced to it... using a bowline is really stupid IMHO as it effectively reduces the strength of the snubber line by about 40-50%.
I have two snubbers. One is a small line, 1/2 inch nylon spliced to a chain hook that attaches to the chain, comes up through a hausehole and then to the cleat. The second snubber is a much heavier line with a chain hook spliced on one end and one of those locking screw on carribiners at the other end. If a big blow is expected, I would attach the carribiner to the bow eye ahead of time and then attach it to the chain at the anchor roller from the deck. To remove it, winch in the chain with the windlass, remove the hook and tie it off to the pulpit if the weather is snotty. I have not used that snubber yet, as the small one has been adequate for the typical winds we come across while coastal cruising. I hope I never have to use the bow eye snubber.
I think 5-6000 lbs of force would pull the cleats off my bow anyway.. not to mention what it would do to my bowsprit mounted anchor roller. I hope I never get a chance to test the breaking strength of my chain & anchor gear! 13,500 is the breaking strength in the west marine catalog for their 5/8 double braid docklines. 5/8 is way to big for my boat but the fishing wharfs and piers up here chafe through 1/2" line like butter. I think I have a pretty good margin of safety with dock line that size. Nothing like some of the marinas in Hawaii where you will see surplus navy submarine and cruiser size dockline on a 30 footer...
I know of several trawlers that have and use a bow eye near the waterline to lower the attachment point which lessens the scope needed. These are 40' plus boats with a lot more windage than a sailboat.
Boats that have a bowsprits and bobstays (I just love salty terms!) such as Westsails and my Liberty 28 many times will modify the bobstay lower attachment point to include an eye-bolt. Increases anchor holding ability while getting the rode away from all of the bowsprit paraphenalia.
the tragedy of the bowsprit. Hanging an anchor rollor & two anchors from a bowspirt is one thing, connecting a very critical piece of rigging, designed to handle a load in one direction, to that anchor is quite another. I see it done all the time but the thought of it makes me cringe.
My hunter 33.5 has a bow eye, and is certinally not trailerable. Its unusable from deck though, too far down to reach.
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