Robship Hook & Moor

[Ian McColgin]

A friend got one of these for Christmas. Took a while with the video and the thing to really understand how it works, which is nothing short of brilliant. To my mind, this is the only gizmo that does the one thing almost impossible to do with a regular boat hook - threads a line through a closed hole like a dock ring.

It feels well made and is new enough but - anyone know how the thing stands up to a couple year's hard use?

Edited to add: Here's their site for those who want to see a cool thing. http://www.robship.com/en/products/HookMoor.aspx

[Thad]

"threw" = through?

[slug]

Gee...why teach people the wrong way to do things , then produce a gizmo to do it.

on a mooring you fasten you boat to a penant , this penant is spliced to the mooring chain...not the ball ring.

when fastening to a ring use a wood stick or a bowline.

[lupussonic]

These have been around for a while in various guises made by different companies. I am constantly beffuzzled at watching them do their thing though. Worth having onboard, particularly for larger boats where the point of attachment might be 5-6' below the gunwhale.

[Ian McColgin]

I've seen units with various sorts of detaching hooks, line spliced to the hook, but not one that reiably threaded an eye before.

On a permanent mooring, of course one splices the pennent. If you just leave a line passed through and back what you gain in doubling the line you more than lose in abrasion over a season. But no one, no one ever, leaves pennents spliced on every docking ring and many many rental moorings are chain through the ball types where the customer hooks up with the boat's line.

It depends on the area. If you have large enough lines that your large eye will stay open (or if you put clear plastic chafe guard in the eye before splicing it up) then you can easily get the eye over any piling, bollard or cleat within twenty feet or so. That will do you for most of the time.

I still favor a real boat hook that floats handle up, not flat in the water. But most people have those silly toys with aluminum handles or they have nicely varnished wooden handles they could not bother shaping to float correctly. By the way, I add a groove in the handle oriented with the hook. That helps when snagging things in the dark.

Note how the handle tapers in above the hook and then out again.



Thus letting them float upright. I don't drop my boathooks but I've had crew who did.

[Pitsligo]

Wasn't there a WBM article, ages ago, that gave the "formula" for tapering a boathook handle so that it would float upright when dropped overboard?

The Park Service moorings out here are the pendant-less, make-fast-directly-to-a-ring-on-top buoys. I'm less than thrilled by the opportunity to hang by my knees under the bowsprit to shackle on my own pendant for the night. One of those clipping boathooks might be handy, but I'd be fearful about chafe at just threading a line through the ring.

Alex

[Figment]

If you're only there for the night it's unlikely that you'll chafe through anything. Done it a thousand times.

[Bobcat]

Wasn't there a WBM article, ages ago, that gave the "formula" for tapering a boathook handle so that it would float upright when dropped overboard?

The Park Service moorings out here are the pendant-less, make-fast-directly-to-a-ring-on-top buoys. I'm less than thrilled by the opportunity to hang by my knees under the bowsprit to shackle on my own pendant for the night. One of those clipping boathooks might be handy, but I'd be fearful about chafe at just threading a line through the ring.

Alex

In my experience, the rings on the Washington State Parks buoys pull up. You hook them with a boathook, get a good tug, and the ring will come up to you on the foredeck

[Pitsligo]

In my experience, the rings on the Washington State Parks buoys pull up.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they're jammed up. I seem to have a knack for finding the jammed ones.

If you're only there for the night it's unlikely that you'll chafe through anything.

Agreed, but I've learned that the day I get complacent is the day I get an emergency call and have to leave the boat there for a week of crappy, chafe-inducing weather.

Alex

[Ian McColgin]

Pitsligo, there was such an article but given different wood densities, hook end weights, and shaft lengths, it's nearly useless.

I make mine by putting the hook on a handle that's the same diameter at the outside of the hook's cone end that you insert the handle in. That way, when fitted there is no bump getting from handle to the hook.

Then I hold the hook very lightly in the water so that I can keep the handle end up and I mark the float line. Then I start planing the shaft down from that point towards the hook, to reduce buoyancy there, and I plane from that point up to the end to reduce the weight of wood above the water. Test now and then and stop when the hook floats vertically.

Last step is to put a groove in the handle in line with the hook so that when picking up a line in the dark I know where the hook points.

I absolutely cannot understand why people make elegantly varnished boat hooks of a simple pole and no groove. Especially when they manage to sell them at high prices.

[Bobcat]

Old thread....

But anyone used one of these gizmos?


Since I posted here years ago, I have run into too many Washington State Park buoys that are stuck and won't pull up to deck level

[rbgarr]

Since I posted here years ago, I have run into too many Washington State Park buoys that are stuck and won't pull up to deck level

If the ring and shaft don't pull up wouldn't you be suspicious that it's jammed and perhaps corroded? Ormaybe I don't underatdn how they work....

I don't trust those types of buoys we have here with a ring at each end of a shaft passing through a plastic float. I've seen the shafts break off. They are supposedly inspectable by removing the lower underwater nut to slide the shaft out but I've not seen it done.

https://www.etrailer.com/Buoys/Taylo...SABEgJ-dfD_BwE

[Bobcat]

On our park buoys the chain terminates in a ring, which rides on the top of a vertical tube that runs through the float. The tube is larger than the chain, but small than the ring. So you hook the ring and pull the chain up to the deck. Unless there is too much marine growth on the chain and it won't go through the tube

No concern about corrosion.

[jpatrick]

On our park buoys the chain terminates in a ring, which rides on the top of a vertical tube that runs through the float. The tube is larger than the chain, but small than the ring. So you hook the ring and pull the chain up to the deck. Unless there is too much marine growth on the chain and it won't go through the tube

No concern about corrosion.

Why is there no concern with corrosion? I watch the chain, shackles, and swivel on my own mooring diligently. I check it every year before launching and mooring for the summer season. The swivel especially is vulnerable. How are the State Parks' moorings different?

Jeff

[Bobcat]

No concern about corrosion because I can't pull up the chain.

[Ensio]

880B4C2C-DCA7-4AB1-8589-2DC4B889FA0B.jpgHereabouts (Finland) it is very usual for guest harbours to have buoys with a ring on top where you hook up. Also boat harbours where you have a permanent place for your boat there are usually two buoys to a boat (you share them with adjacent boats) so you need two aft ropes. One buoy hook that has no moving parts is rather handy - it does not leave the ring as when the rope is not in tension, it hangs slightly down and hook stays in ring. I have not heard that it has ever dropped from buoy ring… (but of course, probably somewhere sometime it has…)

When I had two buoy system at my permanent berth I rigged a rope from usually windward buoy to jetty - easier to come to jetty when you can pull up the rope with boathook and then tie it up to cleat on aft deck. Usually I then untied the rope from jetty and coiled it and tied it to aft deck stanchion.